This is inspired by the fact that I was just looking up my Gran's old boarding schools, both of which, in her description bore odd similarities to the very early CS (ie, the first 4 books). One of them was pulled down thirty years ago - the other is alive and flourishing, with an all singing, all dancing website: here

So my question is - if the CS had been real, would it have survived? Would it have turned in to a school like Farlington? (with such eye watering fees - which they categorically did not have during the 40s!) or would it have floundered?

Thoughts?

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"...but remember for your guidance in hours of peril, that the soul of man is unconquerable; no pain, no ignominy from without, can ever crush or smirch it, however much spirit and flesh may suffer." Far Away Moses

I think it could have survived, but I think it would've had to market itself to a different set of people. I can't see that British doctors, solicitors etc would be able to afford to send their children to Swiss boarding schools these days - maybe some people do still have significant "private incomes", but not in my world! - but there are a lot of expats from many different countries working in well-paid jobs in Switzerland, and an international school might well appeal to them.

I'd assume that EBD chose the Oberland purely because the political situation at the time ruled Austria out and German-speaking, Alpine Switzerland seemed like the closest alternative, but the choice of Switzerland as a location might inadvertently have ended up saving the school, especially once TB had stopped being a major issue in Europe and so the San had stopped being a major source of pupils for it.

They'd also have had to try to appeal to the "nouveaux riches" - maybe people like Russian "oligarchs", or film stars and pop stars, or wealthy business people from the Middle East. I think there is still a market for schools like the CS, but not in its traditional pupil base, and that might have taken a lot of getting used to for the old-timers.

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We really must stop eating like this ...

Minds are like parachutes - they only function when open.

They were one of the first schools with a UK and international branch, so maybe they would have kept expanding, catering for other countries and opened branches in Dubai and China!

The Swiss branch may have survived as they already had the unique selling point of the three languages to appeal to expats and locals. I can't however see St Mildreds surviving.

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‘He has only half learnt the art of reading who has not added to it the even more refined accomplishments of skipping and of skimming.’
Arthur Balfour,“The pleasures of reading” (1905)

I think it probably could have survived but there would have been changes.

http://www.aiglon.ch/ This is the school Princess Beatrice was meant to go to but the head was caught either with his hand in the till, or worse, so they switched schools for her just in time before she started.

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http://nicolaslade.wordpress.com/

If you take the bare bones of the school - tri-lingual, field trips, varied curriculum - then yes, I think it would have survived, but I doubt that the CS ethos of staff non-interference, everyone being as one family, and individualized attention paid to girls to pull them up would have survived. As people have mentioned, only the extremely wealthy these days can afford to send their girls to this sort of school, making it much more homogenized in terms of the types of kids that would go there (it's debatable, but I really think that having no monetary worries usually does influence a child's viewpoint). As well, more recent legal and social developments would have forced the school to run more as a standardized institution than was described by EBD.

I think that the school your Grandmother attended looks terrifying, from a Staff point of view, Nell. It seels well to parents first, then to girls themselves and they obviously find staff who are prepared to help with those frantic weekends and so on, way and above simply teaching, so perhaps I'm wrong when I wonder if a modern-day CS would be able to survive.

See, it would have to find Staff who would do all this extra stuff, and I wonder if that would be easy? The school you showed us says that its Staff is its greatest asset, they are all dedicated and committed to helping provide the best environment and education for the girls, their committment is second to none and the pastorial care and interest in the girls is embedded in all they do. Now, this reads wonderfully for parents, but I wonder what such and expense would be for a school like the Chalet School.

When the CS first started it was set up and run by - and for - the Staff, who decided what was needed and how to provide the for the needs. But now, schools are run for parents and I don't know how the CS would cope with this.

If it did happen, that the CS was in these times and its ethos was parent-led, how do you think that might play out in real terms for the CS? What would have to change (or perhaps nothing would) and how would it change, if it did?

