The Many Benefits of a Boarding Education
[Sponsored Article] Boarding life at Marlborough College Malaysia is deeply valued and is an integral part of the pastoral care that is provided. Marlborough College has 175 years of tradition and heritage and this expertise is now available in Asia where pupils from Year 5 (age 9) through to Upper Sixth (age 18) are given the opportunity to experience a true British boarding education in one of six Houses.
[Sponsored Article]
Boarding life at Marlborough College Malaysia is deeply valued and is an integral part of the pastoral care that is provided. Marlborough College has 175 years of tradition and heritage and this expertise is now available in Asia where pupils from Year 5 (age 9) through to Upper Sixth (age 18) are given the opportunity to experience a true British boarding education in one of six Houses.
The boarding programme is modelled on the boarding experience at Marlborough College UK with a near identical structure and routine in each House. There are four Senior Boarding Houses and two Junior Boarding Houses, each with a Housemaster or Housemistress, Resident House Tutor, Dame and team of visiting tutors. Boarding offers pupils an opportunity to enjoy the full range of first-class facilities on campus and the College ensures that every weekend is filled with fun activities such as cultural trips to Singapore, paint balling, go-karting and laser-questing. Formal dinners and boarders BBQ suppers are part of boarding life, which provides pupils with the chance to relax with their friends outside of the classroom and to also learn vital social skills, manners and etiquette, developing their communication skills by socialising with adults, College guests and peers.
Pupils entering Marlborough College Malaysia join a community steeped in the tradition of placing compassion, companionship and conversation at the heart of its educational philosophy along with its history of holistic education and academic excellence.
HMC Head Alan Stevens, Master of prestigious boarding school Marlborough College Malaysia on the myriad benefits that boarding offers pupils and parents alike.
My wife and I were taken aback when our shy 11 year-old son announced that he wanted to board at school. With every expectation that he would be back by teatime for home cooking and his comfy bedroom, we arranged a few trial nights in a boarding house where he shared a room with 5 other boys of his age.
He did come home, of course, but only to collect the rest of his belongings and tell us that he’d see us at exeat three weeks later (the weekend off). Five years on and we still see him at exeats and we adore our time together as a family on holidays. He loves coming home, but he regards his boarding house as a second home and his friends as an extension of his family. Even those who have moved away, some to other countries, enjoy a special bond and remain in touch by electronic means, planning reunions which we can already see will become a beautiful feature of his adult life.
For several reasons, boarding is a hugely popular choice for those for whom it’s an option. For some children, it gives them a unique opportunity to experience lasting friendships and stability while their parents’ occupations take them away from home; it’s not unusual, for example, for the son or daughter of a soldier to have had nine different homes and schools by the age of 11.
For others, boarding creates valuable time which would otherwise be absorbed by long bus journeys to and from school. Some appreciate the structure of prep (supervised homework) during week nights and the abundance of support from the range of pastoral and subject specialists who live in a boarding school. As boarders grow older, typically they enjoy greater privacy and independence, with Sixth Formers in most schools having private study/bedrooms which often make university digs look quite shabby.
Many, particularly those in the Sixth Form, enjoy a level of independence from their parents which, while still being cared for within school, provides an invaluable experience of communal living before they move away to university. The practicalities of compromise and the development of heightened emotional intelligence as sensitivities to others’ needs become part of everyday living, produce great maturity.
Boarding today’s as far removed from Tom Brown’s Schooldays as quidditch is from the modern sports facilities and swimming pools which today’s boarders can enjoy and which rival many private sports clubs. Moreover, full boarding schools offer a selection of weekend adrenaline-filled activities for teenagers which are simply beyond the time and energy available to even the most indulgent of parents – it’s not unusual to find boarders regularly engaging in Sunday go-kart racing, paintballing, skating, scuba diving and much more.
As our son enters the Sixth Form and towers over his mother, poised, confident, well-rounded and accomplished, my wife and I agree that there are few better ways to invest in a child’s future
Marlborough College has opened a second campus and is a genuine expansion, not a franchise, of Marlborough College Wiltshire. The Preparatory School takes pupils from age 3 and the Senior School includes a Sixth Form to age 18.
