Further to my last re private education, many people may not understand the sacrifices that some parents make to pay the relentlessly increasing school fees. I've known friends having to borrow from friends in order to pay the next terms fees. I laid out an elaborate plan to cope with anticipated costs year on year but of course in the end it fell well short of the requirement - hence yet further stringency on all other fronts. I'll bet that there are thousands of families struggling with the same sort of thing even now.
Which of course raises the question of why it should be necessary at all. The harsh fact is, in my view, that overall private education is superior to the state system. Otherwise why do such huge numbers of pupils from all over the world get sent here? That said, if there had been a suitable local alternative (and some state schools are surely very good) I would have seriously considered it and had some of those holidays instead of all the angst.
Final thought: boarding demands much more of a pupil than being a mere day-boy/girl. There's no skiving off in the evening, prep has to be done and is supervised, and the work ethic is unrelenting - as are the games opportunities which are part of the system. If only the state system could match it ...
Tony (still broke!)
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