Empty nest! Leon flies the coop.
Our 16 year old and youngest son is now studying at a state boarding school in the UK!
Our oldest son, Alfie, left us to study in Osaka a few years ago, so now we’re faced with the task of finding our own ways together again as husband and wife team. ‘Pop the champagne!’ Our resident creative director and teacher, Dan said on hearing the news. However in fact… now that they are both gone - we honestly miss them dearly. We feel like we raised them well enough that they contributed plenty to the family cause and behaved very well for the most part. So in essence, there’s a space left now which can never be filled.
The school, The Royal Alexandra and Albert School (RAAS) - is amazing. It’s very old, founded in 1758 and is set within a national park that is only open to the public on Sundays and holidays. All other times, it’s exclusive to the current students ranging from year 7 to 13. It is a mix of boarders and locals. Leon’s dorm is the original family home of an old English favorite, the Colman mustard founder.
I’m writing this as advice and inspiration for children of British nationals who would like to study or live abroad. You need to have a British parent and your child needs their British passport.
Hopefully, this will help you to be more prepared than we were. In the end, everything worked out OK for us and Leon was able to get in. We had no idea state boarding schools even existed initially until 3 weeks before the application deadline. In some cases the application period had closed! Tuition is free, you pay for the room and board.
There are about 36 boarding schools throughout the UK. They range from single sex, co-ed, military and beyond. We contacted the 6 schools we were most interested in and even though the application period had passed for 3 of the schools, they still accepted our application and conducted interviews. (We wrote them an explanation about why we had missed the deadline). We particularly liked RAAS because of the large number of boarders from abroad, the large numbers of boarders in general and its proximity to London.
The procedure is as follows: The application period for some schools ends in the fall of the year before you wish to join, but most schools close theirs at the end of March. First you apply online. It takes about 40 minutes per school. Your child will need to write mini essays on why they want to go to that school and why they will be a good boarder. Once the application is received, the schools will set up online interviews with your child (and sometimes you, the parent or guardian). Your child will talk with the head of boarding, the head of the department they are interested in, and the principal. Most interviews were very thorough and lasted 30 minutes or more. It was very impressive to witness.
After that, a potential placement offer (dependent on your expected GCSE results) is sent. Leon received offers from 5 of the 6 schools he was interested in. It’s customary to choose one school and inform other schools about your decision.
This is where things became strange. GCSE results don’t arrive until the end of August (August 24th in our case) and school begins the beginning of September (September 4th for us). If you get your predicted grades and the required number (5 for most schools) it’s plain sailing. If not, you might need to negotiate with the school to re-take certain GCSE while studying for A levels or in the worst case, you won’t be accepted and you need to find and negotiate with another school to gain placement.
We were very lucky that Leon even had the required 5 GCSEs since he was homeschooled from junior high school. He chose the British system because he hoped to study in the UK for high school. Originally, he wanted to go to cooking school which didn’t have GCSE requirements, but that idea fell through since Leon changed focus with his studies.
In hindsight, we would have pushed Leon to take more GCSEs to give him some leeway if he hadn’t done well in other areas. He took 5, passed 5 and RAAS required 5. Also, this would give him the option to apply for the schools that required 6 GCSEs. All schools require math and English Language GCSEs and we could have chosen 6 - 7 more to do. Currently GCSEs can be taken at the British Council in Tokyo - Leon took some at the British School in Tokyo but I believe they are switching to IB and won’t offer GCSE anymore sometime soon.
They are mainly conducted in May and June but a few are in November and January. We recommend intensive study for any in November and January, then the majority in May/June you can afford to study less intensively. It’s nice to get some GCSEs out of the way to get the scores early which will help you predict your scores.
Be warned though, you have to sign up several months ahead of time in order to take these. For example: we signed up for May and June in January. Also, they aren’t cheap - at around ¥50,000 - ¥70,000 per test, you should have your priorities and focus determined beforehand.
The tests themselves are ‘GCSE’s if taken at BST or ‘iGCSE’s if distributed by Pearson or Cambridge International. Leon mainly studied by doing past test papers on his own, with online tutors (like our very own Amasha who teaches at our English school and is amazing!) and BBC Bitesize.
If you have any questions, feel free to contact me.