A school where not only do you learn mathematics, but how to shoot a rifle.

Military schools are institutions which aim to instill military-style discipline in students. Often the explicit goal of such schools is to prepare students for military careers. The military school is intended for minors, as opposed to the MilitaryAcademy which trains at the undergraduate university level.

The idea of the military school is rapidly becoming a DeadHorseTrope. Military schools were more common in ages where service was a family tradition, especially among aristocrats, and large standing armies sought new manpower all the time. They were (and are) also very common in dictatorships where the school seeks to instill loyalty to the regime (such as the Hitler Youth or the Young Baath Party). In modern America, strict discipline is viewed as borderline child abuse and most such institutions have closed.

In fiction, a rebellious teen may be threatened with one, making it a variation on the BoardingSchoolOfHorrors theme. It is also a common basis for a BootCampEpisode or OffToBoardingSchool.

Sometimes includes an element of HoYay, due to the fact that military schools in fiction and reality tend to either be all-male or mostly male.

AbsurdlyPowerfulStudentCouncil exists here in the form of a command staff.

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!!Examples:

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[[folder:Anime]]
* ''Anime/AngelBeats'' - While strictly not exactly an military school, due to the size of SSS, one of the biggest organizations within students, all students attending there have a high chance of learning how to use firearms.
* ''MagicalGirlLyricalNanoha'' - The Time-Space Administration Bureau Military Academies.
* ''MahouSenseiNegima'' - The MagicKnight Cadet Classes of Ariadne [[spoiler:which Yue Ayase joins when she was trapped with amnesia in [[MagicWorld Mundus Magicus]]]].
* ''Anime/{{Naruto}}'' - The Ninja Acadamy, where prepubescent kids learn to throw kunai (also part WizardingSchool, since they also teach he DoppelGangerSpin and Fire Breathng). They only teach the basics of becoming a ninja, Sasuke learned his fire style jutsu from his father.
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[[folder:Film]]
* ''BillAndTedsExcellentAdventure'' - Ted "Theodore" Logan was threatened with one. He also gets visions of what it would be like in the second movie.
-->'''Col. Oates:''' Drop and give me...''infinity.''
-->...
-->'''Bill:''' Dude, there's no way I can do infinity push-ups.
-->'''Ted:''' Maybe he'll let us do 'em girly-style?
* ''Film/ChildsPlay III''. In the first movie, the main character's living with his parents [[spoiler: who die]], so in the second he's living with his foster parents [[spoiler: who die]], so in the third he gets [[TheOtherDarrin Darrined]] and sent to military school where [[spoiler: people die]].
* ''Taps'' - a MilitarySchool is to be closed down and razed. The outraged students refuse to allow it and end up in a confrontation with the authorities.
* ''UpTheAcademy'' - a comedic take.
* ''The Lords of Discipline'' - a group of senior cadets try to force freshman cadets they disapprove of to leave their MilitarySchool, including the first black cadet who was enrolled. (In fact, "Carolina Military Institute" is an obvious stand-in for The Citadel, The Military COLLEGE of South Carolina.)
** Lords of Discipline is about more than just the Citadel. Its a fictional college that is a mash-up of Citadel, VMI, and West Point, though the author did go to the Citadel.
* ''Cadet Kelly''
* ''DamienTheOmenII''. All the better to help the Antichrist take over the world.
* ''Film/{{Evilspeak}}'' is set in a military school, where one student is bullied too far and he retaliates with [[HollywoodSatanism satanic power]].
* In ''DeadPoetsSociety'', this is what Neil, one of the members of the title group of youths, is threatened with by his FantasyForbiddingFather when he learns that he is playing Puck in their production of ''AMidsummerNightsDream'' instead of focusing his energies on being the doctor he wants him to be. [[spoiler:The prospect of being sent someplace he does not want to go and being given no real choice in life breaks poor Neil, and he is DrivenToSuicide]].
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[[folder:Literature]]
* ''EndersGame'' with the Battle School.
* Creator/RobertAHeinlein had one InSpace in ''Literature/SpaceCadet''.
* Schola Progenium in ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'' takes in Emperor Servants' orphans at a pretty young age, so for several lower levels it's pretty much this trope, and this can be seen in a couple of the tie-in novels that [[DemotedToExtra bother to mention Schola at all]], like ''[[CiaphasCain Cain's Last Stand]]''. For older cadets already taking special courses it's more like Military Academy, though. Unlike what one might expect, the Schola is usually not a BoardingSchoolOfHorrors. The food tends to be decent, the teachers harsh but not sadistic, and the education's about as good as it gets.
* ''Brotherhood of the Rose'' by David Morrell. The protagonists are from an orphanage where the children are raised to be patriotic cannon fodder for the US military.
* ''Literature/TheConfusionsOfYoungTorless'' is supposed to be set at one of these, in 19th century Austria-Hungary.
