Best Schools - 'Flexi-boarding' on the rise as pupils stay overnight at school following after hours extra-curricul

Nick Wergan, headmaster at Steyning Grammar School in west Sussex and chair of the Boarding Schools Association (BSA), has said that there has been a growth in the number of pupils opting to stay over night at school from time to time.

“The trend of the growth is in flexi-boarding,” he said. “This is not boarding for an entire term, it is maybe a weekly boarder, or staying on certain nights during the week.”

The BSA represents the UK’s leading boarding schools including Eton College, Harrow School and Winchester College.

He said that flexi-boarding is a particularly popular option for children are staying late at school for an extra-curricular pursuit, whether it’s a debating club, a sports match or a zumba class.

While students whose families live overseas are more likely to be enrolled as full-time boarders, British parents are more likely to be interested in the flexi-boarding option, he said.

The proportion of weekly and flexi-boarders has increased for the past consecutive years, according to the Independent Schools Council annual census.

In 2016, 15.7 per cent of boarders were weekly or flexi boarders, which has now risen to 17.9 per cent.

Schools to be held accountable for exam results of excluded pupils, new report says

Headteachers will be accountable for the exam results of students they exclude under a government shakeup aimed at reducing school expulsions.

Damian Hinds, the education secretary, admitted the number of exclusions was too high as he endorsed a long-awaited report by former children's minister Edward Timpson into the thousands of pupils disappearing from school registers.

Mr Hinds pledged to implement dozens of recommendations from the report, which includes forcing schools to find alternative places for excluded pupils.

The move would also see excluded pupils counted in school league tables to eliminate "off-rolling", the controversial practice of removing weaker or more difficult students from the school register without formal expulsion in order to bolster results.

Permanent exclusions have risen by 40 per cent in just three years amid fears that excluded pupils are at increased risk of being drawn into knife crime.