History Main / BoardingSchool

* The third episode of ''Series/{{Threshold}}'' is set at a MilitaryAcademy-style boarding school.

* ''Film/TheGettingOfWisdom'' is set in an all-girls' school located near Melbourne in the [[TheGayNineties 1890s]].

Quite often, the school buildings would be old and in fairly bad shape - leaking roofs, faulty heating, and clanking pipes - leading to stories where the children attempted to raise enough money to [[HeyLetsPutOnAShow save their school]]. If the boarding school is in an old castle or manor house, the kids may explore and find hidden {{BookcasePassage}}s, {{SecretUndergroundPassage}}s, and {{SecretRoom}}s, in which they may find antiques and mysterious items. If it's a fantasy story, they may find magical items or portals.

* Children/teenagers as the main protagonists.

* Fagging, the (mostly obsolete) practice of younger students (the fag) acting as servants for the elder ones (the fag-master)--in return, the elder student is supposed to mentor and protect the fags serving him. Has nothing to do with either homosexuality or cigarettes (usually). The term derives from the fact that they used to have to chop and haul firewood (faggots) for the upperclassmen.

The cliché plot in the genre is having the protagonists decide to break school rules so that they can "do the right thing" or help someone. When they are caught, the wise Headmaster/Headmistress punishes them, but in a measured way which takes into account their honorable motives.

* Pranks and hazing.

The misadventures of students at "public schools" (British term for most private schools, which are commonly boarding schools) were once a staple of children's literature but fell out of fashion in the sixties. Starting in the late 1990s, however, the ''Literature/HarryPotter'' series, a HeroicFantasy taking place in a [[WizardingSchool wizarding]] boarding school, revived many of its tropes (although significantly breaking from the tradition by making the school mixed instead of single-sex; and also free to attend). [[note]]Boarding schools may be "public" schools where the pupils are not charged a tuition fee and/or the pupils are selected on their talents or meritocratic basis, or "private", where the pupils (or rather their parents) are charged a tuition fee (which may or may not be outrageous). In Britain, public schools are private and do charge fees, unless you're a scholarship student, and both terms are used more or less interchangeably. See Useful Notes or the Other Wiki for explanation.[[/note]]

Mostly, the boarding schools depicted were for the aspiring middle classes, so did not have particularly elaborate facilities. The biggest educational difference from other schools was the syllabus, which led to a few jokes about Latin classes, but the classrooms were typically much like any other because that wasn't where the story was.

The story was in the fact that they were ''boarding'' schools; the children lived on the premises, sharing dorm rooms. The Boarding School genre revolves around the impact of this -- children, separated from their parents, growing up together and [[FreeRangeChildren without much supervision in their off-hours]]. All the advantages of having a story about orphans sans the tragedy of dead parents.

The cliché plot in the genre is having the protagonists decide to break school rules so that they can "do the right thing" or help someone. When they are caught, the wise principal punishes them, but in a measured way which takes into account their honorable motives.

* A wise, kindly Principal or Headmaster/Headmistress.

* Pranks, sneaking around, and smuggling contraband items (candy, drinks, etc)

The story was in the fact that they were ''boarding'' schools; the children lived on the premises, sharing dorm rooms. The Boarding School genre revolves around the impact of this -- children, separated from their parents, growing up together and [[FreeRangeChildren without much supervision in their off-hours]]. All the advantages of having a story about orphans sans the tragedy of dead parents.

Mostly, the boarding schools depicted were for the aspiring middle classes, so did not have particularly elaborate facilities. The biggest educational difference from other schools was the syllabus, which led to a few jokes about Latin, but the classrooms were typically much like any other because that wasn't where the story was.

The misadventures of students at "public schools" (British term for most private schools, which are commonly boarding schools) were once a staple of children's literature but fell out of fashion in the sixties. Starting in the late 1990s, however, the ''Literature/HarryPotter'' series, a HeroicFantasy taking place in a [[WizardingSchool wizarding]] boarding school, revived many of its tropes (although significantly breaking from the tradition by making the school mixed instead of single-sex; and also free to attend).

