History Main / OffToBoardingSchool

* Pretty much every version of ''Film/TheParentTrap''.

* ''Film/DamienOmenII'': 13 year old [[Antichrist]] Damien Thorn is at an American military one with his same-age (and thanks to him ill- fated) cousin.

* ''Film/ThreeMenAndALittleLady''

* In ''Film/Damien:OmenII'': 13 year old [[Antichrist]] Damien Thorn is at an American military one with his same-age (and thanks to him ill- fated) cousin.

* ''Film/FireWithFire'':(1986) had the leading lady at a convent one with parents plotting to force her to a Swiss finishing one after her graduation from the convent's high school.

* ''Film/TheSoundOfMusic'': "Darling, haven't you ever heard of a delightful little thing called boarding school?"

%%* ''Film/ThreeMenAndALittleLady''

* Happens to the titular character in ''Manga/CandyCandy'', but under orders of her MysteriousProtector Uncle William rather than a villain. (Though one of the local {{Rich Bitch}}es, Aunt Elroy, ''is'' involved.) This kicks off an entire arc that happens in said school, Saint Paul's College in England, with important CharacterDevelopment for Candy and her friends -- not to mention the introduction of another boy who's sent there by his father, [[HandsomeDevil Terry]] [[JerkAssWoobie Granchester.]]

* In ''VisualNovel/UminekoNoNakuKoroNi'' Ange Ushiromiya gets sent off to Saint Lucia Academy for girls where she is [[KidsAreCruel bullied relentlessly]] by her fellow classmates.

* ''Film/IronMan'': Tony Stark says that the happiest day of his father's life was when he shipped him off to boarding school. Actually, his father died due to a terrorist attack as Stark stayed with them, building a robotic suit. His robotic suit was the reason that ''VideoGame/DisneyInfinity'' came out (the 2.0 version that was packaged with the ''Main/PS3'' superslim game system).

* In the ''Utsutsukowashi-hen'' arc of ''VisualNovel/{{Higurashi no Naku Koro ni}}'', Shion is sent off to a boarding school to keep her out of family business. Also, [[spoiler: being a twin, she was supposed to have been killed at birth, so her existence is a secret in her hometown]].

* In TheMovie of ''Film/{{The Cat in the Hat}}'', Alec Baldwin wants to marry Kelly Preston and send her son off to military school (same dif).

* ''Film/IronMan'': Tony Stark says that the happiest day of his father's life was when he shipped him off to boarding school.

* ''WesternAnimation/ThePowerpuffGirls'' episode "Mommy Fearest" has Sedusa doing this to the girls while disguising herself as a woman (Ima Goodlady) that the Professor goes ga-ga for...

* CorneliaFunke's ''Ghost Knight''.

* A non-villainous example occurs in ''BinbouShimaiMonogatari'', when Asu and Kyou move in with their aunt she intends to send Kyou to a boarding school, but they convince her that it would be better for them to remain together.

** In ''VisualNovel/UminekoNoNakuKoroNi'' Ange Ushiromiya gets sent off to Saint Lucia Academy for girls where she is [[KidsAreCruel bullied relentlessly]] by her fellow classmates.
* Happens to the titular character in ''CandyCandy'', but under orders of her MysteriousProtector Uncle William rather than a villain. (Though one of the local {{Rich Bitch}}es, Aunt Elroy, ''is'' involved.) This kicks off an entire arc that happens in said school, Saint Paul's College in England, with important CharacterDevelopment for Candy and her friends -- not to mention the introduction of another boy who's sent there by his father, [[HandsomeDevil Terry]] [[JerkAssWoobie Granchester.]]

* In the horror anthology comic ''TheWitchingHour'' in a story published around 1980 or so, a young boy is sent away to a very distant and exclusive boarding school by his EvilStepfather. Unbeknownst to the Evil Stepfather, the school was a Witches' School (this was a generation ''before'' Harry Potter). When the boy returns for vacation, he uses his supernatural powers to discover that the stepfather had murdered his father, seduced his mother, and taken credit for his late father's work. The Evil Stepfather then dies a horrid, screaming, fear-filled death that the police couldn't possibly label murder.

* ''Three Men And A Little Lady''

* Inverted spectacularly in ''{{Lolita}}''. Single mother Charlotte Haze plans to send her daughter Dolores (a.k.a. Lolita) off to summer camp and then to boarding school in order to get her out of her hair so she can enjoy the attentions of her AffablyEvil paramour, Humbert Humbert. Unfortunately, getting rid of Lolita is the [[{{Lolicon}} last thing that Humbert wants]]. Lolita, on the other hand, has no clue that Humbert secretly holds her mother in contempt and in fact seems to harbor a schoolgirl crush on him ([[UnreliableNarrator according to Humbert, anyway]]). The marriage [[spoiler: goes off without a hitch, [[MurderTheHypotenuse Charlotte gets conveniently killed by a car]], and Humbert is free to happily molest his step-daughter]].

