Sarah Ebner's School Gate blog

Cold showers, draughty dormitories and lumpy food have traditionally been inflicted on generations of boarding school children in the name of character building.

Boarding schools are challenging what they describe as outdated perceptions with a summer campaign to rebrand the experience as luxurious rather than spartan. They say that some of today’s pupils enjoy a five-star standard of living, with en suite bathrooms and Olympic-standard sports facilities.

Despite the schools’ reputation for excessive fees, headteachers say they offer value to parents struggling with rising utility bills, childcare costs and expensive after-school hobbies.

Modern pupils are likely to be the envy of those scarred by the experience of old-style boarding schools. The Prince of Wales described Gordonstoun, which he attended in the 1960s, as a hell hole.

More than 70,000 children board at independent and state schools. The Boarding Schools’ Association says that the number of boarders has risen in the past year. It wants to “improve public understanding of boarding” and is considering holding a national open day in the near future.

Melvyn Roffe, head of Wymondham College, a state boarding school in Norfolk that charges £8,200 a year, and the new chairman of the association, said: “People think [boarding-school education] is old-fashioned, expensive and elitist, when, if you look at the range of schools available, it gives a different perspective.

“Teenagers have increased autonomy, often doing their own washing and cleaning.” While younger pupils are often six to a room, older students are normally given private bedrooms with en suite bathrooms.

They enjoy outstanding music and sport facilities.

Mr Roffe agreed that some parents chose boarding to protect their children from what they saw as the dangers of teenage life, such as gangs and alcohol, but added: “We don’t want them sequestered away from the real world.”

Frances Landells, 18, has just taken her A-levels at St Leonards-Mayfield School in East Sussex. Her mother, Helen, said: “She was shy and suffered from slight dyslexia so we didn’t want her to go to sixth-form college.

“She won a scholarship to St Leonards-Mayfield, which helped, but we had to find the other half of the £20,000 fees. In our case, it’s been fantastic value for money.

“She loved it from the start. Rather than being austere it had a very good atmosphere and its own sixth-form dining room. She had her own room and made lots of friends.”

Frances said from Hong Kong, where she is on holiday with schoolfriends: “I was quite nervous to begin with, but my mum said it would give me lots of independence, and that I could come home at weekends.

“Everyone was friendly when I first arrived and there were lots of other new girls. It took a while to stop being homesick but I always had people to speak to about it.”

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