About Us

Welcome to the Boarding Schools’ Association…for better boarding today

The Boarding Schools’ Association (BSA) represents member boarding schools, provides training for boarding staff and promotes boarding education.

Our member schools in 40 countries are listed here, and a prospective parent can browse for school websites of interest to them. However, the BSA does not operate an advisory service for parents seeking a boarding school. We believe finding the right school for the right child is hugely important. And we know that parents and students are the best people to make this decision. We therefore offer a list of questions which should help parents identify what is important to them and their child and define their areas of choice.

We hope you find our website interesting, informative and easy to use. If you do experience any problem, please let us know and we will endeavour to fix it quickly. This is a working website and we really appreciate your feedback.

Schools

Please check that your school’s entry in this website is accurate and up to date – has the Head changed? Have you moved to IB? Built a new boarding house? – and that any interesting current news has been included. Changes will need to be done via the Members’ Area. Don’t forget that you may post advertisements for vacancies on our job board.

Teachers and boarding staff

BSA delivers the world’s largest professional development programme for boarding staff.

We offer:

  • Two-year courses for graduate and non-graduate boarding staff– these involve eight study days and two assignments, each about 4,000 words long. This is the flagship training opportunity for staff seriously interested in boarding excellence
  • A Diploma course for senior experienced boarding staff, involving three study days and two assignments spread between March and October
  • More than 60 day seminars on topics of particular interest to boarding/pastoral staff – eg. Essentials of Boarding, Leading the Boarding Team, Meeting the Needs of Overseas Boarders
  • Specialists one or two-day conferences for Boarding Staff, Heads, Health & Wellbeing staff**, Marketing and Admissions staff* and State Boarding Schools staff and Safeguarding Leads**&
    Basic training online, for those very new to boarding

*With Sacpa (Safeguarding and Child Protection Association), part of the BSA Group

**With Hieda (Heath In Education Association) part of the BSA Group

**With BAISIS (British Association of Independent Schools with International Students), part of the BSA Group

And, if you are ambitious or thinking of moving on, don’t forget to check our job board if you wish to apply for a new position within a boarding school. Remember, evidence of having completed any or all of our training will be useful on the CV!

Parents

We are delighted to welcome prospective parents to our website. We hope you will find it a useful place to do your research about possible schools for your child. Member schools are listed here, please use our School Search facility to assist you in looking for the right school. You can then access the schools’ own websites, which will really give you the flavour of what each school has to offer.

Our advice to parents is more general about boarding than specific about individual schools. It is our remit to provide a showcase for the schools via which you can get to their own websites, to describe the advantages of boarding, to suggest useful questions to bear in mind when you begin your search.

If you are interested in finding out more about boarding in general, you may be interested in the BSA Guide to Boarding, published twice a year with Bulldog Publishing.

Also, check Schoolplaces.com, also run with Bulldog Publishing, for details of schools with current boarding places available.

Robin Fletcher
Chief Executive, BSA and BSA Group