#WorldBoardingStaffDay

Home Comforts

Making sure our pupils feel at home at Felsted is truly a team effort. Of course, the Houseparents and their team responsible for eleven on-campus houses are adept at helping boarders from all over the world to bond with each other and create that all-important cosy family atmosphere, but this would be completely impossible to achieve without the support of a vast number of operational staff, who work literally day and night to provide our pupils with the home comforts that makes boarding school life so much easier. 
 

Our Works and Maintenance teams, for example, are constantly freshening up the boarding houses - as well as all the other buildings on our prep and senior campuses, which is no mean feat as many are quite historic. Our pupils say they enjoy walking in the footsteps of Felstedians from five centuries ago and this can only happen thanks to the tireless efforts of the Grounds staff who keep the paths clear and the shrubbery well-tended, not to mention making sure the playing fields and the hallowed best cricket pitch – The Front – are in tip-top condition. 
 

Similarly, making sure the interior of every school building is spotless is the role of an army of Domestic staff, who keep our school to the same standard of cleanliness as our pupils would find at home. These hard working staff members make an early start every morning, because in a school as old as Felsted, there is never a shortage of polishing to be done and the shiny wooden floor in the cavernous Lord Riche Hall – where pupils eat three times a day – takes a great deal of effort. The food too is carefully thought out and draws on international cuisines as a matter of course, without fanfare. Our committed in-house Caterers source fresh, local ingredients and they also work hard to present authentic dishes that are a reminder of familiar family meals for many of our International boarders from over 35 countries, while at the same time educating others in new flavours. 
 

The houses are always well stocked with snacks - just one of the many reasons why our boarders are so fond of our team of Matrons! But keeping a ready supply of muffins and yoghurts is the least of our Matrons’ duties. Whether it’s locating a missing cricket bat, patching up a scraped knee, sewing on a loose nametape, or often providing words of encouragement or some friendly advice, Matron is the one our boarders invariably turn to.

Any equipment or clothing that has in fact gone missing can easily be replaced by visiting the tailor’s shop, conveniently situated on-campus. Hugely experienced staff in the tailor’s shop can accurately gauge the shirt size of a pupil just by looking at them, and somehow manage to keep track of the enormous number of uniform items required by pupils in every year group of the school. From bookbags for the new starters in Reception to the array of school ties and badges that denote the various roles of responsibility in the senior school, their knowledge is encyclopaedic. 

 

Keeping a school of over a thousand pupils running like a well-oiled machine just would not be possible without the transport team and stewards. Felsted operates a fleet of school buses that whisk day pupils to and from school across the region, from as far afield as London and Cambridge. At the start and end of terms and exeat weekends too, all the major local airports are added to our friendly drivers’ routes as international boarders journey home and back again. Within the school, it’s the team of efficient stewards who take delivery of items of necessary educational equipment and make sure they reach the right departments on the Prep and Senior campuses. They also make sure letters and parcels from homes across the world are swiftly in the hands of their recipients in the boarding houses, ready to make someone’s day.

Medical supplies are among the most urgent of the stewards’ deliveries and Felsted’s medical centre is open 24 hours a day whenever there are pupils on-site, which is the vast majority of the year. Highly qualified and experienced nursing staff make sure our pupils are well cared for should they fall ill while at school and also make the decision to transfer a patient to hospital for treatment or home for recuperation if need be. An army of first-aiders are ready for action in the event of a medical emergency and work hard to keep their knowledge and skills up-to-date.
 

Felsted’s operational staff members are an integral part of our school community, and many are local residents with a long family tradition of Felsted employment. They bring the warmth, comfort and care that helps us to provide an award-winning boarding experience for so many young people from around the globe, and this in turn allows our pupils to focus on making the most of their education. Wherever they may come from, one thing is sure, Felsted very quickly feels like home.