Boarding is an “all in” experience at the Anglican Church Grammar School, says headmaster, Dr Alan Campbell. Better known as Churchie, the day and boarding school for boys in Brisbane doesn’t offer weekly boarding or flexible arrangements of that type, Campbell adds, because the school’s policy is to remain with the “traditional model of a residential community of pastoral care”.
“I think there is a growing trend for five-day and shorter stay boarding,” he says. “It perhaps it offers a degree of convenience and an efficient use of time in a busy family life.”
However, Churchie provides full-time boarders with “the full school experience, with a full round of sport and cultural activities, on Friday and Saturday, and then quite often, some recreational activities on a Sunday,” he adds.
More than 1800 students, from five-year-olds to adolescents in Year 12, are educated at Churchie, and the school houses more than 170 (Year 7 to Year 12) boarders.
Parents based as far afield as Papua New Guinea and Southeast Asia know their sons are provided with a full-time, 24/7 program at the school, with staff-members and their families living among the boarding students, Campbell says. Some families live in remote parts of Queensland, NSW or the Northern Territory, a 10- or 12-hour drive away, he adds, so it simply isn’t possible for them to pick up their boys for weekends.
“We want those families to know that there’s a community of care around their children all the time,” he says, noting that would be difficult if three-quarters of the boarders went home on Friday afternoon. “Then there’s a group of forlorn young people waiting around until Monday when their friends get back.”
Yet even full-time boarders are permitted to leave the school on three gazetted leave weekends in a nine- or 10-week term, Campbell says. Those whose families live within reasonable proximity to the school can go home for the weekend. Other boys might stay with extended family members. Boys from remote parts of Australia, or whose families are overseas, might be invited to stay by schoolmates, and visa versa during the holidays.
“I think in many ways, our urban-based families really appreciate that,” Campbell says, “and they show that commitment and appreciation of sharing the different backgrounds by opening their homes to boarders on the weekend.”