Boarding school and vacations.

[yellowallamanda]

I'm writing a story set in a steampunkish fantasy world. One of the characters go to a boarding school in an England inspired country

Comments

[reapermum]

Try using "holiday" instead of "vacation" in your searches, we don't have vacations in the UK.

[yellowallamanda]

Thank you. I can be a bit dense at times XD.

[janewilliams20]

Thinking back to my own school days (a mixed day/boarding schol, I was day), the foreign students often stayed in the UK for the shorter holidays (holidays, not "vacation", though that may vary from one school to another). It was just too far to fly back to Hong Kong for only a week or so. I'm not sure if they stayed in school, some may have stayed with friends.
Fiction I've read set at boarding schools also seems to regard this as acceptable, if unusual.

[foreign_xchange]

fellow Hong Kong boarder child here :) hello!

[janewilliams20]

AS I say, I was a day pupil, I only lived about 10 miles from school. ButI had a lot of Hong Kong friends in my sixth form maths class in particular. This was back in the 70s/80s, I expect things have changed.

[foreign_xchange]

oh I should have read that less fast, I got all excited :)

[akcipitrokulo]

AFAIk, not impossible, especially if parents are otherwise engaged/absent - but they have holidays not vacations which may help :)

[oh_mumble]

At my school, which had a very high population of foreign students, kids who couldn't/didn't want to go home over holidays either stayed with their house parents (who lived on-site and so would be there the whole time) or with a 'host parent' - someone living nearby who would act as a grandparent/aunt/etc. One of my friends also stayed with the school's Reverend in holidays.

It would only be for shorter holidays, though - Easter/Christmas/summer, you would be expected to go home, or stay with friends/host families, and not be on-site.

[clanwilliam]

There was definitely precedent for it within the past 70 years or so, if not later, and it was an early school story trope (even Jane Eyre has it!) of the child either dumped at school by their family who don't want them or stuck there because their parents are somewhere (often India, back in the days of the Raj) and they have no other family in the UK.

Even now, some boarding schools provide options for children whose parents are overseas, particularly those whose parents are in unsafe places. Nowadays though, there's a lot more emphasis on family life so many of these children (usually teenagers) will stay with host families in the holidays.
This might give you an idea of how it's handled now.