Boarding schools: pupils' suffering has been ignored for too long

http://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/2014/may/10/the-big-issue-boarding-schools-abuse

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We applaud Alex Renton's courageous article about abuse and neglect in boarding schools ("Abuse in Britain's boarding schools: why I decided to confront my demons", Magazine). The suffering caused by the British habit of sending children away from parental love and the safety of their homes to educational institutions has been ignored for much too long. Materially rich but emotionally poor, with small classes, large playing fields but "no hugs", as Renton puts it – boarders lose out on a normal childhood. Children may learn to function competently, but at the cost of dissociation from their feelings of abandonment, even if there is no outright abuse. The ex-boarder may never develop emotional intelligence.

To most people, the inherent wrong of early boarding is obvious, as was clear from the majority of comments on Renton's article. For those requiring more convincing, the evidence is weighty and wide-ranging. Attachment theory plus the work of clinicians over the last two decades and now the findings of neuroscience leave no doubt about the psycho-emotional consequences of depriving children of touch, warmth and a "secure base".

The privileges of boarding education can no longer compensate its cost to our society. Its elitism is at odds with the goals of an inclusive liberal social democracy; it remains a major force in the sidelining of women and the maintenance of an outdated class system. If boarding once played a role in preparing men for the rigours and cruelties of an imperial age, our present interdependent world calls for a different, more complex and caring set of values. We call for an end to early boarding along with the privations that are demonstrably detrimental to children's wellbeing.

Felicity de Zulueta, Tavistock Clinic; Professor Joy Schaverien, University of Leeds and Sheffield University NHS Trust; Dr Susie Orbach, psychoanalyst Don Boyd, film director; Kate White, editor, Attachment Journal; Emerald Davis, Lindsay Hamilton, the Bowlby Centre; Pippa Foster, Darrel Hunneybell, Boarding Recovery; Nicola Miller, Russell Bowman, Simon Partridge, Boarding School Survivors; Dr Alastair MacIntosh, broadcaster and writer; AL Kennedy, broadcaster and writer; Mark Smalley, radio producer; Sally Fraser, Boarding School Action; Peter Saunders, NAPAC; Danny Dorling, Marston, Oxford; Nick Duffell, psychotherapy trainer and psychohistorian; George Monbiot; Orit Badouk Epstein, Attachment-based psychoanalytic psychotherapist; Michael Goldfarb, freelance writer; Professor Andrew Samuels, University of Essex; Barry Sheerman MP (former chair of the Select Committee for Children, Schools and Families); John Tosh, Professor of History, Roehampton University

Alex Renton's compelling account of his time at school once more exposes the systemic failure of the child-protection "framework". Whenever an abuse incident is exposed, we hear from all quarters that "everything is different now".  My response to this is very simple: Southbank International school, Hillside first school, Bishop Bell, Little Heath primary. The very recent failures in child protection at all these schools contradict any such assertions.  I was serially sexually abused at Caldicott school in 1967. I was the first person to file a complaint, and the multiple convictions that followed demonstrate that the school had been specifically targeted by perpetrators.  At that time, there was no requirement to report suspected or known abuse: it was discretionary. The situation is exactly the same today.  Your child has no statutory right to have his or her known rape reported to anyone. Private schools are presented with a further conflict of interest by the Department for Education's "statutory guidance", because no law is broken for failing to report the worst news any fee-receiving institution can inflict on its balance sheet. 

To deliver culture change, the legislative catalyst of mandatory reporting must be applied to all institutional settings. Until then, children will continue to be abused and no one will know.  

Tom Perry @MandateNow, Amersham

We welcome Alex Renton's contribution to the debate about children living in institutions. In the British care system, we aim to place looked-after children in foster families rather than children's homes. When we know that children need love and attention within a family, why do we deprive boarders of this?

Suggestions that children choose to board implies that these children made an informed decision. This might be true for those over 16; it is not true for those under the "age of consent". There is a trade-off to going away to boarding school. Shuttered emotional development, clinging to institutional life, compared with growing up normally within their family and community.

Boarding Concern

London