The 2024 Graziher Boarding School Guide

Head to ISSUU for our digital Graziher Boarding Schools Guide, with extended stories on all the schools featured and direct links to all school websites.

A letter from Graziher’s Editorial Director, Victoria Carey, introducing the 2024 Boarding School Guide: 

Even though most parents in the bush know it’s inevitable, sending your kids off to boarding school is still an emotional time for everyone in the family. All the people I talk to every year about this boarding school guide tell me how much thought and effort goes into finding the right school for their children. The conversation usually starts with memories of their own school days, the good and the bad, and then we talk about what they would love for their own kids. Which school would best for their son who loves to row or the one who wants to be an artist? What about their daughter who would like to be a professional musician? Or one who wants to show cattle? The list is endless and we hope this guide helps you in your search for the answers to these questions.

One piece of advice stood out for me this year and it was a very obvious one. “Involve your kids in the decision. Ask them what school they would like to go to,” photographer Amy Holcombe told me one late afternoon when I caught her at home on her property, Kinma, in Queensland. Luckily for Amy, her eldest two who are already boarding have liked the same school. Fingers crossed the youngest feels the same way when his turn comes! “Sending your first child off is unbelievably hard. You ask yourself if it is the right decision, both for them and for your family,” she writes in our story on page 4. “There is an empty seat in the car and at the dining table, less conversation around the house, and you notice all the little things that constantly remind you they are not there.”

Amy is right in the middle of the boarding-school stage of life, while Alexandra MacAlpine has it all ahead of her, as her little boy Jimmy is not even at preschool yet. This writer and photographer, who grew up in Wagga Wagga, tells us on page 10 about her own experiences going away to boarding school in Sydney, something she initially had some reservations about. She is now glad she took the plunge:

“I was welcomed and included by all the girls in my boarding year. They were a beautiful bunch of young women, and to this day I am still friends with them. It’s true what they say, the friends you make at boarding school tend to stick together throughout life. They have been there for all the milestones; my 21st birthday, my engagement, my wedding, meeting my son Jimmy — they are only ever a phone call away,” she says.

We asked author Sally Warriner, who now has grandchildren at school, to write ‘Dear Headmaster’ on page 30. “I remember quite vividly sitting on top of the big tin mailbox on the Stuart Highway crying while the taillights of the Greyhound bus disappeared on the road north to Darwin, with one, sometimes two, of my sons on board. I didn’t cry until they had left,” she recalls. (And before I forget, you must read Sally’s memoir, Not Just The Wife of the General Manager, if you haven’t already.)

It’s an exciting and challenging journey and we hope these stories make the ride a little smoother for everyone in your family.

Victoria Carey, Editorial Director of Graziher.

Head to ISSUU for our digital Graziher Boarding Schools Guide, with extended stories on all the schools featured and direct links to all school websites.

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