Boarding school

The term boarding school often refers to classic British boarding schools and many boarding schools around the world are modeled on these.[1]

Boarding house of the Presbyterian Ladies' College, Sydney, New South Wales

Dormitory at The Armidale School, Australia, 1898

A typical boarding school has several separate residential houses, either within the school grounds or in the surrounding area.

A number of senior teaching staff are appointed as housemasters, housemistresses, dorm parents, prefects, or residential advisors, each of whom takes quasi-parental responsibility (in loco parentis) for anywhere from 5 to 50 students resident in their house or dormitory at all times but particularly outside school hours. Each may be assisted in the domestic management of the house by a housekeeper often known in U.K. or Commonwealth countries as matron, and by a house tutor for academic matters, often providing staff of each gender. In the U.S., boarding schools often have a resident family that lives in the dorm, known as dorm parents. They often have janitorial staff for maintenance and housekeeping, but typically do not have tutors associated with an individual dorm. Nevertheless, older students are often less supervised by staff, and a system of monitors or prefects gives limited authority to senior students. Houses readily develop distinctive characters, and a healthy rivalry between houses is often encouraged in sport.

Houses or dorms usually include study-bedrooms or dormitories, a dining room or refectory where students take meals at fixed times, a library and possibly study carrels where students can do their homework. Houses may also have common rooms for television and relaxation and kitchens for snacks, and occasionally storage facilities for bicycles or other sports equipment. Some facilities may be shared between several houses or dorms.

In some schools, each house has students of all ages, in which case there is usually a perfect system, which gives older students some privileges and some responsibility for the welfare of the younger ones. In others, separate houses accommodate the needs of different years or classes. In some schools, day students are assigned to a dorm or house for social activities and sports purposes.

Most school dormitories have an "in your room by" and a "lights out" time, depending on their age when the students are required to prepare for bed, after which no talking is permitted. Such rules may be difficult to enforce; students may often try to break them, for example by using their laptop computers or going to another student's room to talk or play computer games. International students may take advantage of the time difference between countries (e.g. 7 hours between UK and China) to contact friends or family. Students sharing study rooms are less likely to disturb others and may be given more latitude.

As well as the usual academic facilities such as classrooms, halls, libraries, and laboratories, boarding schools often provide a wide variety of facilities for extracurricular activities such as music rooms, gymnasiums, sports fields and school grounds, boats, squash courts, swimming pools, cinemas, and theaters. A school chapel is often found on site. Day students often stay on after school to use these facilities. Many North American boarding schools are located in beautiful rural environments and have a combination of architectural styles that vary from modern to hundreds of years old.

Food quality can vary from school to school, but most boarding schools offer diverse menu choices for many kinds of dietary restrictions and preferences. Some boarding schools have a dress code for specific meals like dinner or for specific days of the week. Students are generally free to eat with friends, teammates, as well as with faculty and coaches. Extra curricular activities groups, e.g. the French Club, may have meetings and meals together. The Dining Hall often serves as a central place where lessons and learning can continue between students and teachers or other faculty mentors or coaches. Some schools welcome day students to attend breakfast and dinner, in addition to the standard lunch, while others charge a fee.

Many boarding schools have an on-campus school store or snack hall where additional food and school supplies can be purchased; may also have a student recreational center where food can be purchased during specified hours.

Boarding schools also have infirmary, a small room with first aid or other emergencies medical aid.

Students generally need permission to go outside defined school bounds; they may be allowed to travel off-campus at certain times.

Depending on country and context, boarding schools generally offer one or more options: full (students stay at the school full-time), weekly (students stay in the school from Monday through Friday, then return home for the weekend), or on a flexible schedule (students choose when to board, e.g. during exam week).

Each student has an individual timetable, which in the early years allows little discretion.[2] Boarders and day students are taught together in school hours and in most cases continue beyond the school day to include sports, clubs and societies, or excursions.

British boarding schools have three terms a year, approximately twelve weeks each, with a few days' half-term holidays during which students are expected to go home or at least away from school. There may be several exeats, or weekends, in each half of the term when students may go home or away (e.g. international students may stay with their appointed guardians, or with a host family). Boarding students nowadays often go to school within easy traveling distance of their homes, and so may see their families frequently; e.g. families are encouraged to come and support school sports teams playing at home against other schools, or for school performances in music, drama, or theatre.

