What are the benefits of sending your Child to a Boarding School?

 

What are the benefits of sending your Child to a Boarding School?

Boarding schools offer a variety of benefits to students. The decision to attend boarding school is the first step in what many consider a big picture decision: by attending boarding school, the advantages that come with it will pay off in the long term. The number of leaders and successful members of society began their journey at a boarding school: Defence Officers, actors, athletes, successful business people, and other politicians.

However, what makes most boarding schools work well is the vast number of activities, programs, and challenges available to students on a daily basis. The typical boarding school student is one who wants to embrace this huge opportunity they’ve been afforded: to live in a community where learning, personal growth and exploration are top priority; where programs and activities are abundant; where making friends is paramount; and where success is celebrated.

Learning independence, understanding priorities

Another reason to attend boarding school is independence. Independence might be the greatest gift that parents can give to their children. Today, when so many parents are hyper-vigilant and want to be involved in every aspect of their child’s life, boarding school can be the perfect antidote.

Children are required to navigate through the elements, do their own laundry, and get up in the morning. Parents aren’t there to shield them from natural causes and effects. Boarding schools are good places to fail and succeed—which makes them great places to learn. It’s a controlled freedom.

Kids don’t just get into college: they arrive prepared to succeed, with the ability to manage their own lives. They become strong individuals capable of leadership and have self-initiative. The current state of our culture has made it difficult for parents to cultivate those traits and private school is an outlet for these important qualities to be nurtured.

Students don’t just have to manage their own affairs, they learn how to live and deal with other people. They are challenged to develop their interpersonal skills because there is no hiding at boarding school.

A child who is dropped off in the morning and picked up at three o’clock by Mom isn’t challenged to develop the same peer skills as a kid who lives with other students 24 hours a day on campus. Boarding school is a transformative experience in learning to communicate with others, something a lot of people don’t get until college, if at all.

 

 

The sense of community and personal growth

 A 2011 survey  found 31% of boarding school students surveyed, said the thing they loved most about boarding school was the community atmosphere created within the school dynamic.

Academics are important, but when students get together after they’ve graduated and moved on to university and then successful careers, it's not the great history class they remember, but their time in the wilderness, the dorm life, or other memborable moments. It's a bond that binds men and boys, women and girls, of different ages and cultures.

A  boarding school allows students to learn lessons of other cultures and travels. For a child to be exposed to that diversity gave him / her a need to kind of go out there and have a thirst for the world.

So why wait for all the adventure of dorm life in university when you can experience it in high school?

Strong academic opportunities

Boarding school offer other pros, such as the opportunity for students to foster intense connections with their teachers, in part due to smaller, more intimate class sizes.

The outlook of teachers at boarding schools regarding their position isn't that of a job, but more of a vocation, where they become an important role model in each of their students' lives. Teachers work with students, share meals and often live on campus, making it a difficult environment to duplicate anywhere else.

Preparation for life after school

While the educational experience at the boarding school is important to personal and educational growth and development, it's also a precursor to life after school. Research has shown that boarding school students feel more prepared for college and university than their peers, and are more likely to earn more advanced degrees like a Master's or PhD, and advance to more prominent roles in their careers and communities.

The move to post-secondary education can be a difficult transition for many. Being away from the support system of family and long-time friends and the challenges of becoming acquainted with a new place and style of learning can bear a heavy burden.

The best boarding schools have a unique environment that prepares students for whatever larger world they are entering, be that academic, entrepreneurial, socially active, or anything in between. 

 

Samarjit Singh Sandhu

Punjab International Public School

Pojewal,  Distt. Nawanshahar

9592949991