From my own experience no one is forced as a teacher to work in an independent boarding school... if supervising weekends activities and late night duty is not your cup of tea as a teacher, you choose to work in a day school. I applied for a pre-prep teaching job in a prep school once and went on an overnight visit prior to the interview, where it was spelt out in black and white verbally and through practice (being expected as an interviewee to join in/supervise) exactly what was expected and from a very brief look at Nell's website the school I experienced as a teacher doesn't seem overly different.

Can I see the CS surviving into the modern day? Yes, with some tweaks here and there (more matrons and out of hours staff etc, and the use of in-country guardians, whicj is pretty standard practice in boarding schools nowadays)

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Some people get right up my nose. I have one up each nostril right this minute!

"Nothing happens unless first a dream." Carl Sandburg

We must not project modern ideas onto our ancestors, nor make them fight our battles

Of course. But it doesn't make it right. When schools are dependent on parents for their survival, they inevitably (have to?) provide more, and more, and more - compare what Nell's Grandmother's school provides now, with the original CS. The CS would have to become somehting utterly unkown to Elinor in order to survive in today's world.

I agree that Staff know what's expected, but my wide experience tells me that schools don't tell potential staff the whole story at interview, and contracts are blurred with statements such as 'and whatever else might be deemed necessary', or 'further duties might be reasonably asked of the member of staff', and so on.

Yes, you'd only go into it if oyu were prepared to live only through the school and have no independent life oputside the school. But the fact that no-one's forced to work in such a way doesn't negate the duty of the employer to not over-work their staff, or not to take into account the good work-life balance.

OK. I'm deep-breathing now ... feeling calmer ... !

I think it depends where you are in the marketplace, as it does with most things. A leading school which has far more applications that places can afford to say no to any parents who aren't willing to go with the school's ways of doing things, because there will be dozens of potential pupils with more amenable parents to take the places instead. We do see in the early days of the CS that Madge accepts Juliet as a pupil even though she's suspicious of the Carricks, and that she agrees to go along with parental requests to let Marie and Paula join the Italian classes which're meant to be for Seniors only, because at that point she isn't in a position to turn away business or to refuse parents' demands (within reason, obviously!). Later on, we see Hilda and Nell and Rosalie discussing whether or not they should even take certain pupils - although in the end they always do!

The same issues with the marketplace apply to staff. I'm finding that a lot of people I know are agreeing to some not particularly reasonable demands about working hours etc because jobs are hard to come by at the moment and people are frightened of being made redundant, whereas in a more favourable climate people are more inclined to stand up for themselves.

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We really must stop eating like this ...

Minds are like parachutes - they only function when open.

And we see that in some of the books - Miss Norman taking extra coaching because her family needs the money, and much later Miss Bubb returning to teaching because she does, too. Not so much about economic climate as personal means, but a similar pattern.

To go back to the original question - there aren't any Sans any more, but (she asks hazily) don't people still travel to Switzerland for specific treatments at particular clinic? If so, the CS could still be marketed towards the children of people with medical conditions.

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"I wish I had more to do. All I do is read books all day," said no librarian ever.
fanfic, available in shades of Lord Peter Wimsey, Chalet School, Doctor Who, Swallows and Amazons and more!

Gosh, this is so interesting! I had a bit of a look and found these boarding schools in Switzerland:

look here

And then clinics:

here

But the thing is, I'm not sure how long someone would stay in a Swiss clinic for these things, compared to the long inevitability of a TB Sanatorium.

Woudl the CS be able to compete against the Swiss BSs shown, do you think? I suppose their USP would be 'English Educaiton', but then that would probably mean that they become less 'international', because why would non-English parents at this point choose an English education for their child?

Are there any other USPs for the Chalet School that might give them an edge over schools there now?

I thought that the idea of wanting your child trained to be a proper English lady/gentleman had, as far as it ever existed, died out with the Second World War, but I did read somewhere recently that it's quite popular amongst the newly wealthy of Russia and parts of Asia .