* A ChekhovsGun in the ''DiaryOfAWimpyKid'' novel ''The Last Straw'' -- a rather annoying {{Delinquent}} is sent to one of these after his parents get fed up with him early in the book, as shown by a chapter. [[spoiler:It works, as we see him in his summer job as a movie usher, and by the looks of things, he's pretty much the platonic ideal of a good cadet. This is what causes Frank to seriously consider sending [[TheNarrator his son]] to it as a way of ridding his status as TheChewToy. Greg is not amused.]]
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[[folder: Live Action TV ]]
* In FreaksAndGeeks, Nick's father threatens to send him to military school if he doesn't improve his grades.
* In the first few seasons of ''MalcolmInTheMiddle,'' eldest brother Francis attends one of these.
* An episode of ''Series/SabrinaTheTeenageWitch'' parodied this, combining it with a Cinderella story. "You forgot your... boot?"
* ''Series/TheSopranos'' episode "Army of One". Tony Soprano and his wife Carmela disagree over whether to send their son A.J. to a MilitarySchool.
* ''DeadLikeMe.'' - A military school features as the site of a reap. Inverted in that the soon-to-be-dead cadet loves the school and constantly pushes herself to excel. [[spoiler:She dies on the obstacle course, where a safety rope breaks just as she makes it to the top of the tower climb.]]
* Arthur Carlson from ''WKRPInCincinnati'' had a son going to one of these, 'Prussian Valley'. He learns that his son's flunking out, but lets him hold onto his TheBGrade excuse for leaving, and enrolls him in public school.
* Another more positive portrayal is in the ''TheSarahConnorChronicles'' episode "Goodbye To All That".
* In the summer 2000 show ''Opposite Sex'' when Jed is reluctant to go to the formerly-all-girls-school his father signed him up for, he briefly attends a military school in the area but finds the intellectual rigor less than rigorous and returns to the other school.
* On ''Series/TheFactsOfLife'' there is an all-boys military school nearby which serves as the girls' counterpart (and was the setting for the PoorlyDisguisedPilot "The Academy").
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[[folder: Video Games ]]
* Attacking the tortoises in ''[[{{Rayman}} Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc]]'' sometimes provokes them to respond with the remark, "Your parents should have put you in military school!"
* In the first ''VideoGame/TheSims'' game, students who constantly get bad grades go to military school for the rest of their lives. In the second (or, the second after the huge amount of expansion packs), you can thankfully get lost children back, albeit they must be adopted by someone else...
* ''VideoGame/ValkyriaChronicles'' - As part of a national universal conscription program, ''every'' school in Gallia is effectively one of these.
** But ''the'' real military school is Lanseal, the center of the [[VideoGame/ValkyriaChroniclesII second game]]. It's a mix between school and academy, in that it also accepts people well beyond their highschool years.
* In ''TheAdventuresOfWillyBeamish'', if you get into too much trouble with your parents, you get a Game Over and are sent off to military school.
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[[folder: Western Animation ]]
* One episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' has Bart get forced into one of these. Lisa ends up joining as well because she liked the rigid structure and the fact that it was actually teaching stuff.
* Parodied in ''WesternAnimation/TheGrimAdventuresOfBillyAndMandy'', where a ZanyScheme to get Billy into a prestigious school ends with him realizing the school that he just succeeded in getting into was actually MilitarySchool. The last shot of the cartoon is of him standing in front of a firing line.
* The Exofleet Academy in ''WesternAnimation/ExoSquad''. Although it doesn't appear in the series itself, it plays an important role in e.g. Coleen O'Reilly's BackStory ([[spoiler:the Neosapien War began on the day of her graduation from the Academy and she was one of the few cadets to have survived the onslaught]]).
* ''WesternAnimation/KingOfTheHill'': Bobby attended a military school for one episode.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Daria}}'': Being shipped off to one by his father was a defining element of Jake Morgendorffer's character.
* The Smile Away Reformatory from "WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb Get Busted" is a [[BreakTheCutie cruel]] and [[NightmareFuel rather unsettling]] version.
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[[folder: Real Life ]]
* A few still exist in the U.S. The Valley Forge Military Academy, for instance. Culver Military Academy, Indiana Military High School and last bastion of equestrian cavalry in the United States Army. Also sports the largest riding arena in the nation.
* There are several high schools in the U.S. where the entire student body is enrolled in JROTC, such as the Marine Academy of Science and Technology in New Jersey.
* "Boot camps" for wayward youth are something of a cruel parody of the concept, giving kids with problems (sometimes not even all that severe) a treatment that's actually worse than any qualified military DI would deal out. It's not uncommon for such camps to be shut down when word gets out, only to reopen somewhere else under a different name in a looser jurisdiction.
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