Leave weekends

[SAS]

We also share travel when we can with another local-ish family (hello, SAS! if you are reading this).

Hello Yadayada!

[ailurophile]

MW224 wrote:

We would not have considered CH if our DS would only come home for half terms / holidays. The leave weekends are a wonderful opportunity for our DS to not only see us and his siblings, but also his friends and extended family. He can have a bit of time all by himself, which ofcourse our children rarely get.He can sulk, 'let rip' fully be himself for a bit. Haircuts, new clothes, eyetests etc etc are all carefully planned and packed into these weekends. I understand it's tough for some families but personally I d travel the earth to come and get him every 3 weeks.His 2 little brothers have a calendar counting the days till he comes home, it's nothing but pure joy for all of us.

Quite right; boarding schools have had to move with the times and nowadays I doubt whether you would find many parents or children willing to countenance being separated for months on end! But the cost of fuel/ public transport is rising far more steeply than income and for families who have to travel long distances to CH the burden is considerable, even if you have tried to budget for this at the outset.

I wonder whether the Foundation take this factor into account when calculating what a 'needy' family are likely to be able to afford? At the state sixth form college which my DS currently attends, all students who live outside an 8 mile radius are given a travel bursary of £200 pa; this by no means covers the full cost of train or bus fares, but every little helps!

[J.R.]

It just shows you how much times change over 50 years or so.

In my day, 1958-1963, you got to see your parent/s for half a day, (Saturdays), three times each term, if memory serves ! And that was it.

OK, the length of holidays was far greater than pupils in state school.

Have the holidays been shortened to allow for the mid-term breaks ?

[Volupturaptor]

I knew about the distance, I knew about leave weekends, I knew it would cost money. But could anyone have predicted just how sharply the cost of fuel would rise? I know I didn't.

I have been in touch with a couple of local(-ish) families with regard to journey sharing, but so far this has yet to result in the sharing of a (car) journey. My daughter has been by train for the half terms with some older girls, but this can only work when the older girls are actually doing the trip, (which they generally don't for weekends) as I consider eleven just a little too young to be alone in a large station trying to find her connecting train. As soon as she feels confident enough to do this alone, problem solved, but I'm not going to push her!

I don't know how holidays now compare to those of fifty years ago, but they are significantly longer than those of state schools. Two half terms of a week each, plus one of two weeks. Four weeks at Christmas, three weeks at Easter and nine over the summer! I make that twenty weeks out of fifty two. Wow! I'd not totted them up like that before!

[J.R.]

Easter and Christmas holidays look about the same at four week, though I seem to remember the summer break was longer than nine weeks.

JH ?

[Katharine]

As I remember Horsham Summer holidays in the late 50s - my brother would come home in the week of his birthday 26th July, depending which day of the week it was some years he was home but not always. He went back about the time of my mother's birthday September 15th.

[Ineedacoffee]

Dearest Volupturaptor! I only heard about leave weekend complication AFTER it had been sorted! As you know my dd is a big fan of your dd. We are just less than 2 hours on the train/tube/train. We most often take train to collect, but dd will start meeting us at Victoria on her own soonish. Your dd is always welcome at our humble flat. I know our dd would love that. Please never be shy about asking. I will make sure you have my mobile. X

[Volupturaptor]

Thank-you Ineedacoffee, and to others who have sent me PM's, you know who you are.

[Kit Bartlett]

Leave weekends were of course unheard of way back. Parents were allowed up to three visits per term I believe
but not during the first three weeks or so. Some boys never had a parental visit. I suppose that this was due to the expense of travel in most cases. Curiously in my experience this was never commented upon by anyone. I do not remember much if any discussion about parental circumstances at all. A number of people were from single parent families which term was not of course used then. Mostly they would have lost their father.
Chris Bartlett

[DavidRawlins]

Almost all children from a single parent family had had a parent who had died. This was more commonly their father (if their mother had died they were more likely to be taken into care or adopted). Times have changed a lot.

[ailurophile]

My DS reports that from September all pupils will be allowed to go home on any weekend after Saturday lessons; he's rather taken with the idea of spending every Sunday at home with long lie-ins, no chapel and mum's home cooking! (Of course, he doesn't seem to have considered the additional cost of weekly travel in this happy scheme!).

Has anyone else's DC mentioned this? I'm wondering if DS might be confused with the introduction of weekly boarding?

[Atticus]

But what about actives, and the film nights/discos/in house nights?

Dd hasn't heard this, but has said that she wouldn't want to come home every weekend! ( she wants to go back to school already . I'm sure this is a good thing )

[ailurophile]

But what about actives, and the film nights/discos/in house nights?

I suspect my DS might willingly forgo the odd disco or film night if it meant he could avoid chapel the next morning! In any case, he seems to think that pupils will be allowed to pick and choose whether and when they want to go home. I'm with you though Atticus, I think that this has the potential to open a whole can of worms, which is why I wonder if DS might have got hold of the wrong end of the stick.

[pinkhebe]

Hmm I'm not sure about this either, I feel it could mean that some of the houses could be quite empty at the weekends, which I think, could in turn mean, that there is resentment between the pupils who were able to go home and those who are unable to. In fact on the Day Pupils thread, in the CH stuff section, this has been brought up as happening already.

My son hasn't mentioned anything about this either, we do already take him out two Sundays every half term for lunch, but I don't know if he wants to actually come home (although a lie in and missing chapel might be quite an incentive!)

[pinkhebe]

Spoke to son, he was slightly unwilling to comment on whether he'd like weekly boarding until I mentioned that I doubted whether he'd want to come home every weekend, then he was more than happy to say that he wouldn't want to come home every weekend. And thinking about it, surely that's one of the positive things about boarding, spending the weekends with your mates!