* Suggested in ''[[EnchantedForestChronicles Searching for Dragons]]'' when Cimorene comes across a would-be EvilUncle. He's in the Wicked Stepmothers' Society (Male Auxiliary) but has been commanded by them to do something "evil" or lose his membership. He joined the society before he actually got to know his nephew, and is at a loss for what to do, since the nephew wants to be an adventurer and thinks the uncle's attempts to get him lost in the forest are just great fun. Cimorene's solution? OffToBoardingSchool! The kid will hate it, but it won't actually harm him, so the uncle can appease both the society and his conscience.

* In the original {{Papelucho}}, Papelucho and his AloofBigBrother Javier spend the second part of the book in a boarding school run by the priesthood.

* In an episode of ''TheNanny'', Brighton and Gracie are playing:

* On ''{{Roswell}}'', Liz's father uses this seriously as a threat, when it seems like Max is having a corrupting influence on his formerly straitlaced daughter (they get arrested for armed robbery as part of a botched scheme to find Max's spaceship): he demands that both of them stay away from each other, or off she goes to Vermont -- he's already sent a deposit! Then, later in the season, Liz's father forgives Max and gives him a second chance, only to have Liz haul ''herself'' off to the boarding school when she suddenly start to feel as if knowing Max has ruined her life.
* ''PunkyBrewster'' once left her foster father believing it'd keep him and his girlfriend from breaking up when they argued over sending her to a boarding school.
* This happened to Glen Bishop in ''MadMen''. He and Sally maintained a long-distance relationship via secret late-night phone calls.

* ''ThePowerpuffGirls'' episode "Mommy Fearest" has Sedusa doing this to the girls while disguising herself as a woman (Ima Goodlady) that the Professor goes ga-ga for...

** [[FunnyAneurysmMoment Plays a little differently today, don't you think?]]
*** The threat wasn't funny even then. The film came out in 1991, and the First Gulf War was going down at about that time, including several bombings of that city. This little KickTheDog moment serves to cement [=LaWanda=] as a bonafide ChildHater.

* Pretty much every version of ''TheParentTrap''.
* ''TheSoundOfMusic'': "Darling, haven't you ever heard of a delightful little thing called boarding school?"
* In ''Film/BackToTheFuture Part II'', after Biff marries Lorraine in 1985-A, Marty is sent to (and expelled from) various boarding schools.

* ''[[Series/TheAddamsFamily Addams Family Values]]'' was a weird case. One, the kids were not the children of the married (Uncle Fester and serial murderess [[BlackWidow Debbie Jellinsky]]). Two, they ''were'' shipped off. Three, it wasn't a boarding school but a summer camp. And four, they didn't prevent Debbie from executing her scheme -- Fester, being an Addams, proves harder to kill than her other victims, and when Fester escapes and Debbie turns her wrath toward the entire family, it is little Pubert who ends up [[ShockAndAwe literally short-circuiting]] [[HoistByHisOwnPetard her plans]].
* [[IronMan Tony Stark]] says that the happiest day of his father's life was when he shipped him off to boarding school.

* Almost happened to ''PollyPocket'' in "Pollyworld''. Ironically, it wasn't Polly who stopped her would-be [[WickedStepmother Stepmother]]. What saved Polly was an AccidentalPublicConfession.

* Joan Crawford's daughter Christina, as related in ''Mommie Dearest''.
* The schools described above for ''NicholasNickleby'' and ''JaneEyre'' were based on real schools, both in Yorkshire. Yorkshire schools became infamous in this period for offering suspiciously cheap education and board, with adverts that also stated: "NO VACATIONS"- very obviously aimed at middle-class people who had kids on their hands they wanted to get rid of (Yorkshire was probably the hotspot for this because it was relatively far from London.)

* Also happens in one episode of ''WesternAnimation/DuckTales'' where a RichBitch has set her eyes on Uncle Scrooge. She plans to send Huey, Dewey and Louie to military school and Webigail to finishing school ("I don't want to be finished!") [[spoiler:Fortunately, his old love from the Klondike shows up and spoils the plan]].

