Boarding Life Through Tom’s Eyes
From morning routines, to after school laughs and everything in between—life as a boarder is full of action, adventure and learning! The following Q&A captures the boarding-life through the eyes of Tom who is a twelve-year-old pupil at Casterton. Tom tells us why he’s happiest first thing in the morning. From seven-o’clock wake-ups and sun-soaked cricket on the rugby pitches to Saturday-evening snack raids and impromptu pool tournaments, he sketches a day that never quite stands still—yet somehow always feels like home.
Can you tell us about the best part of your school day?
I think the best part of the day for me is actually when I wake up! Because when you wake up it’s the start of a new day. You get up, get ready and restart the day! At the end of the day you’re really tired, but then in the morning you feel fresh and energised and ready to go!
We wake up at seven o’clock, we have breakfast at 7:30 and after breakfast we have “teeth and tidy” where we sort our room out and brush our teeth. Then we start school at 8:15.
What is the best thing about boarding?
In my opinion, the best thing about boarding is being able to relax with your friends and play pool with them, play table football with them. It’s like the world’s biggest sleepover, but with way more awesome stuff to do.
Are the boarding staff kind?
Miss Bennett is really kind and she looks after you whenever you’ve had any problems or anything. Mr Bundy is the same; really caring and looks after you and you can ask if you just need advice with something.
What do you do after school?
After dinner at 5:30 we go into prep where we have 45 minutes to just catch up on things that we need to do. Then we have activities; you can go outside, chill, watch a movie… My favourite activity is to out onto the rugby pitches and play cricket and chill in the sun! We come back at 7:30 to relax in house, have showers and go to bed.
Weekends are really good too because after Saturday school it’s like a big chillax! We all get snacks and watch a movie or go outside and play tennis and games.
On Sundays we wake up later and have a special, extra yummy, breakfast. Then we have some activities; often we’ll go somewhere – we’ll go bowling or something and then when we get back we’ll just chill in house again. Personally, the absolute favourite thing that we’ve done was go clay pigeon shooting! We went with our old house master and while I’ve done a lot of clay pigeon shooting before, it was great fun doing it with my boarding mates.
Which of the Ways of the Wolf have you practised today?
Courage, definitely, because we had drama today and it’s a hard thing stepping up on the stage and acting in front of everyone. I’m going to be in the play – something I am looking forward to doing at Senior School too. I do naturally think courage is one of the more important Ways of the Wolf that I like to focus on, but I try and put into practise as many of them as I can!
Do you know what you’d like to do in the future?
In the future, I would see myself working in commercial law in a big law firm down in London. My mum is a legal adviser and she’s my main influence for getting into law.
I like commercial law because there’s lots of nitty gritty little bits that you have to get down because you’re dealing with massive businesses trying to sue each other and things like that. So you have to be really particular about how you do things to make it work.
To help me get in to that career I’m currently spending lots of time on my drama so I feel confident speaking in front of people and to people who are higher in authority than me. I’m looking at doing debating and stuff at the senior school.