Some boarding schools allow only boarding students, while others have both boarding students and day students who go home at the end of the school day. Day students are sometimes known as day boys or day girls. Some schools welcome day students to attend breakfast and dinner, while others charge a fee. For schools that have designated study hours or quiet hours in the evenings, students on campus (including day students) are usually required to observe the same "quiet" rules (such as no television, students must stay in their rooms, library or study hall, etc.). Schools that have both boarding and day students sometimes describe themselves as semi-boarding schools or day boarding schools. Some schools also have students who board during the week but go home on weekends: these are known as weekly boarders, quasi-boarders, or five-day boarders.

Schloss Torgelow, a renowned Gymnasium boarding school in Germany, that leads to the Abitur exams

Traveling boarding schools, like THINK Global School, partner with an IB school in each country they visit.

Boarding schools are residential schools; however, not all residential schools are "classic" boarding schools. Other forms of residential schools include:

• Therapeutic boarding schools are tuition-based, out-of-home placements that combine therapy and education for children, usually teenagers, with emotional, behavioral, substance abuse, or learning disabilities.[3]
• Traveling boarding schools, such as Think Global School, are four-year high schools that immerse the students in a new city each term. Traveling boarding schools partner with a host school within the city to provide the living and educational facilities.[4]
• Sailing boarding schools, such as A+ World Academy, are high schools based on ships that sail around the world and combine high school education with travel, and personal development. Classes typically take place both, onboard and in some of the ports they visit.[5]
• Outdoor boarding schools, which teach students independence and self-reliance through survival style camp outs and other outdoor activities.[6]
• Residential education programs, which provide a stable and supportive environment for at-risk children to live and learn together.
• Residential schools for students with special educational needs, who may or may not be disabled
• Semester schools, which complement a student's secondary education by providing a one semester residential experience with a central focusing curricular theme—which may appeal to students and families uninterested in a longer residential education experience
• Specialist schools focused on a particular academic discipline, such as the public North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics or the private Interlochen Arts Academy.
• The Israel I youth villages, where children stay and are educated in a commune, but also have everyday contact with their parents at specified hours.
• Public boarding schools, which are operated by public school districts. In the U.S., general-attendance public boarding schools were once numerous in rural areas, but are extremely rare today. As of the 2013–2014 school year, the SEED Foundation administered public charter boarding schools in Washington, D.C., and Baltimore, Maryland. One rural public boarding school is Crane Union High School in Crane, Oregon. Around two-thirds of its more than 80 students, mostly children from remote ranches, board during the school week in order to save a one-way commute of up to 150 miles (240 km) across Harney County.[7]
• Ranch school, once common in the western United States, incorporating aspects of the "dude ranch" (Guest ranch)

In the UK, almost all boarding schools are independent schools, which are not subject to the national curriculum or other educational regulations applicable to state schools. Nevertheless, there are some regulations, primarily for health and safety purposes, as well as the general law. The Department for Children, Schools and Families, in conjunction with the Department of Health of the United Kingdom, has prescribed guidelines for boarding schools, called the National Boarding Standards.[8]

One example of regulations covered within the National Boarding Standards are those for the minimum floor area or living space required for each student and other aspects of basic facilities. The minimum floor area of a dormitory accommodating two or more students is defined as the number of students sleeping in the dormitory multiplied by 4.2 m², plus 1.2 m². A minimum distance of 0.9 m should also be maintained between any two beds in a dormitory, bedroom, or cubicle. In case students are provided with a cubicle, then each student must be provided with a window and a floor area of 5.0 m² at the least. A bedroom for a single student should be at least of the floor area of 6.0 m². Boarding schools must provide a total floor area of at least 2.3 m² living accommodation for every boarder. This should also be incorporated with at least one bathtub or shower for every ten students.

These are some of the few guidelines set by the department among many others. It could probably be observed that not all boarding schools around the world meet these minimum basic standards, despite their apparent appeal.

Boarding schools in Britain started in medieval times when boys were sent to be educated at a monastery or noble household, where a lone literate cleric could be found. In the 12th century, the Pope ordered all Benedictine monasteries such as Westminster to provide charity schools, and many public schools started when such schools attracted paying students. These public schools reflected the collegiate universities of Oxford and Cambridge, as in many ways they still do, and were accordingly staffed almost entirely by clergymen until the 19th century. Private tuition at home remained the norm for aristocratic families, and for girls in particular, but after the 16th century, it was increasingly accepted that adolescents of any rank might best be educated collectively. The institution has thus adapted itself to changing social circumstances over 1,000 years.

Boarding preparatory schools tend to reflect the public schools they feed. They often have a more or less official tie to particular schools.

The classic British boarding school became highly popular during the colonial expansion of the British Empire. British colonial administrators abroad could ensure that their children were brought up in British culture at public schools at home in the UK, and local rulers were offered the same education for their sons. More junior expatriates would send their children to local British-run schools, which would also admit selected local children who might travel from considerable distances. The boarding schools, which inculcated their own values, became an effective way to encourage local people to share British ideals, and so help the British achieve their imperial goals.

