School in Focus - celebrating success in schools

Royal Alexandra and Albert School

As you drive up to the main school building of the Royal Alexandra and Albert School in Surrey, past wide expanses of playing fields and through Capability Brown-designed parkland, you get the feeling this school isn't like most other comprehensives around the country. "It's not," says head teacher Paul Spencer Ellis. "This is the only state boarding school for 7— to18-year-olds in the country. It's unique. And the grounds, obviously, are very special."

Historic beginnings
The grand setting — the sixth-form boarding house is a Palladian mansion — are due to the school's historic beginnings as two separate royal orphanages. In the 1950s the two orphanages combined and moved to this site where Surrey County Council built a primary and secondary school to cater for the 500 orphans who stayed throughout the year.

As care procedures changed and funding of the charities ran lower, the school's make-up has gradually altered and now it comprises 300 day-boarders, drawn from the local catchment area, and 400 full-time boarders that include 50 'foundationers' — children who have met difficulties in their lives — whose places are funded by the school's Charitable Foundation.

"They fit in absolutely seamlessly," says Paul. "If they have no funds at all, then I make sure the school provides them with uniform and pocket money, just like other children. If they want piano lessons, it depends on how well they're doing elsewhere. If they're being a nuisance they won't have them, but if they make an effort and improve their behaviour then they will. It's a two-way process." 

Achieving against adversity
Foundationers come mainly from the south-east and midlands, usually recommended by social services after they have been taken into care. "The interesting thing is, foundationers consistently outperform their year groups and are more likely to be made prefects," says Paul.

One girl joined the school at nine, when her mother, a single parent, was taken into hospital suffering from paranoid schizophrenia. The girl's social worker was concerned that if the mother recovered enough to live at home with her daughter, her daughter's education would suffer, so she came to the Royal Albert and Alexandra. The girl went home for half-terms and holidays but only after strict assessments as there was always the fear that her mother would harm, or even kill her, to "keep her safe".  The girl left the school last year with four A grades at A level and is waiting to hear if she will get a place at Cambridge University.

Benefiting the social aspect
It is not only those whose academic development will benefit from coming to the school that are admitted, there is the social aspect too. Paul tells the story of one boy who was the only witness to his father's murder. When his mother then had a nervous breakdown he withdrew into himself and social services thought he would benefit from the boarding environment.

"He was a silent and tearful boy", says Paul, "who took a long time to make friends. He rarely talked to adults at first, but he left with six GCSEs and has gone on to college near his home. He came back recently to pick up some coursework and to thank his teachers and he said then, 'I know I was difficult when I came to school.' But all that difficulty was worth it, to see the confident man he's become who smiles and looks adults in the eye."

A boarding ethos
Paul promotes the boarding ethos as an integral part of the school because he believes it is this which gives the children their confidence. In a boarding house of 48 boarders, there will be a house master or mistress plus three more resident members of staff, two non-resident staff who are attached to the house and one non-resident matron. "It means boarders tend to be good at talking to adults who aren't their parents. That's where the confidence comes from, the variety of adult contact," says Paul.

Because of this ethos, the school's admissions policy is first to supply places for boarders (for whom fees are £3,450 a term), then for day boarders (£1,110), then for day pupils. Day boarders can arrive in the school any time from 7.30a.m. and stay until the evening, although there is no obligation to do so. They join in with extra-curricular activities and do their 'prep' — as the school calls homework — in the boarding house.

"There is no great difference between being a boarder or a day boarder here," says Paul. "Rather like being a foundationer or not, everybody is treated the same."