Moor Park School offers a flexible and adaptable boarding schedule that benefits children and parents alike, writes Katie Gedye
Having spent many years falling, boarding numbers, for the last two years in succession, have finally begun to climb. Interestingly, this does not seem attributable to parents buying into the traditional full-boarding model, but to the increasing number of schools offering a more flexible approach.The needs of the modern family have changed and schools are learning they need to go with the flow a little more.
Modern Boarding
Moor Park is a school on the outskirts of Ludlow in Shropshire. Over the last few years, the boarding team ? led by deputy head Simon Gedye ? have overhauled the offering, with quite surprising results. Now 90% of the children in the middle and upper school board at least one night a week, with most doing three or four and the school?s 120 beds are full at least twice a week. As a relatively small school, with no ?full-boarding? pedigree, this is quite some feat. Building firm foundations is always a good idea and this is certainly true at Moor Park. In 2010, we built a quite unique junior boarding house, called the Tree House. Ticking all the ?eco? boxes (it is one of the first Category 4, on the Code for Sustainable Homes, houses in Shropshire), it is a 20-bed den for the seven and eight year olds. Cosy, secure and undaunting, the youngest boarders can dip their toes in to the boarding life of the school.
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