One of the reasons sometimes stated for sending children to boarding schools is to develop wider horizons than their family can provide. A boarding school a family has attended for generations may define the culture parents aspire to for their children. Equally, by choosing a fashionable boarding school, parents may aspire to better their children by enabling them to mix on equal terms with children of the upper classes. However, such stated reasons may conceal other reasons for sending a child away from home.[9][10][11] These might apply to children who are considered too disobedient or underachieving, children from families with divorced spouses, and children to whom the parents do not much relate.[10][11] These reasons are rarely explicitly stated, though the child might be aware of them.[10][11]

In 1998, there were 772 private-sector boarding schools in the United Kingdom with over 100,000 children attending them all across the country. In Britain, they are an important factor in the class system. About one percent of British children are sent to boarding schools.[12][13][14] Also in Britain children as young as 5 to 9 years of age are sent to boarding schools.[15]

In the United States, boarding schools for students below the age of 13 are called junior boarding schools, and are relatively uncommon. The oldest junior boarding school is the Fay School in Southborough, Massachusetts, established in 1866. Other boarding schools are intended for high school age students, generally of ages 14–18. Some of the oldest of these boarding schools include West Nottingham Academy (est. 1744), Linden Hall (school) (est. 1756), The Governor's Academy (est. 1763), Phillips Academy Andover (est. 1778), and Phillips Exeter Academy (est. 1781).[16] Boarding schools for this age group are often referred to as prep schools. About half of one percent or (.5%) of school children attend boarding schools, about half the percentage of British children.[12][13][14]

Students at Carlisle Indian Industrial School, Pennsylvania (c. 1900)

In the late 19th century, the United States government undertook a policy of educating Native American youth in the ways of the dominant Western culture so that Native Americans might then be able to assimilate into Western society. At these boarding schools, managed and regulated by the government, Native American students were subjected to a number of tactics to prepare them for life outside their reservation homes.[17]

In accordance with the assimilation methods used at the boarding schools, the education that the Native American children received at these institutions centered on the dominant society's construction of gender norms and ideals. Thus boys and girls were separated in almost every activity and their interactions were strictly regulated along the lines of Victorian ideals. In addition, the instruction that the children received reflected the roles and duties that they were to assume once outside the reservation. Thus girls were taught skills that could be used in the home, such as "sewing, cooking, canning, ironing, child care, and cleaning"[17] (Adams 150). Native American boys in the boarding schools were taught the importance of an agricultural lifestyle, with an emphasis on raising livestock and agricultural skills like "plowing and planting, field irrigation, the care of stock, and the maintenance of fruit orchards"[17] (Adams 149). These ideas of domesticity were in stark contrast to those existing in native communities and on reservations: many indigenous societies were based on a matrilineal system where the women's lineage was honored and the women's place in society respected. For example, women in native society held powerful roles in their own communities, undertaking tasks that Western society deemed only appropriate for men: indigenous women could be leaders, healers, and farmers.

While the Native American children were exposed to and were likely to adopt some of the ideals set out by the whites operating these boarding schools, many resisted and rejected the gender norms that were being imposed upon them.

Most societies around the world decline to make boarding schools the preferred option for the upbringing of their children. However, boarding schools are one of the preferred modes of education in former British colonies or Commonwealth countries like India, Pakistan, Nigeria, and other former African colonies of Great Britain. For instance, in Ghana the majority of the secondary schools are boarding. In China some children are sent to boarding schools at 2 years of age.[18] In some countries, such as New Zealand and Sri Lanka, a number of state schools have boarding facilities. These state boarding schools are frequently the traditional single-sex state schools, whose ethos is much like that of their independent counterparts. Furthermore, the proportion of boarders at these schools is often much lower than at independent boarding schools, typically around 10%.

In Canada, the largest independent boarding school is Columbia International College, with an enrollment of 1,700 students from all over the world. Robert Land Academy in Wellandport, Ontario is Canada's only private military-style boarding school for boys in Grades 6 through 12.

