Pencils, erasers and schoolbags are back. 12 million children return to school this Thursday. For some it was even yesterday Wednesday in a way. Because thousands of young people have been welcomed into boarding schools. They are about 200,000 nationally. Illustration in Ussel at the Bernart de Ventadour high school where out of the 600 students, around a hundred, boys and girls, are boarders.
You have the worst room because the pawn is right there”
We had to arrive early all the same: welcome meeting for new interns at 4:45 p.m. Olivier Soulier, the principal, recalls the philosophy of the Ussélois high school applied to the boarding school: “firmness and kindness”. The main education advisers then explain everything you need to know. And then finally towards the rooms. Gabriel is guided by his brother Antonin, a former member of the boarding school. “You’re in 102. You have the worst room because the pawn is right there” he said laughing. Gabriel who comes from Neuvic enters second and discovers the boarding school, without stress precisely because his brother went there. “I think I’m going to have a good year.”
The discovery of autonomy
The mother, Nathalie, also knows that it will be a good year for Gabriel. Above all, she has past experience with her eldest to reassure her. “It’s true that after class they can go out, go into town, something they didn’t have in college, but hey! you have to learn to trust them”. To reassure her, she can also listen to the old people who are going to boarding school for the second or third time. All happy to come back. “I have a good boarding school, there are only friends!” says Quentin, a final year student.
A chance for young people and for high school
It must be said that at the Ventadour high school, the boarding school is on a human scale, with its hundred students, and that the establishment’s leaders cultivate a “family” spirit there. They spend more time here than with their families.” recalls Olivier Soulier. The principal also emphasizes that this boarding school is a chance for them. It welcomes young people who sometimes come from far away and who would have had far too long and tiring journeys to study serenely and comfortably during the day. A chance also for the school itself. “It allows us to have a slightly larger workforce than it would be if we did not offer this service”. Especially since the number of interns who had dropped with the covid goes up: they are 20 more this year than last year.