Just about every boarding school runs a summer school. This summer programs offer your kids athletics and academical activities in order to enrich their summer vacation.
Attending to this programs children can enjoy their holidays mixing academic programs in the morning with recreational activities on afternoons and weekends.
Academic programs teach subjects as English, Writing, Literature, Maths, Sciences, History or any foreign language. Actually students are no forced to study any of them, they can choose what they like better so learning will be not an awful and boring task.
However fun is bigger in non-academic program: swimming, sailing, kayaking, and canoing in swimming pool or lakes; other  sports as basketball or volleyball, weekend trips  to mountains, culture activities, air opened crafting workshops and even disco music at nights. Students feel their vacations are much more than sun and free time and enjoy every minute they spend at the school.
As a parent, you are sending your child away for the fist time, you will probably be concerned about activities in which he or she is taking part, food is being serving at lunch or even trips school is running. Many of this summer programs are related step by step at boarding school blog so families know what the kids are doing at any moment.
At this point, you  probably think you would have like to know all these before,  to join your child to a summer boarding school. You are on time, many programs are held in August and September you look at our boarding school directory and you can find a good summer program for your children.

As boarding schools are always unforgettable for those who spend there some years of their childhood and they are where a lot of funny, creepy or tender stories come from film industry has look in to them to make many movies during the last decades.
From the oldest ones as 1930 “Abschied” (Farewell) to the last year ” St. Trinitian’s 2 : The Legend of Fritton’s Gold”, which is placed in catholic boarding schools,  there are hundreds of films inspired by the brotherhood spirit of boarding schools.
Ones of the best known films set in boarding schools is “Harry Potter” saga which next movie world premiere is scheduled 2011. Altough it may seem that magic and spellings are the main part of the plot in fact  it is nothing but stories around a very special boarding schools in England.

“Madeleine”,  released in 1998, is based in children’s book series and tell the story of the title character and her child years in  girl boarding school. It’s a really tender film although school conditions has nothing to do with current ones.
Another film related to this educational institutions is the famous drama “Dead poets society”. You could remember  this 1989 Disney production  in which Robin Williams starrs as an unconventional and inspiring English teacher.
Last but not least I could not miss “About Bad Education”. Opening film in 2004 Cannes Festival. Almodovar takes a look at his own adolescence in a catholic boarding school in Spain.

Boarding high school is now an accepted education program in many developed countries in the US and Europe and is starting to become increasingly popular in less developed countries as India for example. The reason of this success is that many institutions see this program as very helpful to the parents of the students.

Some reasons why boarding high schools can be a good possibility for students in these modern times are the following ones. First of all there are no interruptions. In the boarding schools they make sure that there will be no interruptions during the study periods of the children. Also the risk that the students skip classes with their friends is being reduced to almost impossible.

Furthermore their can be a bad influence on your child from friends or classmates which is a big problem in traditional schools. Boarding highs school students are always being monitored and it is made sure that they can’t do this stupid things. Moreover they can focus on their study habits, have no traffic problems because they stay in school and everything is made easier for parents. They don’t have to make up schedules anymore for who has to be where and who can bring him.

I am not saying that boarding schools are the ideal place for every student and that you have to send your children to these schools. But I think can be a valuable option which is worth concidering.

Weekly boarding schools are starting to become very popular in India. This is a concept where students stay at the school for 24 hours during the week but go home during the weekends in order to be with their parents. The good thing about the concept is that students receive good education while they can spend quality time with their parents during the weekends.

The parents in India believe that giving their children more space can help them develop and become more independent. But feel the need to spend quality time with their children; this is why this solution seems to work perfectly for them. Furthermore the children seem to be happy. It seems to educate them discipline and flexibility at the same time. They have the advantages of boarding schools while they still can be at home to be with their family and friends and this combination seems to work in India.

Modern times ask for modern measures and so also boarding schools are following the matter. Where it was so easy to evaluate the schools a couple of years ago, nowadays there are 52 National Minimum Standards to be taken into account when judging them. The goal of these standards is to promote welfare of the children in boarding schools.  This can be a good help when searching for a good boarding school and this is the reason why I want to share some of the rules with you.

First of all there shouldn’t be any corporal punishment. Boarding schools cannot prevent children from ringing their parents or sending them a letter. Moreover they cannot deny medical or dental attention to the children, children cannot be fined over two third of their pocket money and there is a minimum distance between the dormitory and the beds that should be taken into account. Furthermore the school should have, and follow, an appropriate policy on responding to complaints from the children and their parents, schools have to provide a good range and choice of activities for the students after teaching time and each border should have one or more staff members to turn to when he or she has a problem.

But these new rules don’t change the fact that the number of children going to an elementary boarding school is lower than ever and according to the director of the Boarding Schools’ Association this has a lot to do with the way parents remember their past in these schools. According to her, boarding schools have to be twice as good as other schools nowadays.

So the schools are trying everything to change the lack of interest, but it seems that the prejudices towards boarding schools won’t be erased this easily.

Still not many people know the truth about boarding schools and since social media are starting to become so important in our daily lives, I thought it would be good to start a Facebook page called Boarding School Directory. On the fanpage, people will find more information about boarding schools and so know the truth.

Slovakia really is eager to integrate the future generations of gipsies, who represent up to 10% of the population, into the European society. This is the reason why the Prime Minister Robert Fico announced that they want to send children of Roma families to boarding schools. He said that these children have to be taken from their impoverished settlements and put into boarding schools to speed up the integration in the European Union.

