Day schools and Boarding schools, one main difference between them is that boarding schools provides 24/7 educational experience, where the students and the teachers reside in the campus separately, boys and girls are given separate hostels. This topic is an interesting debate, even though both day schools and boarding schools provides holistic and value education, spur creativity and learning, helps develop important traits in life. While a day school has limited learning scope and skill development, boarding schools are open up to unlimited prospects of learning and gaining life skills practically helping the students endure resilience, independence and confidence. We are going t o discuss main some main pointers on how day schools and boarding differentiate from one another.
- Education
The main aim of both day schools and boarding schools is to impart quality education to students, but the approach taken to provide knowledge is completely different. Similarly, talking about the environment in which comprehensive learning takes place is quite dissimilar, day school focuses on text-book basis learning and this in itself hosts limitation, where the mind of a student cannot be broadened for a wider perspective, leaving no room for creativity or imagination. A boarding school however, emphasizes on practical learning; numerous approaches are taken to make the learning experience of the students unique.
- Social Interactions
It is often seen that a student learns better with peer interaction and involvement. Friendships can be formed at any kind of school, private, public, or boarding school. However, in a boarding school, given the 24/7 experience, students often form lifelong bonds as they learn and play among peers. The diversity in boarding schools also offers better opportunities for students to learn about cultures from many others helping them gain perspective while learning inside and outside the boarding school. Making peers in a day school can be helpful for learning as well, but the students have limited time to spend with peers as they have to go back home after certain hours and there are some activities that are missed out.
- Personal Growth and essential life skills and traits
Boarding schools and day schools ensures that the right traits in life are developed and endured in the students for their personal growth. However, one main limitation of a day school is that students go back to their respective homes which does not provide the same atmosphere like the school, hence students adapt to behaving differently at home and at the school. However, boarding schools are residential and provide the students with much independence to manage and handle everything themselves, inevitably putting the students on a path towards discipline and punctuality, managing their routine and keeping on track with their time table helps them grow socially and personally.
- Co-curricular and sports
Boarding schools stands class apart from day schools when it comes to co-curricular and sports, they lay huge emphasis as it is adamant in providing the best facilities on these for students as they have ample amount of time after school where they can pursue what they have an interest in. A proper routine is followed by the students to these activities after the classes, be it art, music, dance, games and the boarding schools make sure that the students dedicate a proper time skilling them. This is not the case with day schools as they follow restrictive hours to function, giving time for co-curricular activities. The day schools give time for extracurricular activities for once a week or so.
- Fee structure and facilities
As compared to day schools, boarding schools are quite expensive because they provide residence and food for the students along with the school and sports fees. The day schools do not have extra charges and the fee structure is usually fair and is kept accordingly. Here comes the aspect of standards, depending on the standards of a day school and boarding school, it can be similar.
- Self-independence
With the hostel facilities provided in boarding schools, students are expected to manage their responsibilities and duties throughout, hence the very essence of this experience makes the student resilient and independent followed by discipline and punctuality. Day schools, on the other hand have this aspect where the students go home after a certain hour and here on, the student is provided for by the parents and cared for, which does not contribute to their self-independence.
- Teacher’s Guidance
In a boarding school, take the boarding schools in Dehradun for example, there are relatively lesser number of students, hence the teachers can offer guidance and concentrate on each and every student in the class without any discomfort. Appropriate guidance can be provided to weak students as well, the students can interact with the teacher any time as they are available at the school campus throughout the day. In contrast, day schools usually have a huge number of students, making it a tough task for the teacher if he/she were going to concentrate on each and every student, provided that they are not going to be in the school throughout the day, hence some limitations can surface where weaker students do not get the right approach to understanding a concept. Additionally, the teachers at a day school have to follow a syllabus and there arises the necessity to complete it before examinations because of the time constraint.
Boarding schools can be considered to be more superior than day schools because of factors that expose children to routine and challenging tasks in an early stage of life. Day schools are limited because of their restrictive time routine and do not lay great emphasis on sports and coo-curricular activities due to the time constraint. However, one thing that we can all agree is that be it a boarding school or a day school, they both strive to impart knowledge and holistic education to the students so that they can be better individuals of tomorrow.