Boarding schools may be "public" schools where the pupils are not charged a tuition fee and/or the pupils are selected on their talents or meritocratic basis, or "private", where the pupils (or rather their parents) are charged a tuition fee (which may or may not be outrageous). In Britain, public schools are private and do charge fees, unless you're a scholarship student, and both terms are used more or less interchangeably. See Useful Notes or the Other Wiki for explanation.

The story was in the fact that they were ''boarding'' schools; the children lived on the premises, sharing dorm rooms. The Boarding School genre revolves around the impact of this -- children, separated from their parents, growing up together and [[FreeRangeKids without much supervision in their off-hours]]. All the advantages of having a story about orphans sans the tragedy of dead parents.

The story was in the fact that they were ''boarding'' schools; the children lived on the premises, sharing dorm rooms. The Boarding School genre revolves around the impact of this -- children, separated from their parents, growing up together. All the advantages of having a story about orphans sans the tragedy of dead parents.

Quite often, the school buildings would be old and in fairly bad shape - leaking roofs, faulty heating, and clanking pipes - leading to stories where the children attempted to raise enough money to [[HeyLetsPutOnAShow save their school]]. If the boarding school is in an old castle or manor house, the kids may explore and find hidden {{BookcasePassage}}s, {{SecretUndergroundPassage}}s, and {{SecretRoom}}s, in which they may find antiques and mysterious items.

* Pranks, sneaking around, and smuggling contraband items

* A perfect and kind student.

* The class struggles between the clique of rich kids and the poorer [[ScholarshipStudent "scholarship" students.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/ScoobyDooAndTheGhoulSchool'' is about Shaggy, Scooby, and Scrappy getting jobs as gym teachers at an all-girls boarding school for female monsters--they signed a contract to stay on at least for at least one school year, though Shaggy and Scooby initially tried backing out after discovering the true nature (as they had initially assumed that it was a school for female humans).

* ''Film/TheWildThornberrysMovie'' has Nigel's mother convince him and his wife, Marianne, to send their youngest daughter, Eliza, to an all-girls boarding school in London, England to be more "civilized" and have a calmer lifestyle. Darwin manages to sneak along with her by hiding in her luggage.

* Bethel Woods Orphanage from ''Literature/{{Hours}}'' is actually more of a boarding school for gifted geniuses. Who also happen to be orphans.

Quite often, the school buildings would be in fairly bad shape - leaking roofs, faulty heating - leading to stories where the children attempted to raise enough money to [[HeyLetsPutOnAShow save their school]].

* Pranks.

* A spoilt student.

The misadventures of students at "public schools" (British term for most private schools, which are commonly boarding schools) were once a staple of children's literature, but fell out of fashion in the sixties. Starting in the late 1990s, however, the ''Literature/HarryPotter'' series, a HeroicFantasy taking place in a [[WizardingSchool wizarding]] boarding school, revived many of its tropes (although significantly breaking from the tradition by making the school mixed instead of single-sex; and also free to attend).

Mostly, the boarding schools depicted were for the aspiring middle classes, so did not have particularly elaborate facilities. The biggest educational difference from other schools was the syllabus, which led to a few jokes about Latin, but the classrooms were typically much like any other, because that wasn't where the story was.

The story was in the fact that they were ''boarding'' schools; the children lived in the premises, sharing dorm rooms. The Boarding School genre revolves around the impact of this -- children, separated from their parents, growing up together. All the advantages of having a story about orphans sans the tragedy of dead parents.

* Houses within the school, with fierce competition (note these can be found in TheGoodOldBritishComp too, although in self-consciously modern schools, they're probably called "teams").

* ''Manga/CandyCandy'': Saint Paul's Private School, which is a mixed gender academy with separate dormitories for boys and girls. There Candy meets up with her SecondLove Terry (whom she actually met during her journey to England), befriends Patty, is bullied by Eliza and her GirlPosse, [[spoiler:finds Annie and Albert again]], etc.; all of this has a HUGE influence in her CharacterDevelopment.

* ''Manga/HereIsGreenwood'': Set in the "boarding dorm" of a prestigious high-school. Most of the students live at home, but none of those are in the central cast. Two of the central cast ''could'' live at home but choose not to.

