Modern times ask for modern measures and so also boarding schools are following the matter. Where it was so easy to evaluate the schools a couple of years ago, nowadays there are 52 National Minimum Standards to be taken into account when judging them. The goal of these standards is to promote welfare of the children in boarding schools.  This can be a good help when searching for a good boarding school and this is the reason why I want to share some of the rules with you.

First of all there shouldn’t be any corporal punishment. Boarding schools cannot prevent children from ringing their parents or sending them a letter. Moreover they cannot deny medical or dental attention to the children, children cannot be fined over two third of their pocket money and there is a minimum distance between the dormitory and the beds that should be taken into account. Furthermore the school should have, and follow, an appropriate policy on responding to complaints from the children and their parents, schools have to provide a good range and choice of activities for the students after teaching time and each border should have one or more staff members to turn to when he or she has a problem.

But these new rules don’t change the fact that the number of children going to an elementary boarding school is lower than ever and according to the director of the Boarding Schools’ Association this has a lot to do with the way parents remember their past in these schools. According to her, boarding schools have to be twice as good as other schools nowadays.

So the schools are trying everything to change the lack of interest, but it seems that the prejudices towards boarding schools won’t be erased this easily.