Patrick:
“The quality of applications was so strong BSA has awarded the Boarding Fellowship to two members of the boarding community as a reflection of the high quality of entries – a fitting result during our Golden Jubilee year as we celebrate excellence and professional development in the sector.” Tony Little, BSA Honorary President
W
hen the Head of Rockport College, George vance, informed me I had been selected as one of the inaugural BSA Boarding Fellows, I couldn’t have been more delighted.
The Fellowship, like all of the new and innovative developments and outreach activities from the BSA in this Jubilee Year, represents another opportunity to platform and credit some of the outstanding boarding pastoral care and relationship-building in our sector. My project study focuses around Standard 12 of the National Minimum Standards – Promoting Positive Relationships. There is a special emphasis on how boarding schools develop and maintain trust and how this is linked to issues of attachment and the work of Bowlby. Sir Anthony Bowlby (also ex-boarder), along with Mary Ainsworth, are the key theorists in Attachment Theory. Their work could be best summarised in the statement that ‘to thrive emotionally, children need a close and continuous caregiving relationship’ (Bretherton, 1992). Critics of boarding draw on their work (even though it is over 40 years old) to suggest that the boarding experience is one that, due to disengagement from parents and poor attachment to boarding care-givers, leads inevitably to creating young people with issues of anxiety and insecurity that become foundational for future social interactions and mental health issues.
This is the ‘Paddington Bear’ view of abandonment/ care-provision that pays scant attention to the modern role of the child in selecting boarding as an active choice and the co-curricular offers that boarding schools now make to aid boarders in their transitions into and beyond boarding. My study is then an attempt to counter this position by drawing attention to the exemplary pastoral work that is taking place in contemporary boarding schools and underpinned by the NMS. Whether in terms of pre-visits, induction, flexi-boarding, buddy systems, peer-mentoring, alumni links, semi-independent living or policies that attend to the needs of all preferences or stakeholders, I believe there is substantial quantitative and qualitative evidence to show the sector is meeting the challenge of creating the type and style of long-lasting relationships between students and staff and students that are supplement, and not a surrogate, to family life. The project is also underpinned by a desire to engage with a range of parties to best provide a basis of evidence. This will include visits to boarding communities and engaging with organisations such as the Bowlby Centre, the Boarding Survivors Network and academics in the social science field. I am delighted these organisations have already welcomed my approaches in such a generous and openhearted way. In all, I look forward in the coming year to learning more myself about the excellent work of our sector and to contributing to the renewed energy and drive within the BSA to be vocal and proud of what is outstanding and worthy of acclaim within our sector.
Patrick Toland is Head of Boarding, Rockport College, Northern Ireland