The other big plus point would be the languages. We don't see much teaching of languages other than the three main ones, although we're told that Miss Denny (who seems to be a languages genius who's rather wasted in the job she's got!) also teaches Spanish and Italian, but I'd think that by now they'd be offering a lot more options.

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We really must stop eating like this ...

Minds are like parachutes - they only function when open.

I'm a bit confused by the title of this thread - what do you mean if it had been real? You mean it isn't?

Anyhoo, I thought of this thread today when I saw a job advert for a local boarding school; they are looking for a PR and Marketing Co-ordinator. This school started at about the same time the CS would have started so would the CS feel the need for a bit of PR or would it still depend on word of mouth and Old Girl connections?

There were a lot of arguments about this sort of thing in my old job, because the senior partner there had a bee in his bonnet about professional firms actively marketing themselves and advertising for new business, rather than relying on word of mouth and recommendations, being Terribly Vulgar and Not Very Nice . That idea might have been understandable in the '50s or even the '70s, but by the 21st century it just wasn't workable any more, as people kept trying to tell him!

I can imagine the same sort of thing happening at the CS, especially if a younger generation of staff and MBRs got involved and came into conflict with people who'd been there for years and took the more traditional view.

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We really must stop eating like this ...

Minds are like parachutes - they only function when open.

Sorry to spree - just had a thought and it didn't seem worth starting a new thread for . I wonder how businesslike the school was in the later years, and how they (Hilda? Madge?) coped with business problems.

Presumably we're meant to take the Bakers' offer to send a bank reference, as proof that they can afford the fees, as a sign that they are the Wrong Sort of people, but they're actually quite right - the school should not be taking anyone without doing some sort of credit check or at least insisting that parents/guardians sign a formal contract saying that they'll pay the fees on time and in full. Assuming that a gentleman/lady's word is their bond or that you can trust someone because you know their mum's best friend's cousin can be asking for trouble, and they couldn't very well tell one of the girls to pack her bags and make her way home halfway across Europe if her fees weren't paid.

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We really must stop eating like this ...

Minds are like parachutes - they only function when open.

Presumably after the trouble with Juliet, there was some sort of fee structure and payment arrangements put into place. It would have had problems I think using the same solution it used for Juliet, for pupils later on in the Swiss days.

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‘He has only half learnt the art of reading who has not added to it the even more refined accomplishments of skipping and of skimming.’
Arthur Balfour,“The pleasures of reading” (1905)

Yes you'd have parents going 'right we can afford to send her to the Chalet School for a term, then we pretend we can't afford the fees and they'll pay them for us!'

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I am an optimist. The glass isn't half full or half empty: it has liquid in it, so the question is, what kind of liquid, and what can be done with it?

I can see the point of ensuring parents have the resources to pay the fees initially but I can Hilda and Nell doing all they could if a family's financial situation changed while their daughter was at the school. I know that when my Dad died at the start of my LVIth year my school went the extra mile to ensure my education wasn't disrupted because we could no longer afford the huge fees the school charged.

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Some people get right up my nose. I have one up each nostril right this minute!

"Nothing happens unless first a dream." Carl Sandburg

We must not project modern ideas onto our ancestors, nor make them fight our battles

I think that the Chalet School probably had a contingency fund for situations like this. If I remember correctly, in Redheads, Copper Ansell's stepfather was doubtful whether he could afford to keep paying the fees after that one term (and I suspect that may have been paid for by Scotland Yard), but she told him there were scholarships which she could sit for, which would guarantee her fees for the rest of her time there if she passed. Sorry, don't recall the exact details, it's a while since I read the book.

I also remember that the school I attended had two funds, one used to help girls whose parents could not afford the fees - there were usually 3 or 4 a year - and the other for leaving scholarships to help with uni or other training fees. I'm pretty sure too, that if a girl's family circumstances changed during the her schooldays, the school had a way of helping out, as yours did, Sugar.