Boarding schools have long been part of our educational furniture. From Tom Brown’s School Days to the likes of Malory Towers and Harry Potter, these hallowed halls have captured the imagination of generations. We are all familiar with tales of children shipped off to fairytale-like surroundings, left to their own devices as they seek to navigate the trials and tribulations of adolescence. Whilst they make fantastic stories, Mr Thwackum would not pass muster for the Safeguarding Team today. Thank goodness.

So, what are boarding schools really like today? Gone are the quasi-spartan methods of the Victorian era—‘gruel and a grilling’ is, thankfully, no longer thought of as the best educational medicine. It has been replaced by something entirely different. The ethos of the modern boarding school revolves around the needs of today’s younger generation as they continue to experience the lasting effects of the pandemic and the ever-mounting dangers posed by the digital world. Modern boarding is a privilege, for staff and pupils; one that encourages young people to develop skills and a moral character that will serve them well long after they fly the nest.

Key to the success of modern boarding, I believe, is a pupil’s ‘school family’ – their peers, tutors, matron, Houseparent, and even, if they’re lucky, the house pet. A golden labrador is on duty in Red Cross. As part of this tight-knit community, pupils develop a keen sense of house loyalty and become a mutual support network that transcends different year groups, right through from Shell (Year 9) to Lower Sixth (Year 12).

Whether enjoying regular house socials or participating in inter-house competitions, in vertical house teams, pupils learn and grow as young people together. They respect each other’s boundaries and form real-life connections far removed from the increasingly distorted world of social media.

They say that ‘it takes a village to raise a child’ and I like to think of the boarding experience as, in a sense, a village in itself. One of the great advantages of boarding, with its naturally longer school days, study periods, and evening socials, is time. There is more time for staff to meet with pupils: to discuss projects, manage deadlines, and assist them in structuring their work.

If the wheels come off, as they do every now and then, tutors and house parents are always there to help put them back on. There’s more time, too, for pupils to engage in all kinds of exciting co-curricular endeavours. At Hurst, our Red Cross boys recently raised an impressive £5,500 for Off The Fence, a local charity serving the homeless; one of many initiatives devised by the boys themselves simply during downtime together in house. It involved a lot of hair dye for me!

What’s different about modern boarding, too, is that children remain connected to their family lives beyond school. Boarding is not about replacing any family but gaining another one. In Red Cross, I think of child, parent, and house as forming a ‘golden triangle of communication’; my weekly newsletters update parents on all that their boys are up to, and I look forward to catching up with them at all sorts of events—be that on the touchline, in the theatre, or over a glass at one of our house socials.

At Hurst, all boarders return home on weekends to spend quality time with their family, having worked incredibly hard during the week. The house becomes a place where pupils develop all of the personal, social, and academic skills that boarding offers, without having to sacrifice their lives beyond it or their natural ties with their parents and siblings.

As boarding staff, we encourage pupils to be confident but not arrogant, to be effective collaborators but also open and generous leaders, and all that with the emotional intelligence to make space for others and their ideas. ‘Right time, right place, right way’. The Red Cross boys will have heard me voice this mantra countless times, but for me it’s what boarding – and education more broadly – is all about.

We want them to leave their houses, and eventually the College, with charged batteries, ready for action. That’s when we know that we have done our jobs right. They are ready for the world and the world will benefit greatly by having them.