Boarding school

A boarding school is a school where some or all pupils not only study, but also live during term time, with their fellow students and possibly teachers. The word 'boarding' in this sense means to provide food and lodging.

Many public schools in the Commonwealth of Nations (called private schools or independent schools in the US) are boarding schools. The amount of time one spends in boarding school varies considerably from one year to twelve or more years. Boarding school pupils may spend the majority of their childhood and adolescent life away from their parents, although pupils return home during the holidays and, often, the summer break. In the United States, boarding schools generally comprise grades seven through twelve, with most covering the High School years. Many New England boarding schools traditionally offer a post-graduate year, which is unknown in many parts of the US. Most boarding schools also have day students who are residents of the community or children of faculty. Some boarding schools in the United States feature military training.

Boarding school description

Typical boarding school characteristics

The term boarding school often refers to classic British boarding school and many boarding schools are modeled on these.

Boarding house of the Presbyterian Ladies' College, Sydney, Australia

A typical modern fee-charging boarding school has several separate residential houses, and in various streets in the neighborhood of the school. Pupils generally need permission to go outside defined school bounds; they may be allowed to venture further at certain times.

A number of senior teaching staff are appointed as housemasters, housemistresses or residential advisors each of whom takes quasi-parental responsibility for some 50 pupils resident in their house, at all times but particularly outside school hours. Each may be assisted in the domestic management of the house by a housekeeper often known as matron, and by a house tutor for academic matters, often providing staff of each gender. Nevertheless, older pupils are often unsupervised by staff, and a system of monitors or prefects gives limited authority to senior pupils. Houses readily develop distinctive characters, and a healthy rivalry between houses is often encouraged in sport. See also House system.

Houses include study-bedrooms or dormitories, a dining-room or refectory where pupils take meals at fixed times, a library, hall or cubicles where pupils can do their homework. Houses may also have common-rooms for television and relaxation, kitchens for snacks, and some facilities may be shared between several houses.

Each pupil has an individual timetable, which in the early years allows little discretion. Pupils of all houses and non-boarders are taught together in school hours, but boarding pupils' activities extend well outside school hours and a period for homework. Sports, clubs and societies (e.g. amateur dramatics, or political & literary speakers or debates), or excursions (to performances, shopping or perhaps a school dance) may run until lights-out. As well as the usual academic facilities such as classrooms and laboratories, boarding schools often provide a wide variety of other facilities for extracurricular activities such as music-rooms, boats, squash courts, swimming pools, cinemas and theatres. A school chapel is often found on-site at boarding schools. Day-pupils often stay on after school to use these facilities.

British boarding schools have three terms a year, approximately twelve weeks each, with a few days' half-term holiday during which pupils are expected to go home. There may be several exeats or weekends in each half of the term when pupils may go home or away. Boarding pupils nowadays often go to school within easy traveling distance of their homes, and so may see their families frequently.

Most boarding schools have what is known as a "lights out" time for boarding students. A lights-out is a scheduled bedtime for students living in a dormitory. It can also occur in other places where there are strict disciplinary regulations, such as a hospital.

Some boarding schools have only boarding students, while others have both boarding students and day students who go home at the end of the school day. Day students are often known as day-boys or day-girls. Some schools also have a class of day students who stay throughout the day including breakfast and dinner which they call semi- boarders. Schools that have both boarding and day students sometimes describe themselves as semi boarding schools or day boarding schools. Many schools also have students who board during the week but go home on weekends these are known as weekly boarders, quasi-boarders, or five-day-boarders.

Day students and weekly boarders may have a distinct view of day school system, as compared to most other children who attend day schools without any boarding facilities. These students relate to a boarding school life, even though they do not totally reside in school; however, they may not completely become part of the boarding school experience. On the other hand, these students have a different view of boarding schools as compared to full term boarders who go home less frequently often only at the end of a term or even the end of an academic year.

Other forms of residential schools

Boarding schools are a form of residential school; however, not all residential schools are "classic" boarding schools. Other forms of residential schools include:

• Therapeutic schools which provide clinical inpatient services for students with disabilities, such as severe anxiety disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, Asperger's syndrome, and/or for students with substance abuse and socialisation problems.
• Residential schools for students with Special Educational Needs, who may or may not be disabled.
• Specialist schools focused on a particular academic discipline, such as the public North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics or the private Interlochen Arts Academy.
• The Israeli kibbutzim, where children stay and get educated in a commune, but also have everyday contact with their parents at specified hours.
• In rural areas of the United States, general attendance public boarding schools were once numerous; only one remains today: Crane Union High School in Crane, Oregon. Around two-thirds of its 80+ students, mostly children from remote ranches, board during the school week in order to save a one-way commute of up to 150 miles across Harney County.^[1]

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Boarding house

A boarding house, also known as a "rooming house" (mainly in the United States) or a "lodging house", is a house (often a family home) in which people on vacation or lodgers rent one or more rooms for one or more nights, and sometimes for extended periods of weeks, months and years. Years ago the boarders would typically share washing, breakfast and dining facilities; in recent years it has become common for each room to have its own washing and toilet facilities. Such boarding houses were often found in English seaside towns (for holidaymakers) and college towns (for students).

