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Why Millfield Prep School is the right fit for my Military family

We recognise that Military life can often cause upheaval for children and that a good, consistent and stable education is of vital importance to Military families.

With Millfield Prep having 130 full-time boarders, living at the school seven days a week, the school is always a hive of activity, with an exciting programme of weekend excursions and activities. We offer an outstanding education, unrivalled co-curricular programmes and a friendly, home-from-home environment.

The quality of the catering and boarding houses at Millfield Prep have been recognised by The Good Schools Guide as impressive, and with years of experience of caring for UK and international pupils, our school is popular with Military families.

Hear from some of our Military families, about why Millfield Prep School is the right fit for them.

Given my role in the Army, I move around approximately every two years, which can be fun and exciting if it doesn’t involve children and if you are looking for stability! Our son had attended nine schools by the time he had reached 11 years old, and it was starting to have a detrimental affect on his mental wellbeing and his inability to build long term friendships or relationships with his teachers. My wife and I broached the subject with our son to get his feelings and thoughts on looking at a boarding school. He was all for the idea and had been thinking along these lines as well, which made the conversation a lot simpler. We went to work on finding the right boarding school that would accommodate all of his needs; mentally, academically, emotionally, sports and importantly, security and safety. There was simply only one stand out school; Millfield Prep School!

From the outset on contacting Millfield Prep we were made to feel so welcome and that we were already part of the extended Millfield Community. This made us feel so at ease and rest assured given that we were going to be sending our son to boarding school to embark on a new, wonderful and exciting chapter in his young life.

We attended the Open and Scholarship Days, and to be brutally honest, we were blown away by the new world we walked in to. The facilities are truly first class and you honestly could not meet a nicer group of people on site. We were sold on Millfield Prep there and then. A special thing happened that really led us to say this is the school for our son. We were being shown around the school and classrooms, our son was shy and standing behind me when we walked in to Mrs Henderson’s Food Tech Classroom and a young boy from the class gently stepped forward with his freshly baked cookies and offered one to our son, bringing him out from behind me, telling him it was okay. That blew us away; the kind nature of this young man, to step forward, without being told to do so, just said everything we needed to know about the school.

Millfield Prep has so many amazing attributes, facilities, teachers; you name it, they have it. The area that we find truly exceptional are the boarding houses. We only have experience of one, Berewall, and if the other houses are even remotely like Berewall, Millfield Prep can only be commended!

All of the house staff, have made our son feel so special, settled, safe and secure, and given him the opportunity to gain key life skills and independence. He feels so at home and special and all the children are made to feel this way. The emotional and pastoral support offered by the school are such that we couldn’t ask for anything more. Our son comes home from Millfield Prep more and more like a grown up young man each time.

Just knowing that your child is so well looked after, cared for, educated and most importantly feels like they can achieve their dreams, we just could not be happier. Our son has already  made lifelong friends in his 18 months at Millfield Prep, built important relationships with teachers, and we have seen such a difference in him.

As parents, we strive to make the lives of our children as best as we can possibly make it. I will be wholeheartedly honest with you, the decision to send our son to Millfield Prep, was hands down the best decision we ever made for his short, medium and long term future.

- Captain Lee McAnespie

Boarders enjoying some relaxing time in the evening at Millfield Prep School, Somerset

With both my husband Chris and I serving in the Army, we found ourselves frequently relocating, meaning subsequent school changes and instability for our two children, Ciaran and Conor. We wanted more continuity of education and Millfield Prep was recommended to us by other military colleagues. Both of our boys have always stood out for their exceptional sporting prowess - rugby, hockey, football, running, in fact anything that involved speed, agility, and fitness, plus a good dose of determination and the will to win.

After an initial school visit, we were captivated by the amazing sports facilities and impressed by the confidence, enthusiasm, pride and genuine passion of everyone we met - teachers and pupils alike. We were shown around by a pupil whose father was also military and this child then became a mentor for my son in his early days at the school. Driving factors in us choosing Millfield Prep were the small class sizes, percentage of boarders to day pupils (as we wanted to know that our children would have friends to spend time with at weekends to do fun activities) and the hugely diverse nature of the school, with many international children from different ethnicities. We loved that our children would have an opportunity to experience Millfield Prep’s massive selection of wider activities, including music, drama, design and technology, chess, horse riding, trampolining and model making, to name just a few! The opportunities are simply superb and unrivalled.

Shortly after our children started at Millfield Prep, both Chris and I were deployed separately on operations to Afghanistan for 6 months each. This was a particularly stressful and emotional time for us all and the school were outstanding. Their support to both Conor and Ciaran, as well as whichever parent was not on operations, was superb and we are very grateful for this. Millfield Prep understood our challenges, particularly with limited communications from Afghanistan - Their welfare and pastoral care has been great.

-          Colonel Suzi Donoghue and Lieutenant Colonel Chris Donoghue

Myself and my husband were being posted to Scotland, where the school system is a year behind the English system. This would have meant that our son Dan would repeat a year of studies, then eventually move back to the English school system, where he would be a year behind his peers. We felt that this would be very detrimental to Dan’s progress and overall happiness at school, and we decided to find an English boarding school where he would thrive.

We needed a school which would provide excellent boarding facilities, with the option of transferring to attending as a day pupil if we moved back to the area. We also needed a school which would offer our son the support and help he would need with his dyslexia and offered bright pupils with additional educational needs the chance to flourish. We also hoped that the school would be suitable for our three younger children, all of whom are quite different characters and have different preferences when it comes to extra-curricular activities.

Our children loved boarding at Millfield Prep, especially our eldest children who chose to continue to board after myself and my husband moved back to the area. My eldest children who have now left the school still have strong friendships with people they met at Millfield Prep and, as young independent adults now in their mid-twenties, they both have very fond memories of the time they spent there.

-          Mrs Georgina and Lieutenant Commander T Crispin RN

Read more about our offering for Military families here.

Find out more about boarding life at Millfield Prep School by heading to our Boarding page.

To come and visit Millfield Prep at our next Open Day, arrange a personal visit for you and your family, or to ask any questions, email admissions@millfieldprep.com.