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“There are culture clashes,” says Wallis. Teachers have to be prepared to encounter well-heeled new pupils such as the Russian girl who arrived with £1,200 in her pocket, and another from Kazakhstan carrying a suitcase stuffed with money. The British Boarding School Association (BBSA) has even had to issue guidance to teachers about bribery and money laundering.
“There have been certain offers,” says Alex Thomson, the BBSA’s head of training. “A new sports hall in exchange for good A-level results, that sort of thing.”
The BBSA now runs special courses to help teachers cope. “Chinese children may have nothing in common with each other, not even their language,” says Thomson. “Pastoral boarding staff often have to explain individual children to the teaching staff.”
“You have to explain British humour and irony,” adds Chris Edwards, head teacher at the Bromsgrove School, set in 100 acres of Worcestershire. “We are careful to discuss it in our special induction programme. We are one of the few countries where teachers use humour.”
>> School life: at home in a boarding house He has 1,600 pupils including 340 internationals, from 42 nations. He noticed that in class instead of putting their hands up, some Asian pupils put their heads down, to avoid the disgrace of answering incorrectly, unaccustomed to questioning a teacher or entering discussions.
According to Thomson there is a constant problem with boys from the Middle East refusing to accept the authority of a woman.
“They can’t understand a housemistress telling them to tidy up,” he says. “They will say, 'My mother does it. You are here to help with my domestic arrangements, not tell me what to do.’ Female teachers often find that boys won’t respond to them.”
Wealth also brings its difficulties. “Some children will not lock up their valuables because they have a gold card and if something goes missing they just buy another,” says Thomson. “The wealthy have different boundaries, but staff have to get consistency from everyone to make the community work.”
Teachers quickly notice that some cultures do not have a word for “please”, and there is an assumption that menial tasks will be done by someone else.
“Many come from cultures where there are servants,” says Margie Burnet-Ward, head teacher at the Wycliffe School, near Bristol, where 90 out of 400 students come from abroad.
“They don’t always understand that all staff have to be treated politely. They are not always used to mucking in, taking a turn on the kitchen rota, or washing their own smalls.”
>> Pupils never bored at boarding schools
Sport is not on the curriculum in much of the world. No one is out on the rugby field in Beijing. At Warminster School in Wiltshire, founded in 1707, where 23 per cent of the pupils come from 26 different nations, they’ve noticed the cultural differences.
“For Chinese children it’s all about academic results,” says the head, Mark Mortimer. “But we focus on developing the whole person.”
“They’ve come to the UK to pass exams,” agrees Thomson. “Often they can’t understand the value of going out in the wet to play football, rather than studying for 15 hours. Staff often have to walk and talk them through it.”
John Newton, head of Taunton School, Somerset, has 300 boarders, 22 per cent with English as a second language. He has also had a few surprises. “In France and Spain they allow 16-year-olds to smoke,” he says. “We don’t, and we had to make that clear.”
No matter what the problems, few schools can afford to ignore the overseas market. According to the ISC, nearly half of private schools are boosting their international marketing as UK parents find it harder to pay fees upwards of £30,000 a year.
Eton and Stonyhurst may not be affected, but establishments which once took the children of clergymen, doctors and bank managers are feeling the pinch.
“Our expansion started in 2005 when we introduced the International Baccalaureate,” says Mark Mortimer. “The results were good and that attracted other nationalities. We are a business and need to fill beds. We could have survived without the internationals but we wouldn’t have thrived.”
Rossall School in Lancashire, where 350 pupils of 700 are from overseas, has spent £4 million over the past four years upgrading their accommodation.
Most boarding schools maintain the uniforms, house and prefect system but beneath that iconic British style much has changed in pursuit of the new global elite; chilly Edwardian dorms have been replaced by something more akin to a Travelodge.
>> Boarding schools buck the trend with their global outlook
Alex Thomson prefers the term “boutique hotels”. Dorms have been turned into separate study-rooms or “pods”, with private kitchen and bathroom attached.
According to Janette Wallis, British parents were not fussed about “cubies”, sectioned-off cubicles in shared rooms with communal showers, but foreign parents “faint dead away” at such things.
If your father’s an oligarch, the very least you can expect in your room is a telephone, fridge, DVD player, kettle, microwave and air conditioning. Requests for ice-makers have been reported, but there is no word yet of minibars.
Bromsgrove School had its first upgrade in 1553. Old boys hold five VCs and one George Cross and include the poet A E Housman and the actor Ian Carmichael, but it’s doubtful that they would recognise their Alma Mater now. “All our facilities are new,” says the head, Chris Edwards. “We have comfortable beds and everything is en suite.”
Stewed cabbage and jam roly-poly have been replaced by international cuisine. Edwards says they provide an “Eastern food table”, along with traditional British food. No more lumpy porridge: modern boarders, at least at Warminster, wake up to breakfasts suited to their nationality. Young Germans apparently, are very particular about their eggs.
The thorny issue of games is tackled by offering something for everyone; at Wycliffe there is yoga, fitness training, aerobics, with table tennis, basketball and badminton for the Chinese, as well as traditional sports.
Children of the Empire wrote censored letters home once a week, but parents can now be almost omnipresent if they wish; bedrooms are full of technology, including Skype and Snapchat, the “new Facebook”. Pupils, teachers and parents hold online seminars to discuss choice of GCSEs.
>> Boarding schools: moving with the times
Elaine Purves, the head of Rossall School, says she even selects pupils using Skype. Rich parents, used to air travel, also drop in a lot more. Russians tend to visit their children regularly, sometimes renting property near the school.
As these schools increasingly resemble hotels, fees rise, making it less likely that British children will attend. John Newton at Taunton says he tries to get “a balance in the numbers, to get the mix right”.
“Schools have to be careful about how many foreign students they take,” agrees Sue Fieldman, regional editor of the Good Schools Guide. “It’s tempting from a financial point of view but they must resist the bums-on-seats approach. If just one group is predominant, integration can be difficult. Some British parents are deterred by these developments.”
Many heads in this new market say they believe passionately in their multicultural project, that it’s not just about money but a truly broad education, for both sides.
“Getting children here from the Bric [Brazil, Russia, India, China] countries is very important,” says Newton. “We need contact with children from fresh economies. They bring drive and ambition with them, and introduce our young people to the kind of competition they are going to face in the modern world.
"There is a nuclear power-plant coming here, built with Chinese money. That is the future. Britannia no longer rules the waves and we have to give young people a globalised outlook.”
Thomson thinks that British boarding schools with their international popularity have a unique opportunity. “These schools bring diverse cultures closely together 24/7,” he says. “Nowhere else can do that, and both sides gain immeasurably.”
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