In short. Starting boarding at 13 is a big change, and feeling nervous is completely normal. Most people wobble a bit in the first fortnight, then settle. This guide answers the real questions: making friends, the food, phones, homesickness, weekends, and what that first week actually feels like.
It’s the moment your family’s car pulls away. You’ve unpacked half a bag, your room smells like someone else’s washing powder, and a girl you’ve never met is standing in the doorway asking if you want to come down for tea. Your stomach does something odd. Part of you wants to go. Part of you wants to cry. Both of those are fine. Honestly, both at once is the most normal thing in the world on day one.
So here are straight answers to the things you’re probably actually wondering, from someone who remembers what that first night felt like.
Will I make friends?
Yes. And sooner than you think, because everyone else is in exactly the same boat.
Here’s the thing nobody says out loud: the other new girls are just as nervous as you. The confident-looking one who seems to know everyone? She’s faking it a bit too. When you all start together, there’s no established group you have to break into. You’re building it together from scratch.
Friendships at boarding school form fast because you’re around each other all the time. You eat together, do prep together, watch films in the common room, moan about the early mornings. That much shared time does something. By half term you’ll have people who feel like family.
You don’t have to be best friends with everyone. You just need one or two people you click with. Say yes to things in the first couple of weeks even when you don’t feel like it. That’s where the friends are.
What is the food really like?
Better than you’re expecting, and worse than your mum’s. Both true.
Most schools do a canteen or dining hall with a few choices at each meal. There’s usually a hot option, a veggie option, a salad bar, and something with chips more often than your parents would like. Some days it’s genuinely good. Some days you’ll text home a photo captioned “help”. That’s boarding food. Everyone complains about it and everyone eats it.
If you’re vegetarian, coeliac, or have allergies, the school will cater for you, but tell them clearly and early. Ask your parents to put it in writing before you arrive. The kitchen staff are usually lovely once they know you by name.
Can I keep my phone?
This one really depends on your school, so check your school’s exact rules before you pack.
Some schools let you keep your phone and just have “off” times, like after lights out. Others collect phones overnight and give them back in the morning. A few have tighter rules for younger years and loosen them as you go up the school. There’s no single answer, which is why you need to look at your specific school’s policy or ask your houseparent directly.
What’s true almost everywhere: you’ll be able to contact home. Calls, messages, sometimes a house phone. You will not be cut off from your family. If the phone rules worry you, that’s a completely fair question to ask on your first day. Nobody will think it’s silly.
Will I be homesick? Is that normal?
Yes, probably. And yes, completely normal.
Homesickness isn’t a sign you’ve made a mistake or that you’re not cut out for this. It’s just what happens when you love your home and you’re not in it. Even girls who end up adoring boarding get homesick at the start. It often hits hardest at night, or on a Sunday, or right after a lovely phone call with your mum.
Here’s the honest bit: the first two weeks can wobble. You might feel great in the morning and wretched by bedtime. Then, usually, it lifts. Not because someone fixed it, but because the place slowly starts to feel like yours. The corridors stop being strange. You have a seat you always sit in. It creeps up on you.
If it doesn’t lift, or it feels too heavy to carry, tell someone. That’s not weakness. That’s the smart thing to do.
If something feels wrong, not just homesick
Missing home is normal and it passes. But some things are more than homesickness. If it doesn’t get better, or something feels wrong — someone is unkind or unsafe, you can’t sleep or eat, or you just can’t cope — tell your houseparent, matron, or your parents straight away. That is the strong thing to do, not the weak one. The adults are there for exactly this, and you will be taken seriously.
Who actually looks after me?
Your house. Boarding schools are split into houses, which is basically a big home with a group of pupils and the adults who look after them.
The main grown-up is your houseparent (sometimes called a housemistress). They run the house, they know every girl in it, and a lot of their job is noticing when someone’s having a rough time. There are usually other staff too: a matron who sorts out plasters, laundry and homesick evenings, and older pupils called prefects or seniors who help the new ones settle.
You are not meant to cope alone. If you can’t sleep, if you’ve fallen out with someone, if you just want to talk, that’s exactly what these people are there for. Knocking on the houseparent’s door is normal. Everyone does it.
What do you even do at weekends?
More than you’d think, and some blissful nothing too.
Weekends are a mix. There’s usually sport on Saturdays, matches or training. Then clubs, trips into town, film nights, baking, art, music, sometimes a coach trip somewhere. Sundays are often slower: a lie-in, prep, calling home, hanging around the common room in pyjamas.
You won’t be entertained every second, and that’s a good thing. Some of the best boarding memories are the unplanned ones. Sitting on someone’s floor at 9pm eating snacks from the tuck shop and laughing about nothing.
What is the first week actually like?
A blur. A good blur, mostly, with a couple of hard evenings threaded through.
You’ll be handed a timetable and a map and you’ll get lost anyway. You’ll forget names and have to ask twice. You’ll be tired in a way you’re not used to, because your brain is working overtime just learning where everything is. And somewhere in that week, usually when you’re not looking for it, you’ll have a proper laugh with someone and realise you’re okay. Here’s a rough guide to what actually helps.
What to pack that actually helps
- A photo or two from home. Not your whole family album. One or two, by your bed.
- Something that smells like home. A jumper, a pillowcase, a specific shampoo. Smell is weirdly powerful for homesickness.
- A cosy blanket or throw. Makes a strange bed feel like yours in about ten seconds.
- A door snack stash. Biscuits or sweets to share. Sharing food makes friends fast.
- A refillable water bottle and a small torch. Dull, but you’ll use both constantly.
- Stamps, an envelope, and your family’s address written down. A real letter home lands differently than a text.
- A list of who to call and when. Your parents’ numbers, and your houseparent’s name, written somewhere you can find it at 10pm.
- Comfy clothes for the common room. You live in these more than your uniform.
Pack the practical stuff, yes. But the things that help most are the small ones that make a new room feel like it’s yours.
One last thing, and I mean it. The girl standing in your doorway on day one, asking if you’re coming down for tea? A few weeks from now, that might be you, knocking on a new girl’s door. You’ll remember exactly how the first night felt, and you’ll be the reason hers is a little easier. That’s how this works. You’ll be fine. Better than fine, probably. Go down for the tea.