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Being a new prep school boarder
Being anew prep school
Being a new prep school boarder is an ideal way for pupils to get a first taste of boarding and prepare them for what life will be like if they go on to a senior boarding school.
Underwood Hall is Wymondham College Prep School’s new mixed boarding house for pupils in Years 5 and 6. Despite being a brand new boarding house and school, we are the prep school to the well-known and well-established Wymondham College. An important aspect of the culture that we are looking to grow is that we are very much ‘prep by name and prep by nature’. We are truly looking to prepare boarders for the start of a long boarding journey with the College. Our proximity to the College has created an excellent opportunity to involve older and more seasoned boarders in helping the prep school boarders learn what an exciting opportunity living away from home can be. We have welcomed the older boarders into Underwood Hall where they have helped with, and sometimes led, evening and weekend activities, provided an extra pair of eyes during prep and offered the younger boaders a sounding board, other than a member of staff, to talk about boarding life.
Before the prep boarding house opened, we carefully planned our induction programme. Over the first few weeks of term we planned when to deliver key pieces of information so as to drip feed information rather than offering it in one unmanageable load. As well as teaching new routines and new expectations, all our induction activity centred around children getting to know each other and the staff team, us getting to know them and, importantly, there being plenty of fun and laughter.
MAKING A BOARDING HOUSE INTO A HOME
An early challenge of opening a new boarding house has been to break down the inevitable clinical feel of a large new build and make it into a home. From the beginning we have emphasised that Underwood Hall is not ‘my’ boarding house but ‘our’ boarding house and we have involved the boarders in the decisionmaking process as much as possible. For example, we have consulted boarders about topics such as routine, activities, trips, interior design, garden design and food. We have involved them very closely in terms of setting the tone and the culture of the house and this has played a really important part in making the boarding house into a home.
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being helpful. We celebrate boarders who demonstrate these things on a weekly basis via a system of rewards directly related to our core values.
A priority has been to keep boarders busy and to limit device time. Although boarders are allowed a device that connects to the internet, we restrict device time to an hour a day so there is plenty of time to contact family and friends. This leaves time to interact and engage in activities and games even if this is something as simple as a game of cards, a game of table tennis or a kickabout on the astroturf. One of the enormous benefits of boarding after all is that you are never short of company, an opponent or a teammate.
It is interesting that when interviewing prospective boarders, the thing they anticipate liking the most is being around their friends all the time. I am always pleased to tell them, and their parents, that this is one of several aspects that our boarders would say is the best thing about Underwood Hall, together with the sense of camaraderie that boarding brings – hard to replicate elsewhere.
Jon Timmins is Acting Head of Wymondham College Prep School and Head of Underwood Hall. He has extensive boarding experience in both the independent sector and state sector having worked previously at Junior Kings Canterbury and St George’s, Harpenden. Jon and his wife Maria live in Underwood Hall with their two children, Jess and Charlie, who both attend Wymondham College.
