BOARDING FOR BEGINNERS
- John Baugh, Head of the Dragon School
John Baugh urges parents to discover the fun, friendship and family support that younger boarders enjoy when living at school
The best intentions of parents, our cultural concern with good parenting and a belief in ‘quality time’ with children can all make boarding at a young age, as it has been understood in the past, a hard ‘sell’ to even the busiest, multi-career families. For those not yet aware of how schools have changed, the very word boarding can still have dire associations with banishment or punitive regimes. In reality, boarding preparatory schools, such as the Dragon School in Oxford which still work on the traditional ‘full’ boarding model, provide a very attractive and holistic schooling proposition to parents of younger children.
Meeting modern needs
Busy careers, frequent travel, difficult school runs through heavy traffic
and the demand for after school activities can all make day school a logistical
nightmare for some families. The family itself has changed and single
parents, one-child families and those whose work takes them abroad also
find much in boarding to improve their lives. For their children, school
- when it is one of your homes - can provide stability, care, fun and
lasting friendships. The life a young boarding child leads today leaves
the stereotyped and outmoded image of prep school boarding, with its image
of hard beds, poor food and lonely weekends far, far behind. To parents
glancing though the school guides and prospectuses boarding schools can,
despite the addition of all sorts of impressive modern facilities, still
have a somewhat traditional air. However, what happens in them has certainly
changed beyond recognition.
A partnership in parenting
The philosophy of thriving and sought-after boarding prep schools, that
boarding is a productive partnership of home and school, underpins all
that we do. Teachers, houseparents and parents work together to create
an educational and life experience that suits modern family life rather
well. Living under the care of friendly houseparents, who are usually
couples with young families, in homely rooms with frequent and easy contact
with parents is the real picture of modern boarding.
In our experience at the Dragon, it is often the children themselves who
ask to board and who convince their own parents to let them try it. Parents
then come to see the benefit of a host of practical things like the supervision
of homework, extra help from teachers and a safe place to be after five
in the afternoon with supervised activities.
Freedom and friends
Half of all boarders today are ‘first timers’ with no previous boarding
experience in the family. While the dark arts and Quidditch are not on
most school activities’ programmes, Harry Potter has had an influence:
children have recognised and are attracted to the freedom and excitement
of living at school with their friends. Boarding certainly offers a breadth
of things to do under the supervision of friendly adults and, often, teenage
gap year helpers. There are numerous after school and evening clubs, games
and pastimes; opportunities for extra music, drama and sport; outings,
visits and expeditions at weekends and lots of time, and importantly space,
for play with friends. For children who may lack siblings, or friends
nearby, or safe places to play, or parents at home when they finish the
day at school, boarding can fill a big gap. Of course what a good prep
school does – provides an excellent education and preparation for entry
to and life in senior schools – remains its great appeal for parents.
Adding boarding to this lends a special dimension to learning with any
number of extra opportunities which create a demonstrably enriching experience
of school.
Confident communities
As a Headmaster of a long-established but very modern prep school, I see
no sign that boarding for 8 to 12 year olds is the dying art that some
have suggested. What I do see are characterful, highly individual, happy
and enquiring pupils with strong relationships and a mature approach to
life. They come from all kinds of families and all kinds of places: at
half-terms and holidays some of them have a five minute walk and some
a day’s plane journey ahead of them. It’s all part of modern preparatory
boarding which encompasses an extraordinary range of backgrounds, abilities
and lifestyles.
One of the most noticeable things about boarding children is their confidence
at a relatively young age. Boarding pupils are particularly independent
and responsible say their teachers. Not in a preternaturally grown up
way because they’ve been “sent away” to school (a phrase rejected by any
rightthinking boarding school that intends to attract a single pupil)
but because they naturally learn to manage themselves, live among friends
and get on with adults on friendly terms. Perhaps a certain independence
was always the lasting benefit of a boarding education, however today
it is not the outcome of tough discipline and emphasis on self-reliance
but the product of a warm community life. A modern preparatory
boarding school offers an excellent education and provides genuine care,
support and cooperation with and for pupils and parents. I do hope families
who are unsure about boarding will come to visit schools such as the Dragon
for themselves; I believe they and, very importantly, their children will
like what they see and feel at home.
John Baugh has been Head of the Dragon School, a co-educational day and boarding preparatory school in Oxford, since 2002. He was educated in Uganda, Aldenham School and St Luke’s Exeter. He was Chairman of the Boarding Schools’ Association in 2006/07.
