Going to a boarding school in Scotland (Strahallan School):
I was really excited to come back and seeing my friends again after the holidays. It was weird not to see and be with everyone for such a long time especially when you go to a boarding school and you are with everyone all the time. But it was also hard to get my routine back after two months of being at home.
A typical day at Strath starts at 7.20 am with getting dressed and putting on school uniform to go to breakfast. At 8 o’clock you have to be back in your boarding house for rollcall and then get ready to attend the assembly in the school’s own chapel, which everyone was now able to attend since there weren’t as many restrictions anymore due to covid. Afterwards you go straight to class until around 1 pm, at which time you then go and have lunch or stay in house for an hour. Lessons usually end at around four depending on the day and then afterwards you go your chosen activity like tennis, golf, rugby, hockey, clay pigeon shooting, etc. for another hour.
Dinner is normally at around 6 pm and you have to be back in house no later than 7.30 pm to do your one and a half hour of prep (homework) and revision.
This year, 5th form, was especially hard and there was a lot of work to do because of the GCSE exams at the end of the year, which sadly I wasn’t able to take part in but I did attend the Mocks in February, which are supposed to prepare the students for the actual exams in May.
They lasted for two weeks and in these two weeks you didn’t have to go to lessons since you had two exams a day and the rest of your day you could either spend in the library or in house to do some revision.
On the weekends though, I would still go out and visit my friends at home. I even took two trips down to England over the weekend.
One weekend, my friends and I went down to Leeds for a friend’s birthday, where we went shopping and afterwards out for dinner.
During half term I spent a few days in Newcastle with a friend, where we also went shopping and visited an international food market.
On the normal weekends I would usually go to my friend’s house in Edinburgh. We would go watch rugby matches in Murrayfield Stadium, go to the market or just walk around in Edinburgh. During Christmas time we even went to the Edinburgh Christmas Market twice, which was really fun with all the snow and rides.
Looking back, I really do miss my friends and just going to school there, because it is so different to here. I am really excited though to go back and seeing everyone in summer.
Tilly Stoll