In the former Soviet Union these schools were sometimes known as Internat-schools (Russian: Школа-интернат) (from Latin: internet). They varied in their organization. Some schools were a type of specialized schools with a specific focus in a particular field or fields such as mathematics, physics, language, science, sports, etc. For example, in the 1960s Soviet official established a new type of boarding school, an AESC - Advanced educational scientific center (Russian: СУНЦ - Специализированный учебно-научный центр). Those schools were parts of some major universities and prepared students to study there. Now, only a few exist in Russia - in Moscow, Novosibirsk, and Yekaterinburg, though several boarding schools still operate in former Soviet republics, and even some new ones are being opened (e.g MSU Gymnasium in Moscow, Russia, or Nazarbayev schools all over Kazakhstan). Other schools were associated with orphanages after which all children enrolled in Internat-school automatically. Also, separate boarding schools were established for children with special needs (schools for the blind, deaf, and others). General schools offered "extended stay" programs (Russian: Группа продленного дня) featuring cheap meals for children and preventing them from coming home too early before parents were back from work (education in the Soviet Union was free). In post-Soviet countries, the concept of boarding school differs from country to country.

The Swiss government developed a strategy of fostering private boarding schools for foreign students as a business integral to the country's economy. Their boarding schools offer instruction in several major languages and have a large number of quality facilities organized through the Swiss Federation of Private Schools. In 2015, a Swiss boarding school named A+ World Academy was established on the Norwegian Tall Ship Fullriggeren Sørlandet. The top four most expensive boarding schools in the world are the Swiss schools Institut Le Rosey,[19] Beau Soleil, Collège du Léman and Collège Champittet.

As of 2015 there were about 100,000 boarding schools in rural areas of Mainland China, with about 33 million children living in them.[20] The majority of these boarding schools are in western China, which generally is not as wealthy as eastern and central China.[21] Many migrant workers and farmers send their children to boarding schools.[22]

The boarding school socialization of control and hierarchy develops deep rooted and strong adherence to social roles and rigid gender stratification.[23][26] In one studied school the social pressure for conformity was so severe that several students abused performance drugs like Adderall and Ritalin for both academic performance and to lose weight.[23][26] The distinct and hierarchical nature of socialization in boarding school culture becomes very obvious in the manner students sit together and form cliques, especially in the refectory, or dining hall. This leads to pervasive form of explicit and implicit bullying, and excessive competition between cliques and between individuals.[23][26] The rigid gender stratification and role control is displayed in the boys forming cliques on the basis of wealth and social background, and the girls overtly accepting that they would marry only for money, while choosing only rich or affluent males as boyfriends.[23][26] Students are not able to display much sensitivity and emotional response and are unable to have closer relationships except on a superficial and politically correct level, engaging in social behaviour that would make them seem appropriate and rank high in social hierarchy.[23][26] This affects their perceptions of gender and social roles later in life.[23][26]

One alumnus of a military boarding school also questions whether leadership is truly being learned by the school's students.[27]

It is claimed that children may be sent to boarding schools to give more opportunities than their families can provide. However, that involves spending significant parts of one's early life in what may be seen as a total institution[28] and possibly experiencing social detachment, as suggested by social-psychologist Erving Goffman.[28] This may involve long-term separation from one's parents and culture, leading to the experience of homesickness[29][30][31] and emotional abandonment[10][11][15] and may give rise to a phenomenon known as the 'TCK' or third culture kid.[32]

The celebrated British classicist and poet, Robert Graves (1895–1985), who attended six different preparatory schools at a young age during the early 20th century, wrote:

Preparatory schoolboys live in a world completely dissociated from home life. They have a different vocabulary, a different moral system, even different voices. On their return to school from the holidays the change-over from home-self to school-self is almost instantaneous, whereas the reverse process takes a fortnight at least. A preparatory schoolboy, when caught off his guard, will call his mother 'Please, matron,' and always addresses any male relative or friend of the family as 'Sir', like a master. I used to do it. School life becomes the reality, and home life the illusion. In England, parents of the governing classes virtually lose any intimate touch with their children from about the age of eight, and any attempts on their part to insinuate home feeling into school life are resented.

— Robert Graves[33]

Some modern philosophies of education, such as constructivism and new methods of music training for children including Orff Schulwerk and the Suzuki method, make the everyday interaction of the child and parent an integral part of training and education. In children, separation involves maternal deprivation.[34] The European Union–Canada project "Child Welfare Across Borders" (2003),[9] an important international venture on child development, considers boarding schools as one form of permanent displacement of the child.[9] This view reflects a new outlook towards education and child growth in the wake of more scientific understanding of the human brain and cognitive development.

Data have not yet been tabulated regarding the statistical ratio of boys to girls that matriculate boarding schools, the total number of children in a given population in boarding schools by country, the average age across populations when children are sent to boarding schools, and the average length of education (in years) for boarding school students. There is also little evidence or research about the complete circumstances or complete set of reasons about sending kids to boarding schools.[14]

The term boarding school syndrome was coined by psychotherapist Joy Schaverien in 2011.[35] It is used to identify a set of lasting psychological problems that are observable in adults who, as children, were sent away to boarding schools at an early age.

