tesfeature
in the frame: Cheltenham
College Preparatory School
has boarders aged 7-13.
extracurricular activities are
many and varied, including
climbing, ice-skating and trips
to the theatre
Prep schools are struggling to
attract boarders as parents
become increasingly reluctant
to send young children away
from home. Adi Bloom joins
new pupils at Cheltenham
College Preparatory School to
investigate the highs and lows
of boarding from the age of 7
1pm Arrival
From dorm
to dusk
24
tes
16 OCTOBER 2015
2pm Induction
In the hall, headmaster Jonathan Whybrow is meeting new
boarders and their parents over tea and cake. There are
40 full boarders at Cheltenham, taking up half the beds. In
addition, flexi-boarders stay for part of the week, or simply
choose to board for a couple of nights each term. In total, ➤
16 OCTOBER 2015
tes
25
Cheltenham College
‘It’s a hard
decision to
make, to put
your children
into boarding
school. But if
they’re happy
and they run
off to play, then
it’ll be OK’
“This is going to be so much fun,” says Maya from the top
bunk bed. Maya is seven years old; this is her first day at
boarding school.
It is the start of term at Cheltenham College Preparatory
School in Gloucestershire, which takes boarders aged 7-13.
Across the road, Cheltenham College offers education to the
age of 18. Maya is among 13 new boarders arriving at the
prep school today; her 12-year-old sister Anna has been at
Cheltenham for two years already.
“I’m looking forward to doing netball in the afternoon,” Maya
says. “And having friends and fun and stuff. Watching TV.”
And, she adds, she missed Anna when her sister went off to
boarding school without her. “Sometimes I cried,” she says.
“Now I’m with her, I won’t cry any more.”
Their father, Major Michael Forde, looks on. Like many in the
armed forces, Forde is moved to a new posting every two or
three years. He has chosen to send his daughters to boarding
school so that they don’t have to change schools with the
same regularity.
“I don’t know how I’d have felt at her age,” he says of Maya.
“I think I’d have been quite excited. We found with Anna that,
at first, she was ringing us every day.”
Anna looks up from the unpacking. “And now, basically,
I never ring,” she says.
“But we’re glad she’s busy,” her father says. “Both my wife
and I work full-time. So, you get to the weekend and you just
want to go ‘aaah’.” He mimes relaxing. “Whereas here, they
have trips and activities. It’s a bit like school and summer
camp combined.”
The majority of full boarders at Cheltenham are drawn
from military families. Among them are brothers Ciaran and
Aidan – 8 and 10 respectively – whose father is currently
based in Cyprus. “My husband travels a lot for work,” says
their mother, Michelle Portch. “We wanted to have the stability
for them to have lifelong friends, and to go right through to
A-levels in the one school.”
“I don’t know if I’ll get emotional,” she adds, although she
looks as though she may be making a considerable effort
already. “It’s a hard decision to make, to put your children
into boarding school. But if they’re happy and they run off to
play, then it’ll be OK. It will just hit me in a couple of weeks’
time, I think.”
tesfeature
Cheltenham College
over the years, as family
dynamics have changed and
the boarding sector has seen
an increase in first-time
buyers, the number of
children boarding full-time
under the age of 11
has been a challenge for
many preparatory schools.
however, as with all
changing markets, our
member schools have
changed their offering.
In order to cater for the
growing trend where both
parents work long hours and
often travel for business,
pupils begin their boarding
career as a flexi or weekly
boarder, moving towards
full-time boarding as they
grow older. this provides
pupils with time to settle into
a boarding routine and offers
parents a flexible solution.
26
tes
7pm Mr Wells’ meeting
The children sit on the floor, some still eating ice
lollies. First, there are introductions. Midway
through these, Jones runs over to seven-year-old
Maya, who is being overwhelmed by lolly drips.
Taking her by the hand, Jones leads her to the
bathroom to clean up.
After the introductions, Wells asks the children to
find out fascinating facts about one another. As the
children mingle, Jones and fellow matron Gill Neale
watch them. “There’s a very nervous one there,”
Neale says, nodding towards Maya. “Because she’s
got her hands in front of her.”
Before bedtime, Wells reminds children about the
single-button red telephones. “It really is just if
you’re feeling unwell,” he says.
“Or, in this first week, if you’re feeling homesick,” says
Whybrow.
“Yes,” says Wells. “I think homesick qualifies as unwell.”
‘I’ve always
wanted to
board. I’ve read
all these books
about boarding
and I wanted
to see what
it is like’
Responding to
the challenge with
‘flexi-boarding’
Robin Fletcher (pictured),
national director of the
Boarding Schools’
Association, has suggested
that one of the key
challenges facing
prep-school
boarding
is that
it has
become
more
socially
unacceptable
to send children under the
age of 11 to board.
He made the comments at
Bedales School’s conference
on boarding in May. Here, he
expands on that point.
express this in manageable terms – “only four weekends”, for
example – accompanied by a countdown calendar.
