Schools Profi le Education Board


Boarding is enjoying a renaissance. Charlotte Phillips looks at why living at school is on the up


J


ust a few years ago, you’d have been hard pressed to fi nd anyone prepared to bet on boarding schools having much of a future except,


possibly, as a monument to a system of child-rearing based on serving God, King and Empire that had had its day. Boarding was beginning to


fall out of favour and this was in part due to the changing face of family life. Fewer parents wanted full boarding and some families where children had boarded for generations stopped automati- cally renewing their subscription for the “family school”. Another factor to consider was that, for some, boarding had been a fairly bruising experience. As parents started to think


twice about putting their child down at birth for their old school, boarding numbers went into a genteel tailspin, falling by 40% over 25 years. Today, listening to Charlotte


Avery, the eff ervescent headmis- tress of St Mary’s School, Cambridge, you’d never guess it. “We could fi ll our [boarding] places ten times over,” she says. Admittedly St Mary’s, as she’s


quick to point out, has something of a distinctive appeal, its blend of single-sex education coupled with a strong religious ethos proving particularly popular with overseas families who put a pre- mium on tradition. It’s far from being the only school, however, to fi nd that demand for places is stronger now than many might


www.fi rstelevenmagazine.co.uk • Spring 2012 FirstEleven 23


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