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Boarding schools in England provide an excellent education and prepare their students for a world in which speaking and writing English is paramount. If you want to study in an English boarding school, we at Another Education help you choose the one most convenient for your children and we are specialists in preparing the interview and the admission tests.

Each English boarding school must meet the quality standards of teaching and depending on the results of their students they occupy one or another position in the national ranking of schools, the same for public schools (‘state schools’) and private schools. Here we must clarify that education in an English boarding school can be public at a different cost (lower) than private (more expensive). English education has, like in Spain, a mandatory didactic program that both state and private schools ought to follow.

The student body in an English boarding school

The student body of boarding schools in England is made up of international and local students; it can be male, female or mixed (‘coed’). The ‘boarders’ are the students who live at the school. The ‘day students’ (‘day boys’ or ‘day girls’) live with their families and return to their homes when the school day ends. The coexistence between boarders and day students in English boarding schools generates a perfect social atmosphere that helps them develop their personal growth. Most British boarding schools are coed, that is, boys and girls attend classes together, but accommodation is always separate.

English boarding school: building excellence

In my experience as a Housemistress in an English boarding school, I can affirm that English education excels in personal attention to the student. I realised during the six years I worked in an English boarding school that the teachers extol the qualities of the boys and girls, empower them with the abilities of each student and encourage them to work hard to excel in what they do best. They provide classes to reinforce those skills and thus build excellence.

Year 11

What is life like in the fifth year of Secondary Education in a school in England? Before you go there, we are to tell you about a typical day in Year 11 from the moment they get up, through what happens in class, to what they do after school in order to help them familiarise themselves with boarding school life.

Living for a year in an English boarding school as a boarder is a unique and extremely rewarding experience. Normally, in Year 11 students no longer share a room as they used to do in Year 7, 8 and 9. From Year 10 onwards, they only have to share the bathroom and common areas.

If they are new students, they normally are assigned a ‘buddy’, that is, a class or roommate who during the first term of the course (three months approximately) helps them adapt and integrate. English boarding schools place a lot of importance on ‘Community’, that is, they insist that pupils should help each other constantly and especially at the beginning of the school year, especially if the children are new students.

Regarding the academic area, each student is assigned a personal tutor, who will accompany, guide and help them in everything they need throughout the school year and beyond.

One day at an English boarding school: ‘Year 11’

After getting up, you have to put on your uniform, make your bed, and tidy your room before going for breakfast at the dinning hall or canteen. Once you have had breakfast, you go back to the ‘boarding area’ to brush your teeth and pack the backpack with the books you will need during the school day. In some boarding schools, the rooms are inspected to verify that everything is collected and tidied.

When the school day is over, you have free time that you can dedicate to doing other activities (‘extracurricular activities’), such as tennis, polo, swimming, horse riding, cooking, instruments, choir, fencing, etc. Around six in the evening it is time for dinner. Until then, both day students and boarders have still stayed at school. At that time, the day students usually go home. The boarders, after dinner, have ‘study’ in their own rooms or in the library. Once you have done your homework, you may have a snack and after a little free time (to read or chat with your friends or even with your family through your phone), it is time to go to bed (‘Lights out!’).