Our highly-skilled housemistress and boarding staff recognise that our girls thrive in age-appropriate boarding settings.
Our junior boarders (Year 7, 8 & 9) enjoy shared bedrooms in separate wings of each house. As this can be the girls’ first experience of boarding, we deliver a bespoke experience which includes a warm and welcoming home away from home, supervised prep, a vast programme of weeknight and weekend activities, and pastoral workshops.
As our boarders’ progress through school, we appreciate them becoming increasingly independent and mature in both their academic studies and how they live together. Our Sixth Formers live together in separate houses, a short distance from the main school building. This gives them the opportunity to thrive, ahead of university and life beyond Roedean, and continue to build mutually respectful relationships with staff. Each girl has a single bedroom, with silent and collaborative study spaces available.
At Roedean, you might decide to dip your toes into boarding by starting with weekly or flexi-boarding.
As you move through the school and grow in confidence and independence, you might then choose to board more often, so that you can share the experience with your friends and spend more time on your co-curricular interests.
As a Flexi-boarder, you can stay at school for three nights per week – you have a dedicated space in the house where you can leave your possessions even when you are not staying overnight. You can also choose to board over the weekend, if space allows, if there is an activity in which you want to take part.
Weekly boarding is becoming increasingly popular with families who live in London or in Sussex and Surrey. It means that you can get the most out of the educational and co-curricular opportunities from Monday to Friday, and then return home to other friends and family at the weekends. You are, of course, very much part of the school community and receive the same level of care, opportunity, and accommodation as those who board full time. If you live in London, you join the ‘Victoria Escort’, which means that you are chaperoned on the short train journey between Brighton and London Victoria on a Friday evening, and met at Victoria on Sunday evening to return by bus.
Weekly Boarder
I share a room with two other girls, which is really fun because they’re always there!
“I share a room with two other girls, which is really fun because they’re always there, so there’s always someone to chat to or ask questions. The food is really good here – my favourite meal time is dinner with the boarders. There’s always a fun activity or something to join in with every evening in the ODR in the House – on Mondays and Wednesdays it changes, on Tuesday we often get together and make toasties, and on Thursday we often make pancakes together. Every night, the staff come in to check that we’re OK before bed, which helps make me feel safe. On Fridays, the chaperoned service to Victoria is quite chilled, I usually just read my book, watch something on my laptop or do some prep, and the staff always have a stash of chocolate!”
Many girls are full boarders, and there are over 330 girls on site at the weekends, enjoying lots of activities on Friday evenings, Saturdays, and Sundays.
In addition to your bedroom, there are a variety of spaces where you can work or relax, play games, or practise the piano. In each house, there is an ODR (the Old Dining Room), perhaps the symbolic heart of the house, where you can catch up with your friends at the end of the day. There is also the GDR (the so-called ‘Girls’ Dining Room’, although it is now a common room), with a television and DVD player, and the Hobbies’ Room which has games and puzzles to enjoy in the evening.
You will be fed very well in the Main Dining Room for all meals, but you also have the option of making toast or preparing pasta in the evening, and this can be done in the pantry kitchen which is next to the ODR, where there are cookers, hobs, and fridges, or in the ‘snug areas’ on the Lower and Middle corridors.
he weekend programme is full and varied, and it caters to the interests of the girls – there are trips to museums and galleries in London, sporting activities such as horse-riding and windsurfing, and pottery painting, ice-skating, and the Christmas market near Brighton, to name just a few.
“After school, at 17:00, everyone except for year 7 and 8 are allowed to collect their phones. After dinner there is time to do whatever you want until 18:45 where we all come together for any notices. Straight after that is Prep for the whole house.
Prep is essentially an hour where the house is quiet so that everyone can get their work done. Years 7 and 9 are seated in the JPR (there’s one in every House) and Years 10 and 11 are in their bedrooms quietly working. When prep finishes at 20:00 Years 7 and 8 may collect their phones and there is always some sort of activity, such as toastie night (my favourite), baking competitions, dance, arts and crafts and other things too! These fun activities usually last for 45 minutes and then the house gets a bit quieter for lights out for the younger years.
Each year will hand in their phones 15 minutes before lights out. My favourite thing about boarding is that it’s like living with your friends even though I do not share a room. I love the fact that I get to experience the aspect of being a boarder and that I always have exciting stories to tell my parents. It can take time to get used to, but I am sure that once you settle in and make new friends you will feel like you are at a home away from home.”
Roedean’s boarding infrastructure underlines the school’s commitment to the highest pastoral standards and creates a ‘home from home’ environment.
Our boarding houses have been described as ‘the swankiest in the world’ by Tatler. Homely, yet elegant, the interior has been specially designed to have personality and character. Girls enjoy their study bedrooms, as well as a combination of places for socialising and peaceful private spaces.
There are six Houses in total: Keswick, Lawrence and Houses 1 to 4 – all beautifully decorated in an eclectic mix of old and new features. Each house has a ‘snug’ on each floor with a kitchen. The ‘Old Dining Room’ (ODR) and common rooms are found at the heart of each house. These spaces provide the perfect place for friends to relax, watch TV, play games, have a snack and spend time with house staff catching up after a busy day of school
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