Boarding and family life

Harry Potter may have had a magical effect upon the image of boarding, but the film gets one thing completely wrong. No families are ever seen wandering around Hogwarts. Come to Wellington, and there are parents around here every day.

Boarding schools used to be rather stern places where families were not terribly welcome. Contact was almost discouraged, even frowned upon, as if the school knew its job and didn't need any interference from parents.

Closer family involvement in boarding schools, and greater communication between parents and boarders, are two areas where there has been a complete transformation in the last 20 years. Schools have recognised that children who board thrive when they have more contact with their parents.

Children tend to live closer to boarding school than they used to, unless their parents live abroad. As a consequence, families drop in, attend concerts, watch plays or come to matches, much more often. At Wellington, having checked first with their son or daughter's Housemaster or Housemistress, parents, relations and family friends of boarders can come in whenever they like, outside classroom time. Parents travelling for work might be nearby. Sisters may be back from a gap year and passing through. Brothers might be on a corporate golf day at a nearby course. If there is precious time mid-week to see a member of one's family, we encourage it.

The frequency and volume of communication home has really changed with the advent of the mobile and the internet. Mobile phones and emails - within reason - connect children to their families in a way that a letter, or one phone shared between everyone in a House, could never do. We think it is a positive change and believe it helps the children who board, even though it also means that the smallest of problems can also relayed back home in a way they never used to be, and parents do have to develop the art of filtering the serious from the trivial.