The college has been recognised for it's work supporting international boarders during the COVID crisis.
Scarborough College was awarded a Supporting Excellence Award during the Boarding Schools’ Association (BSA) conference in Oxford last week.
A delighted Guy Emmett, Headmaster, accepted the award in the category Supporting International Boarders on behalf of the school and the boarding community.
The BSA represents member boarding schools in 37 different countries and there are well over 140 member schools in Great Britain alone. It provides training for boarding staff and promotes boarding education.
The award follows two years of severe disruption to the school and its boarding community and was based on the school’s decision to continue to provide a home to its international pupils. For many at the College, this meant caring for students out of term time, during holidays and during some of their most vulnerable moments.
Remco Weeda, houseparent at one of the boarding houses, comments:
‘Many children simply could not go home. Borders were shut, planes were cancelled and then there were the personal tragedies. One girl did want to go back to Italy because her grandmother, who was very poorly already, lived with her parents. She was afraid she would put her nan at risk.’
For the past two years, the boarding community has been a mix of over 30 different nationalities, including a very large number of British boarding pupils, many of whom also decided to call Scarborough College their home throughout the different lockdowns and isolation periods.
Remco continues:
‘Many of our children become a real part of the Scarborough community, we have girls from Germany, Nigeria and the Caribbean who play football for Scarborough. We have a number of lads who play cricket in the various villages and of course Scarborough Cricket Club. Kids play hockey here, they ride and they help out with charity work. One of the girls from Israel has a regular music set in one of the cafes. These are all success stories.’
Headmaster Mr Emmett added,
‘This is an award for our staff, of course it is. But it’s also for our local families. This academic year again, many children could not go home. Children could not go home to South Africa because of Omicron and then, very recently, our Ukrainian children were unable to be reunited with their families. This is when our local families opened their homes and hearts to children they had never even met. Many of our international boarders are among the first to help out when there is a local charity event and it was truly heartwarming to see so many of our local families do exactly the same.’
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