Children sent away to school at an early age suffer the sudden and often irrevocable loss of their primary attachments; for many this constitutes a significant trauma. Bullying and sexual abuse, by staff or other children, may follow and so new attachment figures may become unsafe. In order to adapt to the system, a defensive and protective encapsulation of the self may be acquired; the true identity of the person then remains hidden. This pattern distorts intimate relationships and may continue into adult life. The significance of this may go unnoticed in psychotherapy. It is proposed that one reason for this may be that the transference and, especially the breaks in psychotherapy, replay, for the patient, the childhood experience between the school and home. Observations from clinical practice are substantiated by published testimonies, including those from established psychoanalysts who were themselves, early boarders.[35]

Scharverien's observations are echoed by a boarding schoolboy, George Monbiot, who goes so far as to attribute some dysfunctionalities of the UK government to boarding schools.[36] British psychotherapist Nick Duffell refers to adults who have gone through boarding school separation as 'Boarding school survivors'. He has described some of these individuals to exhibit behaviors such as a sense of detachment from any relationships, workaholism, obsessive behavior, and a penchant to control.[37]

Boarding schools and their surrounding settings and situations became in the late Victorian period a genre in British literature with its own identifiable conventions. (Typically, protagonists find themselves occasionally having to break school rules for honorable reasons the reader can identify with and might get severely punished when caught – but usually, they do not embark on a total rebellion against the school as a system.)

Notable examples of the school story include:

• Sarah Fielding's The Governess, or The Little Female Academy (1749)
• Charles Dickens's serialised novel Nicholas Nickleby (1838)
• Charlotte Brontë's novels Jane Eyre (1847) and Villette (1853)
• Thomas Hughes's novel Tom Brown's Schooldays (1857)
• Frederic W. Farrar's Eric, or, Little by Little (1858), a particularly religious and moralistic treatment of the theme
• L. T. Meade's A World of Girls (1886) and dozens more girls school stories
• O Ateneu (1888), written by the Brazilian Raul Pompéia and dealing openly with the issue of homosexuality in the boarding school
• Frances Hodgson Burnett's serial Sara Crewe: or what Happened at Miss Minchin's (1887), revised and expanded as A Little Princess (1905)
• Greyfriars School, created by Charles Hamilton (writing as Frank Richards) in 1910 in the first of what became 1,670 stories, many featuring Billy Bunter.
• George Orwell's essay Boys' Weeklies suggested in 1940 that Frank Richards created a taste for public schools stories in readers who could never have attended public schools
• Boy by Roald Dahl
• Dozens of boys' school novels by Gunby Hadath (1871–1954)
• Elinor Brent-Dyer's Chalet School series of about sixty children's novels (1925–1970)
• Erich Kästner's The Flying Classroom (Das Fliegende Klassenzimmer) (1933) is a conspicuous non-British example.
• James Hilton's novel Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1934) centers on a teacher, rather than on the students
• Ludwig Bemelmans' Madeline series of children's picture books (1939–present)
• Muriel Spark's The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1961)
• Penelope Farmer's Charlotte Sometimes (1969)
• In Jill Murphy's The Worst Witch stories (from 1974), the traditional boarding school themes are explored in a fantasy school that teaches magic.
• Dianna Wynne Jones's novel Witch Week (1982) features Larwood House where magic is not taught —its use is a capital crime— but many students grow into magic powers
• J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series (1997–2007) features Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
• Jenny Nimmo's Children of the Red King series (2002–2009) features magically endowed children at Bloor Academy, which most students leave on weekends
• Libba Bray's Gemma Doyle Trilogy, volumes one and two (2003, 2006), features a girl's discovery of magical capabilities and realms
• Enid Blyton's Malory Towers, St Clare's and Naughtiest Girl series
• John van de Ruit's Spud book and movie series, that take place at a school based on Michaelhouse

The setting has also been featured in notable North American fiction:

• J.D. Salinger's novel The Catcher in the Rye (1951)
• John Knowles's novels A Separate Peace (1959) and Peace Breaks Out (1981)
• Edward Kay's science fiction novel STAR Academy (2009)
• John Green's 2006 young adult novel Looking for Alaska

There is also a huge boarding-school genre literature, mostly uncollected, in British comics and serials from the 1900s to the 1980s.

The subgenre of books and films set in a military or naval academy has many similarities with the above.

• Final Fantasy VIII (1998)
• Bully (2006)
• Katawa Shoujo (2012)
• Life Is Strange (2015)
• Fire Emblem: Three Houses (2019)