Boarding School Awareness Course

Boarding School Awareness is an online collective course to support people in developing awareness and recognition of the impact their Boarding School experience may have had on their development as children and their subsequent behaviour as adults. Many children receive the message from parents and society that it is a huge privilege for them to go to Boarding School. This can result in dismissing their own painful experiences and not acknowledging the impact that growing up in an institution without love can have on them. 

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This course comprises 8 modules in which we collectively start to explore some of the ways your Boarding School experience may have impacted you.

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• Arrival & first day at school. 

• Survival Personality Formation.

• Puberty and adolescence in a Boarding School. 

• Taking care of ourselves

• Intimacy & romantic relationships.

• Parenting and family life.

• Integration & coming home.

• Goodbye and Endings.

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Who is this Course for?

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This course is for you if you have an awareness that Boarding School may have impacted you and have not found the space or people to feel safe enough to be able to explore your thoughts and feelings about this.

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This is a mixed-gender course as I believe we have much to learn and experience from one another and to counter some of the negative impacts of growing up in single-sexed institutions.

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See if any of these below resonate:

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• You find it hard to ask for help and can often push yourself to exhaustion before allowing yourself to rest.

• You find it hard to express your feelings and feel shame for showing your vulnerability.

• You feel you have to be grateful for your Boarding School experience.

• You have low-self esteem masked by an outwardly confident exterior.

• You keep one foot out of intimate relationships and don't allow yourself to fully love your partner or be loved.

• Your fear of abandonment can cause you to stay in unhealthy relationships.

• You can fit in everywhere but feel you belong nowhere.

• You struggle to parent your own teenagers as you have no blueprint on how to do it. 

• You find it hard to trust others and often feel safer being by yourself. 

• You have a deep feeling of loneliness that no amount of company can take away.

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Session Overview

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Arrival and first day at School: In this first module we meet for the first time, and start to connect and meet one another. We begin building the trust and safety that is needed to be able to comfortably explore these topics together.  We will begin by exploring our own personal experiences of the lead-up and experience of our first day at school. We will look at the ways young children manage that transition from home life to school life and that threshold moment as they transition from one to the other.  You will have the opportunity to reflect on what that was like for you and collectively start to understand how you adapted to this change.

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Survival Personality Formation: In this session, we go deeper into exploring how you developed your own strategy to cope with growing up in an institution. What character adaptations you had to make and what helped you manage when you had no regular parental support.

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Puberty and adolescence in a Boarding School: Here we explore the impact of going through puberty and adolescence in a boarding school, where you may have had no privacy and the only role models for relationships may have been other pupils.  We explore how this impacted your own sexuality and development.     

   

Taking Care Of Ourselves: In this module, we explore our own ways of looking after ourselves.  What it is like to take care of yourself and how you do it.  How do you manage when you are ill?  Do you take pride in being independent and not needing anyone? How do you start to be compassionate to yourself when you had to grow up alone and do this for yourself? We explore ways in which we can regulate our emotions and allow ourselves to trust and receive care from others.      

 

Parenting and Family Life: Together we will explore the difficulties that may arise within your own present day  family and difficulties you may have with parenting your own children if you have them. Finding a way to parent when you have no blueprint for parenting as you were brought up in an institution can be difficult. We will also look at your own feelings and relationship with your own parents and siblings which may be conflicting. 

 

Intimacy & Romantic Relationships: Here we start to look at how your present-day relationships may be impacted by your School experience.  How you may find it hard to let yourself get close to others and how this may have created an attachment pattern that feels hard to change.

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Integration & Coming Home: In this module, we start to acknowledge the lost part of ourselves that may have got split off when attending school.  We explore what happens if we don't give a voice to this part and start to find a way to integrate the part of us that has needs and wants and can learn to express them.

 

Goodbye and Endings:  In this final module we come together, reflect on our learning together, the connections we have made, and find a way to say goodbye, that does not reflect our past school experiences. 

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How might it benefit me?

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• You will increase your awareness of some of the common themes that ex-boarders struggle with as adults and realise that you are not alone.

• You will gain an understanding of the impact that being sent to boarding school at a young age can have on a child's development.

• You will learn about the impact on children's sexual development of going through puberty in Boarding School. 

• You will start to understand your own way of being and how it may have been shaped by your School experience.

• You will feel held and supported by others in the group as we explore this together.

• You will start to find ways that you can take care of yourself and receive care from others.

• You will have a space to be seen, heard, and witnessed, and your story be told.

• Throughout the course, you will build trust, safety, and connection and feel less alone.

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If you read this and feel this may help you to understand yourself better, benefit your relationships, and start to heal your own wounds, then come and join me.

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Online Live Session Dates 2023

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Time - 6.30 pm - 8 pm

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• Thursday 31st  August               Arrival & First Day at School.

• Thursday 14th September.       Survival Personality Formation.

• Thursday 28th September.       Puberty and adolescence in a boarding school.

• Thursday 12th October             Taking Care of Yourselves

• Thursday 26th October.              Intimacy and relationships.

• Thursday 9th November.            Parenting and Family Life.

• Thursday 23rd November.          Integration & Coming Home.

• Thursday 7th December.            Goodbye and Endings

 

Each session will be held live on a Thursday evening commencing on August 31st and hosted by Amelia White. 

 

All sessions will be held live via Zoom from 7 - 8.30 pm.

 

Please try and attend the live sessions, however, if you are unable to join us live, these sessions will be recorded and made available afterward.

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Our Facebook Group will commence on the day of the Course and workbooks will be emailed after each live session.

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The cost for this 4 month programme is £450.

 

If you pay before July 31st, you can get it at the early bird price of £397.

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Contact me for the option to pay in installments.  

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When does this start?

 

The next intake for this will be on Thursday, August 31st.

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