School News

Wymondham College Prep School caters for pupils aged four to 11 and opened its doors in September 2020 to its founding cohort of 60 Reception-aged pupils.

If you are looking for affordable boarding and a cracking all-round education for your children, you need look no further than this small group of effective and indeed, cost-effective schools. Put simply, parents of children at state boarding schools pay only for the boarding fee – broadly £11,000 to £18,000 per year – receiving in return a top-flight education and boarding experience. 

0ne of the great strengths of a boarding school education has always been the range of experiences on offer to children and young people lucky enough to board. 

In the fifteenth century, King’s Choristers were provided with meals and clothing, and eight pence a week for their board. Things have certainly changed since then!

State boarding is said to be one of the best kept secrets in education. I am happy to say it provides a viable, cost-effective and worthy alternative to boarding in the independent sector. At the moment there are 38 maintained or state-funded boarding schools which offer a diverse range of high quality educational experiences.  

Paying school fees is a major financial commitment for parents and is not to be undertaken lightly. Apart from a mortgage it is probably the largest expenditure parents can make. The opportunity to spread the payment load is limited as most schools require settlement of the previous term’s fees before allowing a pupil to return for the next term. Consequently, new cars and holidays often have to take a back seat and both parents may need to work to cover even the basic fee. Independent education is therefore, by any standards, a large financial commitment.

Any parent considering a boarding school for their child at 11+ or 13+ entry is certain to discover that changes to the main curriculum options at ages 14–16 (Years 10 and 11) – GCSEs and IGCSEs – will become relevant for their son or daughter in the coming years. 

Boarding schools are now almost invariably multicultural and multidimensional, flexibly trying to respond to the complexity of the modern world by providing a traditional breadth of opportunities but doing this with a real striving for quality. This change is fully reflected in sixth-form provision.