** ''Anime/JewelpetSunshine'': Sunshine Academy. It's a co-ed high school with seperate dormitories for boys and girls.

* Downplayed in ''Manga/KaguyaSamaLoveIsWar''. Shuchi'in Academy has both boys and girls dorms, though most of the cast (including all the main characters) live off-campus with their families. Only two characters (Kazeno and Makkii-senhai) are actually confirmed to live in the dorms.

* The setting for the anime adaptation of the ''Literature/StClares'' series, ''Anime/MischievousTwinsTheTalesOfStClares'' It was adapted into German, Spanish, Italian, French and Arabic, but never into English.

* ''LightNovel/ThePetGirlOfSakurasou'': The Suimei University of the Arts High School, and one that is not elaborate at all. The story happens in the Sakura Hall, a dormitory for trouble students kicked out of the school's normal dorms.

* The school attended by the main characters of ''Manga/PrincessPrincess'' is similar to the above example on this regard. There's also the option of living in the dorms during summer vacation albeit the number of students who choose to do so aren't enough to justify keeping the air-conditioner on.

* ''Manga/PrivateActress'': Ryoukou Academy is this and an incredibly prestigious ElaborateUniversityHigh, nevermind the very odd demises of least five students and one teacher. And then Shiho is hired to infiltrate it and investigate the latest death, involving a girl who was literally [[StockShoujoBullyingtactics bullied to death]]...

** When Tim first tracks down Dick and asks him to come back to Gotham to partner with Bruce again he's in a boarding school for middle school, and says he's gone to boarding school all his life. He'd evidently gotten really good at sneaking out. He manages to talk his mom into letting him go to public high school.

* For a while it was generally [[{{Fanon}} assumed]] by the ''Series/{{Glee}}'' fandom that Dalton Academy was a boarding school, for a few different reasons: because Dalton fit the image of a boarding school, because it's far enough between Lima (where Kurt lives) and Westerville (where Dalton is) that a daily commute seemed improbable, and because the idea of an all boys boarding school existing within canon greatly appealed to many fans. It was {{Jossed}} eventually, when Kurt mentioned in passing that he still lived at home, but many fanfic writers still hold onto the idea, either by [[{{Handwave}} explaining away]] or outright ignoring Kurt's comment, or by having Dalton be a boarding school that also has day students.

* ''Film/HandsomeDevil'': A teenage boy moves to an Irish boarding school and put in a dorm with someone completely different. While Ned is into the alternative music scene and playing guitar, Connor is passionate about soccer. They bond over their interest in the guitar, but people start to suspect Ned is gay and bully him for it.
* Much of ''Franchise/HarryPotter'' takes places at Hogwarts, a boarding school for wizards.
* The cult British film ''Film/If1968'' deconstructs this viciously. Most famous for launching Creator/MalcolmMcDowell.

* ''Film/ScentOfAWoman'' is about a poor boy who has a scholarship at an expensive American boarding school which prides itself on producing good future Officers for the Army, as he takes extra-curricular job looking after a blind ex-officer who teaches him to stop being so driven and to enjoy the finer, simpler things in life (i.e. ''the scent of a woman'').

* ''Film/ToySoldiers'' takes place a boarding school full of kids who've been kicked out of other boarding schools. A ragtag group of misfits, if you will. And then the terrorists come...

* The TropeCodifier for the girls' boarding school story is the work (over fifty novels) of Angela Brazil. They were the original source of most of the tropes that came to be regarded as boarding school cliches in later years, and suffered badly from SeinfeldIsUnfunny as a result.

*** Though contemporaries recalled Orwell as being quite happy in school, and something of a teacher's pet. Literary standards at the time demanded a miserable boarding school background, so....
* ''[[Literature/TheGreatBrain The Great Brain at the Academy]]'' by John Dennis Fitzgerald. It's mentioned in every book that anyone wanting more than a sixth grade education has to go boarding school in Provo or Salt Lake City, until some parents get together and build a seventh and eighth grade "academy".

