Affordable boarding

From the outside, Cranbrook School gives every impression of being a flourishing independent school. Deep in the Kent countryside, its 18th-century schoolhouse is set in 70 acres of buildings, gardens and playing fields. Its 720 pupils include a boarding contingent of about 250 pupils. Its GCSE results could scarcely be bettered – 98 per cent last year gained five A* to C grades.

And the education at Cranbrook comes free. Founded in 1574 as "the free grammar school of Queen Elizabeth in Cranbrook", the school returned in the Sixties to its grammar-school roots after a spell as an independent. The school takes boys and girls, by selective entry, from the age of 13 to 18, and the only fees are boarding fees, which are £6,450 a year – the equivalent of annual fees at a cheaper independent day-school, or around one-third of the cost of a year at an independent boarding school.

Cranbrook is one of 33 state boarding schools in the country, which include comprehensives, grammars and single-sex schools, and which range in boarding numbers from 27 at Colchester Royal Grammar School to 520 at Wymondham College, Norfolk. Educational standards are high at many of these schools: Colchester Royal Grammar School, Lancaster Royal Grammar School and the Royal Grammar School High Wycombe are among the top grammar schools in the country, and five (Wymondham College, Old Swinford Hospital in Worcestershire, Gordon's School in Surrey, St George's School and Hockerill Anglo-European College in Hertfordshire) feature on the list of the top 50 comprehensive schools.

"Many parents describe us as education's best-kept secret," says Val Bowers, the marketing officer for Stabis (the state boarding schools information service).

Wymondham College, a comprehensive with specialist status in maths and science, is highly oversubscribed. Victoria Musgrove, the head, says that in many ways the school "straddles both state and independent sectors". Pupils play sport against independent schools, and Wymondham has what she describes as a "very traditional culture", including supervised homework for all in the evenings. But she would be the first to admit that its facilities are considerably less lavish than in the independent boarding world.

State boarding schools have always been used by parents in the forces, and by parents living and working abroad. But there is also a large group of boarders who live close enough to their school to take advantage of modern "flexible" boarding arrangements and go home at the weekend if they choose.

With the increase in families where both parents are working long hours, weekly boarding has become an attractive option for some parents. But according to Val Powers, there is also an increasing number of teenagers who are choosing boarding themselves, because they see it as offering some measure of independence.

Pauline Drew took her son, Ben, to look round Wymondham College three years ago, when his grades began to drop at a comprehensive day school where it was not "cool', in pupils' eyes, to work hard. "I had severe misgivings about boarding, and we really wanted him at home. But he was very keen to board at Wymondham, and his confidence has increased enormously since he's been there. We live about 25 minutes away, so he comes home most weekends. We now feel it's the best thing we ever did."

Innis MacEachin, the registrar at Cranbrook, says that the boarding experience teaches young people tolerance, teaches them to take responsibility for themselves and encourages them to form friendships.

Being with your friends all the time can have drawbacks, however. Nick Hoggard, 18, in his last year as a boarder at Cranbrook, says: "Sometimes you need your own space, and in a boarding house, you don't have private space."

But boarding has other advantages, he says. "It makes work much easier, because you get to know the school better."

More information from www.stabis.org.uk