Figure 1.--The prep school program exposes children to a wide range of academic desciplines and activities and affords them the opportunity to develop those skills. Many schhols stress, however, that the program is not just about academics, fine arts, or athletics, but even more importantly character building. |
One aspect that many prep schools stress is personal develoment. Note the number of schools which stress the goal of helping a child realize their capabilities and preparing for a full life. This is much more common than any focus on academic, artistic, or athletic achievement. Most schools attach great importance to personal development. Here they are not just talking about skills, but often character and values. While academic skills have increased in importance, modern preparatory schools still seek to provide an education that includes more than just academic subjects designed to teach facts and skills. Prep schools continue to lay great stress in building character. This is especially true of the boarding schools. While much has changed at Britain's prep schools, the core of the program continues with many of the basic approaches. The modern prep schools, like their Victorian predecesors, continue to promote values.
Developing skills is perhaps the most obvious aspect of personal development associated with any school. Here the prep schools generally excell because of the level of individual attention possible. Many schools, like the All Hallows school in Somerset, stress in their prospectus that, "The aim of the school is to give each pupil every oportunity to discover personal abilities and to develop them to the full." Of course here we are not just talking about academic skills, but other program skills include athletic, artistic, musical skills. Here the schools attemp tgo provide a wide range of opportunities for the children to experience and experoment swith different activities. These aspects are discussed in more detail in the program section of oue E-book.
While academic skills have increased in importance, modern preparatory schools still seek to provide an education that includes more than just academic subjects designed to teach facts and skills. Living away from home for the first time is a major change in a child's life. They are presented with a range of character building challenges. Prep schools continue to lay great stress in social skills and building character. Most schools seek to help character by establishing a system where the children can achieve privliges and assume increasing responsibility as he or she matures. A 9-year old may.help care for the class bunny. A 10-year old may be responsible for keeping the blackboard clean or serve as the ink monitor. An 11-year old may be the postman or librarian. The 12 and 13-year old may become prefects or house captains.
One skill that is often ignored when discussing the prep school program are persinal skills. The children, especially at boarding schools, quickly learn to respect the rights and feelings of others. It is in the nature of the younger children to be very self centered. Some of these children come from pampered home enviroments. Many are only children. Thus learning to respect the rights of others and to sometimes give in and not insist on your own way is a very important learning experience. Of course this happens at state day schools as well, but the prep school experience is structured so as to promote this learning experience. Schools vary as to the attention given to this learning experience. Associate with this is the fact that children at this age form very strong friendships. There is nothing quite like your friends at 10-12 years of age that can never be recaptured as you grow older. Living together and experience challenges on sports teams with friends is a powerful; experience.
While much has changed at Britain's prep schools, the core of the program continues with many of the basic approaches. The modern prep schools, like their Victorian predecesors, continue to promote values. The outward appearances of schools may have changed and methods maybe different. The modern schools are much more opten to diversity. While they still seek to promote the values and standards that will enable the children to achieve, they are ganerally more willing to tolertate indivdualism and meet individual needs. Many schools, like the All Hallows school in Somerset, stress in their prospectus that, "The aim of the school is to give each pupil every oportunity to discover personal abilities and to develop them to the full." Most schools now seek to develop each child's full potentIal, his whole personality, including his ethical, physical, mental, social, and emotional development, so that he can participate fully in his community. It is the community, however, that has changed. Modern England is no longer the center of a great empire, but now only one of several important European countries. Britain no longer needs a large military or an administrative elite needed to run an empire. What is needed now is a business elite capable of suceeding in the increasingly competitive commercial world of the 21st century. The success of Britain's preparatory and public schools is yet to be determined.
Implicit in the prep school program, especially boarding schools, is the goal of developing values. Boarding schools are convinced that the school programs can best develop such vales because of the age of the children and the control that can be exercized over the child. It is fair to say that the school experience does have a significant impact on many children. Only part of that impact, however, is the formal result of the school program. As the children not only react to the staff in the formal class room situation, but in many inforaml settings after class, the children and the staff get to know each other to a much greater degree than classroom teachers in a day school. The authors believe that also important is the impact of the student culture. Children in boarding schools are with their peers much more than most children living with their parents. Children at home have considerable choice about their associations and spend most of their after school hours with their parents. They can choose to play with their mates or withdraw to their home. Boarding school children have no such choice. They are with the other children from the time they wake up to the time they go to bed and for that matter while they are sleeping in the dormitories. Thus the attitudes, values, and standards of their peers must affect them even more than, is often the case at home. This can be a particularly powerful experience as the prep school age range includes children at the very age where they begin to move away from adults and begin turing to their peers as they begin to enter adolescence. Here there is a key aspect of boarding and the age of the children. It is commonly observed that children can be cruel to each other. This is undoubtedly true. Less commonly noted is that properly guided and incoyraged, children can be caring and supportive of each other. In a properly managed prep school the student culture can be guided to form a caring community in which children thrive. This is a major aspect of prep school life that has been notably improved in recent years.
Day schools often focus primarily on the academic work and because they have responsibility for the children for a briefer period, usually do not attempt to pursue the character and personal development goals to the same extent that many boarding schools do. As the Ashbrooke House day school in county ???[Weston SuperMare] indicates, "... the main object of a child's attendance at school is to learn to work."
For many the private public and preparatory schools that fed them were the central educational institution in England. The authors would add state grammar schools. It was at these schools that the military and administrative officials needed to govern a great empire were educated. In a very real sence, the schools were to train England's power elite. Any assessment English leaders who have achieved distinction in important fields, including government, science, arts, literature, and others will find the graduates of prep and public schools. Prep school advocates claom that prep and public schools continue to provide a disprortionate share of Britain's leaders. We might extend this basic principle to state grammar (selective secondary) schools. While we suspect that these schools are indeed disproportinately represented in producing Britain's leaders, we know of no study to substantiate this. We wonder if this disportinate representation exists, if it also includes the arrts. There is of course an additional question here. Prep school children come from affluent families or at least families that are willing and able to make substantial finanial investments in their child's education. These tend to be the children that are more likely to become societal leaders irrespective of the schools that they attend.