“I’ve never met a child who we haven’t turned around
eventually,” Jones says. “It can take longer with some. But
I’ve never had a child who doesn’t eventually decide that
they quite like boarding.”
‘Being at home
is good. But part
of developing is
solving your own
problems, not
going to mummy
and daddy’
three-quarters of the beds are usually full. “If we were a hotel,
we’d be delighted,” Whybrow says.
Although the school takes boarders from the age of 7, they
are generally very few in number. “The market speaks,” says
Whybrow. “Though, like anything in education, it’s an arbitrary
age. We have children who are 5 who would happily board and
children who are 12 who would never like it in their lives.”
He pauses to greet 12-year-old Pablo, who has until now
been living in Madrid. His parents are keen for each of their
children to spend a year at school in England, “to learn
English, be with English people, make English friends”,
Pablo says.
His mother, Laura Benedit, gives a rueful smile. “In the end,
it’s a sacrifice I have to make as a mother,” she says. “But I do
it because it’s the best for him and because he wants it. I would
never send a child if he didn’t want to go.”
16 OCTOBER 2015
6pm Barbecue
She glances at her husband, Santiago, whose opinions on
boarding are somewhat more clear-cut. “Being at home is
good,” he says. “But part of developing is being outside and
solving your own problems, not going to mummy and daddy.”
2.30pm Boarding house tour
Head of boarding Bob Wells leads new arrivals on a tour of
the boarding house. The children troop into his family’s living
room. Sunlight streams through sash windows. “This is where
our boarding life and family life meet,” Wells says. “Saturday is
movie night and this room is full of children, all with their
duvets, watching movies.”
Eleven-year-old Josie Grounds, who is joining Year 7, studies
a poster on the wall itemising some of the other weekend
activities on offer: climbing, ice-skating, a theatre trip.
Josie’s father, an army major, is posted in Kenya, where
The parents have gone, their farewells said in private.
Immediately, Wells and his staff launch boarders into a
succession of evening activities. First is a barbecue. The sun
is shining, and pupils play badminton and table tennis. Wells
continues to be unfailingly cheerful. “Keep them busy, so they
don’t suffer from separation anxiety,” he says. “That’s the
purpose of tonight.”
Josie sits talking to another Year 7 pupil, whose father has
just been promoted to a job in Northern Ireland.
“So you’re going to be an overseas one?” Josie says. “So am I.
I live in Kenya, so when I finished primary school I had no
choice.” She bursts into tears, but keeps talking. “Unless I
wanted to go to Nairobi, but I didn’t want to, because there’ve
been riots there.”
The tears are still coming. “I’m sorry. My parents have
just left,” she says. One of the house parents intervenes.
Wrapping her arm around Josie, she leads her off to
a corner of the lawn.
“Ice cream!” Wells calls. There are responding screams
of enthusiasm from the children.
At the edge of the lawn, Irene Jones, one
of three boarding house matrons, surveys
the children. She nods across the grass.
“Hermione looks a little bit frightened. But she’s
made friends, which is good.”
Jones has been working as a matron at
Cheltenham for 16 years. “Tonight will be fine,”
she says. “Tomorrow night, it will hit them that
they’ve got to stay another night. And the next
night could be the worst one, because they
realise that they have to stay again.”
Josie is now being led back to the
barbecue. House parents usually try to give
homesick children a realistic time frame to
work within. In Josie’s case, her mother will
not return to Kenya for a while, so Josie
will see her during a free weekend in four
weeks’ time. The house parent tries to
8pm Showers
Neale is holding Maya’s hand and leading her to the bathroom.
“She said her knee hurts,” Neale says. “I’ve said it’s growing
pains. It’s not. It’s homesickness. When she comes out of the
shower, we’re going to put some cream on it. Often, that’s all
they need – show that someone cares.”
While Maya showers, Neale deals with a series of requests
from children who have forgotten shower gel, shampoo
and toothbrushes. Then Maya’s eight-year-old dorm-mate
comes running up to her. “Maya’s lost her sponge,” she says.
“It’s red and white and she needs it.”
Neale heads over to the bathroom. “This could be another
tactic,” she says. “She’s feeling homesick; she’s lost her
sponge; she needs to go home to find it.”
Neale doesn’t go into the bathroom. She is always going in
and out of the dormitories, she says, and wants to give the
children what privacy she can. As she waits outside, Josie
and her friends come out. “Was she crying?” says Maya’s
dorm-mate of Josie. “She had red eyes.”
“I don’t know,” Neale says. “I didn’t notice. But
sometimes it’s best not to notice. If lots of people
keep going to somebody and keep saying ‘Are you
all right? Are you all right?’ they feel worse and
worse. So it’s knowing when to step in and when
to step away.”
across
the board
although the number of
full-time, weekly and flexiboarders in the independent
sector has increased, the
proportion at junior level (aged
13 and under) has decreased, as
figures from the Independent
Schools Council show (2014-15
figures could not be confirmed
at time of going to press)
2013-14
68,453
students boarded, 13.4% of
the total. The proportion of
junior boarders was
2.2%
2012-13
66,776
students boarded, 13.1% of
the total. The proportion of
junior boarders was
2.4%
9pm Bedtime
Bedtimes are carefully structured.
