Finding the Right Boarding School as a Military Family
How an education consultant can help
Linda Lloyd-Jones, Senior Consultant at Claire Calder Consultancy, explains how an education consultant can help Forces families navigate the boarding school search and find the right school for their child.
For HM Forces families, choosing a boarding school often involves considerations that other families may not have to think about.
Postings, deployments and moves between countries can all affect family life. For many, boarding provides something particularly valuable: continuity. But once the decision to consider boarding has been made, another question quickly follows.
Which school is right for our child?
There are hundreds of boarding schools across the UK. Knowing which ones will genuinely suit your child can be difficult, particularly if you are researching schools while living overseas.
This is where an education consultant can help.
The child comes first
At Claire Calder Consultancy, we don't begin with a list of schools. We begin with your child.
What are they like? What do they enjoy? Are they academic, sporty, musical or creative? Would they thrive in a large, busy school or feel happier in a smaller environment? What level of pastoral support might they need?
There may be specific considerations too. A child with dyslexia or other additional learning needs may need specialist support. A talented athlete or musician may need a school where they can pursue their interests seriously alongside their academic work.
The right school is different for every child.
For families still deciding whether boarding itself is the right choice, we have also looked at some of the questions parents may want to consider before making that decision.
Understanding the realities of Forces family life
This is something particularly close to us at Claire Calder Consultancy.
Claire and I both spent many years as military wives and we have both been boarding parents ourselves. Our children started boarding at a young age, so we understand the decision from the parent's side as well as professionally.
Between us, we have lived with our families in the USA, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Germany and Nigeria.
We understand the realities of postings, living overseas and making important decisions about children's education from hundreds or sometimes thousands of miles away.
We also understand why stability can matter so much. A boarding school can provide continuity for a child when other parts of family life are changing, but only if it is the right school for that particular child.
Knowing the schools
There is only so much you can learn from a website or prospectus.
At Claire Calder Consultancy, we regularly visit boarding schools across the UK, meeting heads, admissions teams and boarding staff, seeing the boarding houses and getting a feel for the atmosphere of the school.
Some schools are highly academic. Others have particular strengths in sport, music or the arts. Some offer excellent provision for pupils with additional learning needs. Boarding houses themselves can also feel very different from one school to another.
That first-hand knowledge helps us look beyond what appears on paper and think about where an individual child is most likely to be happy.
Helping you through the process
An education consultant can make a complicated school search feel much more manageable.
At Claire Calder Consultancy, we can help families identify suitable schools, create a shortlist, arrange visits and guide them through applications, admissions tests and interviews.
For Forces families based overseas, we can also help bridge the distance between home and school, answering questions and helping families understand their options when visiting several schools in person may simply not be practical. We can also advise on practical considerations such as guardianship when required.
Most importantly, our role isn't to tell you which school to choose. It is to help you understand the choices and give you the reassurance to make the decision that feels right for your family.
Looking beyond the prospectus
Academic results and facilities are important, but there are other questions we think matter just as much.
Will somebody notice if your child is having a difficult day? Will they make friends? Will they feel comfortable in their boarding house? Will the school understand them as an individual? And will they be excited to go back at the beginning of the next term?
Good pastoral care is an important part of this, and something we always encourage parents to look at carefully when considering a school.
Those are the things that can turn a good school into the right school.
For us, a successful placement isn't simply securing a place. It is hearing later that a child has settled, made friends and is thriving.
Claire Calder Consultancy provides free, independent and impartial boarding school advice to HM Forces families. If you are considering boarding and would like to talk through the options for your child, please do get in touch. Sometimes an initial conversation is all it takes to make the process feel rather more manageable.
Visit the Claire Calder website: https://clairecalderconsultancy.com/
Article written by Linda Lloyd-Jones, Senior Consultant at Claire Calder Consultancy and shared with permission.
Comments