After introducing the positive impact boarding-only staff can have on student wellbeing in the previous article, in the second of three articles on boarding at International Schools Alannah Burns explores the experiences of those working in lower-level boarding roles and the detrimental effect labelling these roles as little more than 'internships' has on staff retention in boarding.
The world has never seemed more open and accessible. With the establishment of English as a global language and the endless availability of cheap air travel, the current under-30s are the most mobile and get-up-and-go generations we have ever seen. When an opportunity presents itself to discover what’s ‘out there,’ be it a new job, partner, friends or experiences, the under-30s are off! We will not squint at a screen for one faceless company in a dead-end town forever. We will job-hop, find ourselves, follow our passions, maybe lose ourselves again, and we will certainly not be restricted by land borders and vast expanses of sea. Try as Brexit and the COVID-19 pandemic might, there is no stopping the wanderlust of the under-30s. Boarding-only job adverts with their “graduate” headline, their “internship” format, and their “work experience” feel target this age category and their suck it and see attitude.
Having a young boarding team has its obvious benefits, namely that boarding students can relate to and will be most inspired by a fresh-faced recent graduate. Boarding staff with interests in sports and the creative arts are particularly sought-after even though a lot of the job advert involves unspecified “ensuring student safety and wellbeing” sentences, or “setting a positive example” ideas. The real hook is the skiing, horse riding, football, museum visits and theatre trips, as indeed might the draw also be for parents flipping through boarding school brochures.
Boarding staff typically work most early-mornings, late-afternoons, evenings, nights and weekends of a month. When the middle of the day becomes your non-working hours, and three weekends out of four are spent with the boarding students, your personal life is bound to take a serious hit. Lower-level boarding-only job adverts favour summer camp experience involving fast-paced, demanding but thoroughly enjoyable full-day work of back-to-back sports, games, the great outdoors, and fun. Granted, getting paid to spend your weekends with boarding students getting a ski-goggles-tan sounds fantastic. This is, however, a school and a home, and not a summer camp. Being in the same place day in day out with an early-morning and late-night routine of study time and ‘lights out’ checks on repeat is exhausting.
working in a boarding house requires a serious lifestyle change
Teaching is another sought-after interest in a boarding-only applicant. Boarding staff might be used as cover for teacher absences or be given limited teaching responsibilities in, for example, EAL if they want it or their job description requires it. Those with summer camp experience of running creative and sporty activities tend to find covering classes frustrating, unlike those with experience or an interest in teaching.
While any experience is what you make of it, and there are of course opportunities to engage students in ways you also find enjoyable, you, the sporty, outdoorsy, outgoing young person are missing out on that theatre rehearsal, that football practice, or that birthday party because it is not your one night off a week, nor your one weekend off a month. You have moved across countries to live in a boarding house which your significant other cannot come and stay with you in. If you make friends in the local area, they are at work during your time off, and you are at work while they are out at the bar. If your colleagues in boarding turn out to be the kinds of people you desperately need a regular break from, then woe betide ye… It is safe to say that working in a boarding house requires a serious lifestyle change for these get-up-and-go under-30s.
Aside from the money-saving aspect for the school (lower wages, cheaper insurance, a one-year contract and limited-time residence), schools tend to argue that the lower level of boarding roles with their ‘graduate internship’ label were never meant to be positions people stay in for longer than a year. The idea is that at the end of the school year, the Graduate Assistant/Assistant Houseparent either carries that experience into their future career as this may be their first job after university, or stays on with line-manager responsibilities for next year’s Graduate Assistants, becoming the Houseparent/Deputy House Master. Then, if the school is large enough, they become Senior Houseparent/House Master, and so on over the years all the way up to Head of Boarding/Head of Pastoral/Boarding Director. There are, however, fewer higher-level positions in boarding than internship/graduate positions. A few work their way up, too many leave.
A few work their way up, too many leave
Notice the abundance of forward slashes above. Boarding schools need to address the variety of definitions and titles of boarding roles. Some internship-labelled roles may involve a combination of teaching responsibilities, covering classes, office-based administrative work, library duties, after-school clubs, airport transfers or driving responsibilities, while some only involve a few of these. Some will involve organising external activities as well as leading them, while others will not. Some staff will be assigned to all trips and activities, while others will spend most of their time in school. Some will cover a lot of classes, others will not cover any. Some will be trusted to teach independently, others will have to fight for the chance. The strain that the COVID-19 pandemic has put on boarding schools is unimaginable, but the strain on boarding staff has been even more intense. Feeling thrown into whichever odd job presents itself for little recognition in terms of pay or status for the 24/7 work you do is, simply put, demoralising. With your exhausting and responsibility-laden job viewed only as an expendable low-level ‘internship’ role, why stay when the year is up?
For boarding students, the connections they make with boarding staff can make a world of difference to their school experience. It is therefore a great shame when the majority of faces on boarding staff teams change each year. The effect on students of seeing boarding staff come and go is perhaps far greater than some schools might realise. The advertising of lower-level boarding staff roles as “internship” and “graduate” positions only encourages this regular change.
With this insight into the responsibility-laden but often under-appreciated lower-level boarding staff roles, in the third and final article of this series, Alannah Burns will explore what schools can do to encourage boarding staff to stay for more than a year and the benefits this would bring to student wellbeing.