* Most of the first decade's worth of Creator/PGWodehouse's books, including ''Mike'', which introduces the character ''Literature/{{Psmith}}''. He had a couple different ones, of which at least St. Austin's and Wrykyn are the setting of more than one story. Neither are [[BoardingSchoolOfHorrors horrible]], but do have a strong focus on sports (cricket and football, of the [[RugbyIsSlaughter rugby]] flavour, being the main ones) and house-pride. Even when the school itself is out of focus, friendships maintained from it can still be relevant to the plot -- for example, Literature/{{Ukridge}} (who was expelled from Wrykin) spends most of his time sponging off old school friends.

* Brazilian realism novel [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O_Ateneu O Ateneu]] by Raul Pompéia. In the very first page of the book Sérgio narrates his arrival to the boarding school: "Thou shalt meet the world, told me my father, at the doorsteps of the Ateneu. Have courage for the fight! I later experienced the truth of that warning, which undressed me, in one gesture, of the illusions of a child educated exotically in the greenhouse of tenderness which is the regime of domestic love, different from what is found outside, so different, that it makes the poem of the maternal love seem to be a sentimental artifice, with the only advantage of making the creature more sensitive to the rude impression of the first teaching, burning search for vitality under the influence of a harsh new weather."

* The Literature/CiaphasCain novel ''Cain's Last Stand'' features the titular now-retired commissar as a teacher at a Schola Progenium, a sort of state-run boarding school for orphans specifically devoted to educating future members of the Ecclesiarchy and the Commissariat. This being the TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}} universe and Cain being a '''Hero of the Imperium''', not much time is devoted to actually developing much beyond Cain's class and work associates before the action starts. However, from the innumerable references to Cain's own experiences in a similar body, its clear that the Scholae Progenia are essentially British boarding schools InSPACE!

* Ariadnio in ''Literature/GreekNinja'' is a school in Greece, with students coming from all over Europe to study in.

* Creator/RobertAHeinlein's ''Literature/BetweenPlanets'' begins with Don Harvey attending one for several years on Earth while his parents are busy with archaeological digs on Mars. Aside from academics it is also a dude ranch with each boy being assigned a horse to care for.

* Ursula Nordstrom's classic ''The Secret Language'' is set at Coburn Home School, which has both boys and girls; mostly middle-class children of single parents who have to work a lot. The education, food and accommodations are all right but newcomer Victoria North, aged eight, is severely homesick and a bossy, military-style housemother doesn't help (she's replaced by a gentler one, so there's that one.) {{Snarker}} and [[GoodWithNumbers math whiz]] Martha Sherman connects with Victoria and teaches her the three words of a "secret language", a kind of doubletalk made up by a close friend. They both learn from each other and face life in their own styles. Interestingly, the girls lampshade the "midnight feast," inadvertently proving it's impossible because everyone falls asleep first.

* In ''Literature/TheIslandOfSheep'', Haraldsen enrols his daughter in an English boarding school under an assumed name to keep her out of the sights of the criminals who are pursuing him. When Lombard goes to retrieve her, one step ahead of the villains, the school is like something out of an Angela Brazil book, and so is she. She becomes less like a school-story character the more time she spends away from the school.

* ''Series/{{Friends}}'': Chandler reveals he attended boarding school. The details aren't revealed, (apart from being all boys), but he doesn't make it sound like fun and its hinted he was bullied.

* ''Series/MadMen'': Teenage Sally Draper gets sent to Miss Porter's School, an old (for the U.S.) and exclusive all-girls' boarding school in Connecticut, for high school. She doesn't like it much, and at first gets up to antics there, including sneaking in boys and beer (getting suspended for the latter), but later matures, especially after [[spoiler:her mother is diagnosed with terminal cancer]].

* The Argentinian SoapOpera ''[[http://www.delboca.net/spanish/tele_files/perla.html Perla Negra]]'' starts in a boarding school for rich girls located in the Argentinian countryside. Two former students, Eva and the titular Perla, get in a car accident: Eva dies, Perla survives but is mistaken as Eva, and she [[DeadPersonImpersonation decides to mantain the masquerade]] to protect Eva's baby son Charlie, [[ParentalSubstitute whom she loves as if he were her own child]], from Eva's BigScrewedUpFamily. [[spoiler:What Perla doesn't know is that she was dropped off at the school when she was a baby, with 22 authentic black pearls to pay for her education, and that she'll eventually learn ''who'' did this to her and ''why''...]]