There is quiet reading time, followed
by storytime, followed by lights out.
Structure, Wells says, helps the
children to settle into a routine.
Tonight, however, there has been
too much excitement. It is already
well past Maya’s bedtime when she
finally curls up to sleep. Neale
promises dorm games and a story
tomorrow, to make up for the lack
of a story tonight.
➤
Then she moves on to the
Cheltenham College
Josie’s family will return after dropping her off.
Wells leads the families towards the dorms. Every boardinghouse corridor also has a red phone, he says, with only one
button on it. The phone can be used any time of the day or
night. Pressing the button will put a child straight through to
whichever house parent is on duty.
The dorms themselves are airy and bright. Each has eight
beds – four bunk beds – as well as a
sofa and pictures on the walls. The girls’
dorm for Years 2 and 3 has only two
living in it: Maya and an eight-year-old
whose family is from Ghana.
Year 8 pupils, meanwhile, have their
own corridor, with a series of two-bed
cubicles running from it. One of these
belongs to 12-year-old Hermione
Lloyd-Horton. “I’ve always wanted to
board,” she says. “My mum wanted me
to board. I used to read all these books
about boarding – Malory Towers and
St Clare’s – and I wanted to see what
the experience is like. I’ve always liked
being independent.”
Her parents have just moved to London from Singapore, and
she is new to the school – and to boarding – this year.
“I wouldn’t have wanted to start any younger,” she says.
“I’ve learned a lot of things from my parents that I wouldn’t
have learned if I’d been boarding. And I might have been
more detached from my parents, maybe. But, from boarding,
I’ll learn to do things without being told.”
jonathan whybrow: the headmaster
of Cheltenham College Preparatory School
16 OCTOBER 2015
tes
27
tesfeature
7.30am Breakfast
“Pain au chocolat!” someone yells. The
children rush to form a queue for
breakfast, jostling in a huddle of
blazers with extra growing room.
Maya is among them, wearing a kilt
that looks as if it has been made for
a child twice her size. “The first
night was great,” she says. “We
talked about fairies. That was fun.”
“Everyone slept through,” Wells
says, surveying the line. “Not one
single call.”
In the wood-panelled hall, Pablo tucks
into his breakfast. Nearby, Hermione is
similarly bright-eyed. “It was a bit hard to
sleep at first,” she says. “But I always have a
problem getting to sleep in a new bed, so I expected it.” She
finishes her breakfast and skips off.
While the children eat, Wells reminds them to brush their
teeth and hair before school, and to leave their dorms tidy.
28
tes
16 OCTOBER 2015
Maya is still only halfway through a piece of toast, and not
sure whether she wants more. One of the house parents
fetches jam for her. “If you need anything, just let me or the
catering staff know,” she says. Maya nods.
8am School
The boarders must check in with Wells before heading off for
lessons. “Morning, Hermione,” he says. “You’re looking very
smart.” He tells her to do up the top buttons of her shirt.
“You’re used to living in a hot country, aren’t you?”
Aidan and Ciaran are about to leave, but Wells stops them.
Their mother wants a photograph of their first day of
school, he says. “Give a big smile! Say ‘I love school’.”
Then Josie emerges from her dorm, looking
serious. “All fine, Josie?” Wells says. “Know
where you’re going?” He pauses. “Good luck.
I’m sure it’ll be fine.” Josie heads off down
the staircase to school.
Fay Wells, Bob’s wife and head of science,
offers to take the smallest children to their
lessons. First she drops off Ciaran, then
Maya’s dorm-mate. Finally, she leads Maya to
her classroom. Maya gives her a doleful smile
before wandering over to a desk.
Around Maya, day pupils in similarly oversized
kilts are arriving. One is led by her mother into
the classroom. “Have fun, lovely girl,” the mother
says, kissing her daughter on the head. “Love you.”
The girl takes a seat next to Maya and they smile at one
another. “If they didn’t get homesick at all, that would be quite
worrying,” Fay Wells says. “Because they love their parents,
they miss their parents. It would be very sad if they didn’t.”
She gives Maya a final wave and shuts the classroom door.
‘It was a bit
hard to sleep
at first. But I
always have a
problem getting
to sleep in a
new bed, so
I expected it’
Cheltenham College
next dorm. “Mrs Neale,” one of the girls says. “What if a fire
starts and I don’t wake up?”
Neale starts telling them about the fire drill routine: she will
pull the duvet off every bed, she says.
The girl in the next bed sits up. “What if a fire starts and
we’re locked in the dorm?” she says.
Wells comes in to wish the girls goodnight. Neale asks him to
reassure them about the fire safety system, so he runs through
the sensitivity of the fire alarms, the positioning of fire
extinguishers, the efficacy of fire doors. “Do you all feel OK
about it now?” he says. “We’ll look after you. Don’t worry.”