Flexible Boarding or Day - The Best of all Worlds

For professional parents, as for their children, the week is divided into two distinct parts. Monday to Friday is frantically busy. The weekend, starting on Friday evening, is the time for rest, recreation and the family. Because this time is limited and precious, traditional boarding at the preparatory school age is for some parents no longer attractive.

Bruern Abbey's system of truly flexible boarding recognises this, and reconciles the often conflicting demands of school and parents' busy professional and social lives. It offers, for those parents who wish it, a choice of one to four nights of boarding in the peace, security and beauty of the Oxfordshire countryside, and three nights and a full weekend for family life at home.

Far from fumes and traffic, boys boarding only four nights are able to concentrate fully Monday to Friday on studies and outdoor pursuits (including riding, clay pigeon shooting and golf), while their parents can concentrate fully on professional commitments, thereby perhaps making it easier for all to enjoy life as a family at the weekend.

The School also welcomes Day Boarders, who arrive by 8.15 a.m. (9.00 a.m. on Monday) and are free to return home at 6.10 p.m., except on Friday, when they are free at 3.15 p.m. The School recognises that there will be occasions where, as a result of travel or other commitments, parents would find it convenient for their Day Boarder son to remain at school one or more nights. This is possible, at a nominal charge, any night or nights, either on a regular or occasional basis.

The London Link

For London pupils the School operates every week its own distinctive bus (fully equipped with individual lap and shoulder belts for all passengers), which, at a published charge, collects boys early on Monday morning from near Sloane Square and Marble Arch as well as from selected stops on the A40/M40, and returns them, again against the flow of traffic, by 5.30 p.m. on Friday afternoon, in time for the weekend.

Four nightly, once a week, occasionally, days, or any combination thereof, Bruern Abbey offers both parents and their sons a truly convenient and flexible form of schooling, designed to be as individual as each family's particular circumstances and requirements.

Further Afield

In addition to its facilities in Oxfordshire the School has the use of a large manor house complex in France, which dates from 1625 and is located on a hilltop in the Loire Valley not far from Chinon. While the property's actual name is La Grand' Cour, it is known by the boys simply as Bruern South. The region is of course one of great cultural and historical interest, and full use is made of the property as a base for frequent school trips to the area.