* Bob Geldof, lead singer of TheBoomtownRats, describes his experiences with Catholic boarding school in Ireland during TheSeventies in his memoirs. It was [[BoardingSchoolOfHorrors not a pleasant experience]] to put it mildly, and contributed greatly to his disenchantment with the Catholic Church.

* ''VisualNovel/PrincessEvangile'' takes place in an exclusive [[OneGenderSchool all-girls]] school that seeks to subvert it's status as such due to financial troubles.

* ''WesternAnimation/ScoobyDooAndTheGhoulSchool'' is about Shaggy, Scooby and Scrappy getting jobs as gym teachers at an all-girls boarding school for female monsters--they signed a contract to stay on at least for at least one school year, though Shaggy and Scooby initially tried backing out after discovering the true nature (as they had initially assumed that it was a school for female humans).

* In an episode of ''WesternAnimation/AmericanDad'' called [[Recap/AmericanDadS15E19TopOfTheSteve "Top of the Steve,"]] Steve and Roger run away to a boarding school called "Pendlingtonton Academy" after getting fed up with Stan's attitude. But shortly after arriving, they discover it's an [[OneGenderSchool all-girls school]] (Steve was let in due to some kind of technicality in the school's charter). After noticing how so much about their situation at PA just very ''off'', Roger's GenreSavvy enough to figure out that the whole thing is a PoorlyDisguisedPilot for a spin-off with Steve as the lead character.

* The USA has a few schools like this, generally old and expensive and in the USA's 'New England' region. Historically, the USA had several public (in the US sense, meaning state-run) boarding schools in rural areas, although they are extremely rare today. Boarding schools for families of all (above-average) incomes abound in The Commonwealth. They make occasional appearances in non-British movies and TV and use pretty much the same tropes as in the British model. Modern-day, and non-American, boarding school settings tend to place more emphasis on getting into good universities; outside the USA, one can no longer get into a good university without good grades.

* ''LightNovel/StrawberryPanic'': Astrea Hill's three schools, in which the series is entirely set in, are all prestigious girls-only boarding schools. Makes it easy to isolate all the yuri melodrama from the outside world.

* ''Franchise/LittleWitchAcademia'' takes place in Luna Nova Magical Academy. A [[ElaborateUniversityHigh very large]] all girls boarding WizardingSchool.

* ''Film/TheEmperorsClub'' is about an American private school. This one's from the point of view of a teacher, the school is a good place, and it's all thoroughly in the tradition of molding boys into men, etc. There's still some of the "[[InadequateInheritor overbearing rich parent]] [[WhyCouldntYouBeDifferent damages adolescent son]]" [[Administrivia/DoWeHaveThisOne trope]], but that's treated as more of a sad fact of life than an indictment of the whole system.

* ''Anime/LittleWitchAcademia'' takes place in Luna Nova Magical Academy. A [[ElaborateUniversityHigh very large]] all girls boarding WizardingSchool.

* ''WesternAnimation/UltimateBookOfSpells'': The WizardingSchool is just one of the many reasons the cartoon is considered an {{Expy}} of ''Literature/HarryPotter''.

* In the ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' continuum, author [[Creator/AAPessimal A.A. Pessimal]] has taken Terry Pratchett's concept of the boarding school - [[WordOfGod Pratchett famously said]] he ''took a typical British boarding school and turned all the knobs UpToEleven - especially the one labelled "violence"'' - and elaborated on it still further, adding more detail and new ideas, especially about the new tensions caused by the A.G. school going co-educational. Pessimal has written a few stories revolving round events at this singular school. A typical one might be [[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8774066/1/There-s-nothing-like-a-fresh-pair-of-eyes-is-there Fresh Pair of Eyes]], or [[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5055274/1/The-Graduation-Class The Graduation Class]], or [[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5423228/1/Murder-Most-Orrible Murder Most 'Orrible]].

* ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'':- The other British author who has re-written the boarding school novel is Sir Terry Pratchett. In ''Pyramids'', he introduces the Assassins' Guild School as a parody of the boarding school novel - [[WordOfGod Pratchett has said]] that to visualise the School for Assassins, he ''took a typical British boarding school and turned all the knobs UpToEleven - especially the one labelled "violence"''.