The cause of this change was the negative report of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navy Pillay. During her annual visit, she criticised that the situation of the unemployed and poor gipsies in Slovakia and the Czech Republic. She pointed out the worsening treatment of this minority.

By putting the children in a boarding school, the government wants to separate them from the life in their settlements. The Prime Minister marked there is no other option because today, many of the children are sent to schools for mentally disabled and suffer from racism. According to him, the schools are the only way to break the cycle of racism.

But what about the ethnicity of these children? When they lose contact with their homes, they lose contact with their parents and their culture. Is it OK for us to try and change everyone and thereby kill other cultures? I think that everyone who wants to go to boarding school should be able to go and the other way around. What do you think? Please respond on the boarding school blog.

Why is it easier to send your kids to boarding school when they don’t have a  proper behavior? Is it  the way out?

I just wanted to start with that question because schools are made to give a complementary education to children. In my opinion, what you can give at home is more valuable and helpful. From the beginning on: the discipline, having conversations about real issues, showing respect and explaining that you have to enjoy life but  do this with care and conscientiousness. All of this is going to help children to understand different situations.

I do not want to say that only the parents are responsible for their kids, sometimes there are problems we cannot cope with on our own, but in some cases the institutions are not going to guarantee the change of behavior.

I’m a mother and I’m really impressed on how many advertisements you can find on websites who sale you “the best way to make your child behave”. If it were a box of cereals, it would help you to get thinner. I’m amazed by how special schools for troubled teens are increasing every day: now I think to myself “what it is going on?” Is it just a parent’s problem or is there something really happening with our society? Education system? At home?

Right now I find society cruel and materialistic. Our kids are trying to survive everyday things at schools that make them feel under pressure. As we all feel sometimes in our jobs  and even we have difficulties with handling. So Image haw children must feel when they try coping.

We all know the uncontrolled problem of the drugs to which our children can be very near at times. This is where I call for common sense that says that we cannot handle this alone. To send them away is going to work for a while but the social situation around them has not changed. The solution is not to keep them with us all their lives and isolate them from the world but sending them away isn’t the best solution either.  There are other ways…

Yes you can find specialists, boarding schools that are prepared to manage the tough situation; professionals who can help you out but I think you have to be sure to make that decision and let your common sense bring you part of the answer to help your children.

A recent study showed that students from day and boarding schools are more prepared for further education. They also seem to achieve a greater career development than students who studied in public schools.

The Association of Boarding Schools surveyed over 2700 high school students and adults in different points in their lives to learn about their experiences. They found out that the stereotypes of private education are not true. First of all, the study shows that those who have been to or study at a boarding schools, are more than ten percent more satisfied in comparison with their peers at public and private schools. They find their schools more challenging and estimate the quality of teaching very high.

Another advantage seems to be the interaction and learning beyond the classrooms: in the dining room, on playing fields, in the dormitory,… It opens their minds up, they change their vision on the world and they are more likely to develop strong bonds with each other.

Furthermore, it gives students a very good preparation for university: 87% said they were well prepared, with only 71% of students in private day schools and just 39% of public schools. And by late career, more than half of the boarding school students have reached a top management position. They seem also to be more independent and have a better time management.

The best part of the study is that some 90% of the boarding school alumni say that they would repeat their experience if they were given the opportunity. So I think t is time to leave the myths about boarding school behind us, don’t you think so?

Talking with Trevor Lamberts who was in a boarding school when he was young.

Trevor can switch from a serious engineer to this eccentric crowd entertainer all of a sudden… Some of his best stories are from boarding school, a catholic boys-only establishment where he spent his youth, from when he was 11 to 18 years old. It was a reputed school in the traditional English way. Although discipline was very present, he had some fun stories from there.

“If we’d been caught, teachers could leave us standing with the arms open straight and horizontal for half an hour, the kind of treatment that would kill your shoulders. If you’d take them down, you’d have to hold them back in place for even longer. They could also be verbally just as hard sometimes, teachers, and older pupils too. The pre-fect would overlook us and they had the power to apply some discipline on us. When myself became pre-fect, the Childe Protection Act had come into force and this kind of treatment had been banned. Nowadays, discipline is softer, but it remains present, to rule the everyday life, like the time to eat and sleep, the lectures and so on.

Leaving your family for the week can be difficult at the age of 11. Some of us were not ready or not mature enough to handle it. I knew boarding school was imposed on me by circumstances (his parents got separated) and actually was an opportunity. After a few weeks missing home I decided to make most of it and started to enjoy the friends around, the week ends doing a lot of sport. Others dedicated their spare time to art, music, drama. (His mate Jason became professional piano from this time and now has a career in New York. He played at Trevor´s wedding). And when you like an activity you can become responsible for the running of the club. I was captain of the Tennis team (and his service today is still very powerful)”.

Boarding school is considered in UK as the best education a child can get.
“When I reached university I compared my marks, which I thought were average, with the one of others who had gone to a normal school, and yes, I realized my marks where actually very good, and I had done more subjects. Classes were never crowded; teachers were very supportive and helpful, so without realizing, I ended up with a very good academic background.”

He’ll never forget his best friends and childhood memories, which he had at the catholic boarding school. I don’t know about the other 11 years olds who were not able to settle, and who did not manage to enjoy their years as much as he did. At the end, everybody can make the most of their opportunities. What Trevor is sure of, is that his experience in boarding school, changed his life.