It sounds daunting and expensive, and while that may be so, think of the prospects it offers our children.
I was a boarding school child and yes, I was miserable and homesick at times, but there was so much I learned…not that I thought so at the time. Largely, I learned to be resilient by accepting this path in my education, as did my children.
There are many factors as to why you would send a child away to a boarding school. When it came time to send our children, my husband and I considered all the positives. We researched schools, talked to friends and neighbours who were already on this journey, as well as looking back on our time spent at boarding school, and our younger siblings’ experiences. I was the eldest of four girls and by the time it came to my youngest sister’s time to go away, my parents had learned to look for a school that suited her.
Our guest blogger, Kate Treweeke is the ICPA-NSW president. She lives on the family property north of Lightning Ridge and 20 kilometres south of the Queensland border. Kate and husband Michael have two children – James, 21, and Zoe, 18, who attended a small rural school just over the border before heading to boarding school in Victoria.
Kate went to boarding school and she shares some of her experiences of going through the process of finding the right school for her own children.
BY KATE TREWEEKE, ICPA-NSW PRESIDENT
‘Boarding School’. Why should we fear those two words?
It sounds daunting and expensive, and while that may be so, think of the prospects it offers our children.
“…having many schools under the one roof saves many families from going to extreme measures to find a school that suits their children.”
We didn’t have an event like Boarding Schools Expo then, but in my time on ICPA State Council I’ve seen that having many schools under the one roof saves many families from going to extreme measures to find a school that suits their children.
I have often seen families walk into the Expos with an idea of what they want from a school only to walk out considering something different. Some have been known to attend more than one Expo in the same year, as well as attend a few years running. These things take time.
The Expos also give ICPA-NSW an avenue to talk to school representatives, so we can give them an insight into what rural and remote families expect from a school, and to understand the hardships these families will experience during the time their children are attending their school.
This relationship with the schools had seen a great roll up at the Annual State Conferences, as it gives schools offering boarding an opportunity to hear first-hand what families face trying to educate their children – issues ranging from early childhood through to tertiary education.