Inside: Out Of Bounds

Inside Out of Bounds: Reflections on co-facilitating a Creative Writing for Wellbeing course for boarding school survivors

by Rachel Godfrey and John Shirley

‘Maybe we could work together to run courses for ex-boarders. What do you think?’

In June 2023, John and I devised Out of Bounds, a six-week online Creative Writing for Wellbeing course for boarding school survivors. We’re now delivering it for the fourth time, and have more courses planned for 2025 and beyond.

The work brings together my experience as a qualified Creative Writing for Therapeutic Purposes practitioner, John’s work as a group facilitator, and – crucially – his lived experience as a boarding school survivor, sent away at eight years old.

Our courses are open to boarding school survivors wherever they are on their healing journey, and typically there’s an equal balance of men and women on each course. We don’t set prompts that are directly about boarding school. Instead, we come at the topic tangentially, offering open invitations via poems, images, etc. that encourage participants to write as much or as little about their boarding school experience and its impact on them as they wish. Gentle though these invitations are, they often lead to very powerful writing and sharing. We run the groups within safely-held guidelines, and there’s never any obligation for participants to share their writing.

John and I are a husband-and-wife team. Below are seven questions I asked John, and his responses.

How has writing helped you address your boarding school experience?

Working to a prompt, writing from the heart and allowing the pen to lead, connects me to, and helps integrate, both conscious and unconscious feelings. It contributes to the dissolution of old and unhelpful ways of being, and thus supports the regeneration and healing of the soft sensitive animal that I am.

Why do you think writing in a safely-held group is helpful for boarding school survivors?

There is a common experience to be shared. In writing about and reflecting on our experiences we learn that we are not alone in our feelings. Things long hidden are expressed, often for the first time; people feel heard, seen and understood. It is helpful because it releases pent-up energy and provides an opportunity to process the experience. 

How do you feel about the terms ‘ex-boarders’ and ‘boarding school survivors’? Are they helpful labels or not? Is there a better way to talk about this community of?

The term ex-boarder defines everyone who ever boarded. The term boarding school survivor suggests the experience was challenging and traumatic. Out of Bounds as a Creative Writing for Wellbeing course works from the latter position. The course is aimed at ex-boarders looking to reflect on and write in to their experience of boarding. As such they are helpful labels, a useful shorthand. Attaching the word ‘survivor’ (Duffell, 2000, 2014; Duffell & Basset, 2016) or ‘syndrome’ (Schaverien, 2015) to Boarding School acknowledges the body of psychotherapeutic work written by these two pioneering practitioners. Another more longhand way to talk about this group is to say that, as children, they suffered abandonment and developmental trauma caused by a psycho-social problem called boarding school. 

What do you say to those who grapple with the ideas of privilege (‘a benefit enjoyed by a particular person or a restricted group of people beyond the advantages of most’) and trauma (from Greek, literally ‘wound’) in relation to boarding school?

Yes, there is a conversation to be had around privilege. More important is to discuss the damage, the trauma and the wound of boarding school, the harm that the majority of people will experience. Abandonment at a very young age, loss of home and personal possessions and the confinement of regimented hours, bells to mark the passage of the day and dormitories. The element of privilege further twists the knife as it provides the survivor with a double bind where, while coping with abandonment, children are expected to be appreciative of the sacrifice their parents make to send them to boarding school. There is an internal conflict of feeling trapped between pleasing their parents and being themselves. No amount of first-class facilities and small class sizes can make up for that.

How does the work we do in Out of Bounds help release people from the boarding school ‘code of silence’ (Renton, 2017; Campbell, 2025)?

There are many codes and rules to learn at boarding school. The code of silence is taught early. Messages like ‘don’t be a tell-tale; be loyal to the institution, the group’ are fundamental to the culture of boarding school, reinforced by both pupils and teachers. Breaching the codes brings harsh results. Compliance is required.

Out of Bounds is a release for people, it breaks the bounds, because it provides a safe space to explore how we really feel about it. The writing and the exploration are underpinned by an intention and an invitation to lift the lid, to revisit and to be honest about what it really felt like then (good and bad), and how it feels now, as an adult. For many it is the first time they have unearthed and looked at the range of emotions boarding school evokes.

What has working together on Out of Bounds meant to you?

Bringing my lived experience to co-facilitate a Creative Writing for Wellbeing course and supporting people on a similar journey has opened me up to the magic of writing and sharing in a safely held group. Working together with Rachel is an extension of the kindness and care of our relationship. In my therapeutic journey it’s a kind of alchemy, turning base metals in to gold.

Why do you feel this work is important, on an individual, societal and global level?

On an individual level it helps people to process their experiences and shift things that have perhaps remained hidden or stuck for many years. People begin to understand themselves better and why they are how they are. Those pebbles in the pond radiate out to help people improve their sense of self and their relationships with others. It can be a catalyst that motivates people to find more directly therapeutic ways to understand and heal old wounds.

On a societal and global level there is a lack of recognition, especially in British society, of the emotional damage boarding school does to children. The myths around boarding school are, more often than not, celebrated and perpetuated. The reality is poorly understood.

Amongst the leaders in Britain, the establishment, ruling elites, call them what you will, there is a disproportionate representation of people who have been to boarding school (Duffell, 2014; Campbell, 2025). Recent prime ministers, chancellors and church leaders are glaring examples of the broader societal damage boarding school survivors can wreak. The emotional damage they carry, if left unrecognised and untrammelled, hobbles their ability to make emotionally well-informed decisions and thus to govern and lead effectively. 

For more information, visit https://www.rachelgodfreywriting.com/courses-mentoring 

Bibliography

Campbell. N. (2025) How Boarding Schools Shaped Britain. [Podcast] Available at https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/m0027l58 (Accessed 13.02.2025)

Duffell, N. (2000) The Making of Them: British Attitude to Children and the Boarding School System. London: Lone Arrow Press

Duffell, N. (2014) Wounded Leaders: British Elitism and the Entitlement Illusion – A Psychohistory. London: Lone Arrow Press

Duffell, N. & Basset T. (2016) Trauma, Abandonment and Privilege: A guide to therapeutic work with boarding school survivors. London: Routledge

Renton, A. (2017) Stiff Upper Lip: Secrets, Crimes and the Schooling of a Ruling Class. London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson

Renton, A. (2022) In Dark Corners: Series 1. [Podcast] Available at https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/series/m00174kf (Accessed 13.02.2025)

Schaverien, J. (2015) Boarding School Syndrome: The psychological trauma of the ‘privileged’ child. London: Routledge