Introduce boarding in rough inner-city schools to ‘civilise’ them, says Sir Anthony Seldon

‘All 3,000 state-funded secondary schools in the country should allow pupils to stay overnight particularly inner-city schools blighted by knife crime because of its “civilising” influence, the outgoing master of Wellington College has said.

Sir Anthony Seldon said there is a “fundamental misconception” of state boarding that is “pretty grim”. He cited the work of Sebastian Faulks, a former Wellington pupil, whose work has included cases of “heads down the toilets”.

However, Sir Anthony said the introduction of boarding in rough state schools would make pupils from troubled backgrounds feel more “part of the community” in a “homely place”.’

Read more: Introduce boarding in rough inner-city schools to 'civilise' them, says Sir Anthony Seldon