* In the horror anthology comic ''TheWitchingHour'' in a story published around 1980 or so, a young boy is sent away to a very distant and exclusive boarding school by his EvilStepparent. Unbeknownst to the E.S.P., the school was a Witches' School (this was a generation ''before'' Harry Potter). When the boy returns for vacation, he uses his supernatural powers to discover that the E.S.P. had murdered his father, seduced his mother, and taken credit for his late father's work. The E.S.P. then dies a horrid, screaming, fear-filled death that the police couldn't possibly label murder.

* Inverted spectacularly in ''{{Lolita}}''. Single mother Charlotte Haze plans to send her daughter Dolores (a.k.a. Lolita) off to summer camp and then to boarding school in order to get her out of her hair so she can enjoy the attentions of her AffablyEvil paramour, Humbert Humbert. Unfortunately, getting rid of Lolita is the [[{{Lolicon}} last thing he wants]]. Lolita, on the other hand, has no clue that Humbert secretly holds her mother in contempt and in fact seems to harbor a schoolgirl crush on him ([[UnreliableNarrator According to Humbert, anyway]]). The marriage [[spoiler: goes off without a hitch, [[MurderTheHypotenuse Charlotte gets conveniently killed by a car]], and Humbert is free to happily molest his step-daughter]].

* Pretty much the whole point of Dotheboys Hall in ''Nicholas Nickleby''.

* In DavidCopperfield, the title character is sent off to a BoardingSchoolOfHorrors after her bites his [[WickedStepmother wicked stepfather]] Edward Murdstone [[TheDogBitesBack as reply to his abusive behavior.]] [[spoiler: He only can get out of it when his mother Clara and his half-brother die of illness.]]

* The schools described above for NicholasNickleby and JaneEyre were based on real schools, both in Yorkshire. Yorkshire schools became infamous in this period for offering suspiciously cheap education and board, with adverts that also stated: "NO VACATIONS"- very obviously aimed at middle-class people who had kids on their hands they wanted to get rid of (Yorkshire was probably the hotspot for this because it was relatively far from London.)

-->-- Clarice Kensington, ''It Takes Two'' (the Olsen twins' take on ''TheParentTrap'')

The only problem is their "bratty" kids who can tell you're a DevilInPlainSight. What should you do about them? Hollywood always provides the same answer. Send them to boarding school![[hottip:*:And for the extra-bratty boy, MilitarySchool!]] Now you have to keep them from talking their parent out of marrying you just long enough to make it to the altar. After that, it's smooth sailing. Naturally, this always fails at the last minute.

* Happens to the titular character in ''CandyCandy'', but under orders of her MysteriousProtector Uncle William rather than a villain. (Though one of the local {{Rich Bitch}}es, Aunt Elroy, ''is'' involved.) This kicks off an entire arc that happens in said school, with important CharacterDevelopment for Candy and her friends.

* In DavidCopperfield, the title character is sent off to a BoardingSchoolOfHorros after her bites his [[WickedStepmother wicked stepfather]] Edward Murdstone as reply to his abusive behavior.
* In the original {{Papelucho}}, Papelucho and his AloofBigBrother Javier spend the second part of the book in a boarding school run by priests.

* Inverted in {{Orphen}}, where the action kicks off when Cleao Everlasting ''returns'' from her boarding school.
* Happens to the titular character in ''CandyCandy'', under orders of her MysteriousProtector Uncle William. This kicks off an entire arc that happens in said school, which is located in England.

* In DavidCopperfield, the title character is sent off to a boardingSchoolOfHorros after her bites his [[WichkedStepmother wicked stepfather]] Edward Murdstone as reply to his abusive behavior.

* Averted in ''Literature/JaneEyre'' where Jane's aunt sends her to boarding school to get rid of her, but Jane is just as happy to leave. It really is a BoardingSchoolOfHorrors, though.
** But played straight when Blanche Ingram wants to send Adele to boarding school.
*** Where she goes for a while, though for totally different reasons, when [[spoiler: her governess/stepmother walks out and her guardian (probably her father, for all he denies this) becomes disabled.]]

* Inverted spectacularly in ''{{Lolita}}''. Single mother Charlotte Haze plans to send her daughter Dolores (a.k.a. Lolita) off to summer camp and then to boarding school in order to get her out of her hair so she can enjoy the attentions of her AffablyEvil paramour, Humbert Humbert. Unfortunately, getting rid of Lolita is the [[{{Lolicon}} last thing he wants]]. Lolita, on the other hand, has no clue that Humbert secretly holds her mother in contempt and in fact seems to harbor a schoolgirl crush on him. [[UnreliableNarrator According to Humbert, anyway]]. The marriage [[spoiler: goes off without a hitch, [[MurderTheHypotenuse Charlotte gets conveniently killed by a car]], and Humbert is free to happily molest his step-daughter]].