Parents often ponder at the question “Is boarding school right for my child”? According to John Beamish, if you have a child who plans to succeed in life, boarding school might give your child that boost he/she needs to be the best they can be. In our community, boarding schools are overlooked as a form of solid education and perceived to be a place for children with behavioral problems are sent to be disciplined. That should not be the case. We had the opportunity to speak John Beamish of Linden Boarding Schools to help us understand the concept of boarding schools and to help us revise what we know about it for the benefit of our children.
Q. Boarding schools are known to help children attain discipline and independence. What are the other advantages be for sending a child to boarding school?
Confidence and respect for others, which all comes about from the disciplined environment that they’re in, and that comes from the care they are given while they’re in the school system, of course. They also gain their independence from managing themselves or the teacher giving them the confidence they need. But there are many aspects that you could focus on.
As a child leaves home, they obviously would not have their parents to guide them, so they would have to rely on their peers, their teachers, and that builds the confidence within them.
Q. If I want to send a perfectly normal child who is normal and healthy in the sense that he/she is smart, social and isn’t prone to truancy – would that make me a bad parent?
Firstly, I don’t think that boarding schools are there to punish people. I would suggest that one is a good parent to their child to a boarding school because the of the experience and life skills the child will obtain. There are many reasons why parents send their children to boarding school, sometimes it’s the fact that both parents are working and traveling around, and therefore can’t spend their time with the child. It could also be that the parents are constantly moving from location to location, and they need to provide the child with a base that they can recognize as their own.
Sometimes, parents send their child to boarding school because they’ve lost faith in the state system, which is common in the UK. Parents feel that the state schools don’t do much in bringing out the best in their child, which is actually a reasonable motive to send a child to boarding school.
Q. When sending a child to boarding school, how will the child learn about important family values?
It’s hard to determine the right age to separate child from parent but if you’re sending a child that’s 8 or 9 years of age, I think the one that suffers the most are the parents because they miss the child. The child goes into an environment of the school quickly forgets what they’ve left behind and start interacting with children who are in the similar position.
90% of the case, the child would easily overcome the separation, whereas the parents would find it more difficult to deal with the separation. I remember even taking my daughter to university, I was almost in tears when I dropped her off but my daughter didn’t seem to show the same emotion that I did. Parents rely heavily on their children for friendship and comfort, and they feel that we’re probably overdependent on that.
Q. What are the chances of children getting detached from their parents once they’re sent to boarding school?
In my experience, they become more communicative with their parents because they’ve developed a level of confidence and maturity and are able to engage much better with adults. In a state school, there isn’t much interaction between the teacher and the child. The child too was probably lacking confidence, and the conversations they would have with their parents would be rather immature. But having gone to a boarding school, where they have to interact with the teachers, that provides the children with a much better provision for talking to adults.
Q. If a child were to be patronised by seniors or bullied, what kind of actions will be taken to ensure the safety of the child?
The ideal class size includes around 10-15 students in a classroom, and the teacher knows each and every individual student very personally, can monitor the child’s behavioral changes and can detect when the child is upset. So, if a child was being bullied, the early stages of it would be apparent to the teacher. But there are very strict mechanisms in place – boarding schools are very strict where they lay down a set of rules which is rigid, and that is something the children benefit from.
The children also have the opportunity to speak to a counsellor to express any problems they’re facing. So, in a boarding school, you have the teacher who is monitoring them and you have the child with the opportunity to discuss issues with the counsellor. So with those two mechanisms, you can pick up any issues that are happening, and it’s not just bullying but other issues that may arise. That way, action can be taken quickly to stamp out any problems that might arise.
Q. How would you describe the perfect candidate for boarding school?
I wouldn’t think of it as a perfect candidate for a student, but it’s the perfect benefactor, I would suggest. Children from many different walks of life attend boarding schools. If you talk about the perfect student, it would be one who really did want to succeed, has the drive and desire to be successful, and take full advantage of every aspect at the school apart from the academic side but in recreational too. So, the best candidate for a boarding would be someone who will make full use of everything the boarding school has to offer, and doing the best they can.
Academically, children are tested before enrolling to see their minimum level of capability, but the style of teaching in a boarding school is different so they could quickly get a grip of it to develop themselves.
Linden Boarding School Tours will host its first Boarding School and Summer Programs Expo, which features an exhibition 16 schools from the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Jordan and Switzerland. Admission is free. More information on participating schools can be found at www.boardingschooltours.com.
Details are as follows:-
Date: 7th November 2012
Venue: Sheraton Imperial Hotel, Kuala Lumpur.
