Creating great boarding spaces

🏷️ From £175
🎧 Deputy heads, heads of boarding, boarding staff, pastoral leads
📍 Online
✅ Included in BSA CPD Pass

Course outline:

This interactive seminar will explore current trends and best practices in boarding house design, offering valuable insights into how schools can enhance their residential provision in a practical and cost-effective way. Whether you are planning a full refurbishment or seeking small improvements, this session will help position your boarding environment in line with sector expectations and pupil needs.

Led by BSA Director David Walker, the seminar will examine what makes a boarding house truly effective – from layout and decoration to furnishings and student experience. Drawing on real-world examples, the session will provide inspiration from across the sector, offering a chance to reflect on your current facilities and identify areas for improvement.

Key topics:

• The role of the physical environment in wellbeing, recruitment, and retention
• Room-by-room review, including entrances and welcome zones; corridors, walls, and noticeboards; social spaces and communal areas; bedrooms and bathrooms
• Creative, budget-friendly suggestions for enhancing existing spaces
• Cost-effective suppliers and reliable products suited to boarding schools.

Learning outcomes:

• Greater awareness of sector-wide boarding facilities trends, standards, and expectations
• Practical ideas for upgrading boarding houses with minimal investment
• An improved ability to assess your own school’s provision and identify key areas for development
• Access to recommended suppliers for good value furnishings, materials, and equipment.

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Speaker:

Karl Hearn, Noble and Eaton 

Karl Hearn works with independent schools to help translate educational ambition into practical, future-ready learning and boarding environments. At Noble+Eaton, he brings a strategic understanding of how space influences pupil experience, staff culture, wellbeing and retention. His work focuses on helping schools make thoughtful decisions about their estates, from improving existing buildings to planning long-term development. Karl is particularly interested in how boarding environments can support safety, belonging, independence and community, while also improving the conditions for the staff who shape daily pastoral life. He combines commercial awareness with a strong appreciation of school culture, operational reality and strategy