In the United Kingdom, the boarding houses were typically run by landladies, and the practice was that boarders would arrange to stay bed-and-breakfast (bed and breakfast only), half-board (bed, breakfast and dinner only) or full-board (bed, breakfast, lunch and dinner). Especially for families on holiday with children, boarding (particularly on a full-board basis) was an inexpensive alternative and certainly much cheaper than staying in any but the cheapest hotels.

Bed and breakfast accommodation (B&B), which exists in many countries in the world (e.g. the UK, the USA, Canada, and Australia), is a specialised form of boarding house in which the guests or boarders normally stay only on a bed-and-breakfast or half-board basis, and where long-stay residence is rare.

Apart from the worldwide spread of the concept of the B&B, there are equivalents of the British boarding houses elsewhere in the world. For example, in Japan, minshuku are an almost exact equivalent although the normal arrangement would be the equivalent of the English half-board. In Hawaii, where the cost of living is high and incomes barely keep pace, it is common to take in lodgers (who are boarders in English terminology) that share the burden of the overall rent or mortgage payable.

You can find a similarity whith the Guest House, (e.g. [Le Pavillon de Galon, guest house in Provence])

In fiction

• Our Boarding House - American newspaper comic strip that ran from 1921 to 1981, starring Major Hoople.
• Hey Arnold! - Cartoon in which the main character lived in a boarding house.
• Maison Ikkoku, from the manga/anime Maison Ikkoku, is a boarding house.
• The Birthday Party and The Room - Two Harold Pinter plays that take place in boarding houses.
• "Joe Turner's Come and Gone" - Play by August Wilson that takes place in a boarding house
• In the 1951 science fiction film The Day the Earth Stood Still the central characters live in a Boarding House in Washington, DC.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Public housing estate

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A public housing estate (Chinese: 公共屋邨) is a housing estate in Hong Kong mainly built by the Hong Kong Housing Authority and the Hong Kong Housing Society.

About half of Hong Kong residents now live in public housing estates and other tower blocks with some form of subsidy. Rents are cheaper than ordinary housing, and are heavily subsidised, financed by financial activities such as rents and charges collected from car parks and shops within or near the estates.

They are usually located in the remote or less accessible parts of the territory, but urban expansion has put some of them in the heart of the urban area. Home Ownership Scheme flats, unlike the public housing estates, are sold to the owners at discounted prices.

The vast majority of the estates are high-rise buildings, and the recent buildings of 2005 reach 40 storeys.

The 1950s

Starting in the 1953, precipitated by the rising immigrant population and the Shek Kip Mei fire which destroyed the shanty homes of approximately 53,000 people Hong Kong commenced a programme of mass public housing, providing affordable homes for those on low incomes^[1].

The Shek Kip Mei Estate (石硤尾邨), ready for occupation in 1954, was the first tangible manifestation of this policy. In those early days, housing units were little more than small cubicles, and the original plan was to allocate 24 square feet (2.2 m²) per adult and half that for each child under 12^[2]. However, they were in reality often occupied by more than one family, due to the extreme shortage of available housing^[3]. Facilities and sanitation were rudimentary and communal. Rents were pitched at between HK$10 and 14, without caps on income. That year, the first Housing Authority was formed out of the Urban Council, through enactment of the 1954 Housing Ordinance^[4]. The Shek Kip Mei estate has now been extensively redeveloped.

The 1960s

In 1961, the "low-cost housing" scheme was introduced through the construction of 62,380 flats (capable of housing 363,000 people with monthly household incomes of no more than HK$600) in 18 estates, whilst HA accommodation would be available to those whose household incomes were between $900 and $1500^[4].

In 1963, due to the rapid escalation of squatter numbers, squatters' eligibility for public housing was frozen, and future squatter areas came under licensing per the 1964 White Paper. The Housing Board was set up with the role of coordinating between agencies responsible for domestic housing. It made recommendations to have annual evaluations of supply and demand of housing, as well as increasing the minimum standard floor area per person to 35 sq ft (3.3 m²)^[4

The 1970s

In 1973, the Colonial Government of Hong Kong announced a ten-year plan for the public provision of housing, to provide everyone in Hong Kong with permanent, self-contained housing with a target of housing. The objective was to provide 1.8 million people with "satisfactory accommodation"^[4]. The Government saw as its responsibility to provide accessible housing for "the poor" - defined as those whose monthly household income was between HK$2,100 (for a family of 3) and HK$3,150 (for a family of 10)^[5].

In 1975, the Government officially opened the Oi Man Estate, a housing estate built on a concept of "a little town within a city". The estate of 6,200 flats, constructed on a site of 21 acres, and capable of housing 46,000 people would have a self-contained environment complete with commercial amenities ranging from markets and barber shops to banks. This represented an innovation in that the commercial premises would serve the local estate, whilst paying a rent determined by public tender. Banks, restaurants, and other large premises would be let out on a 5 year contract, competing on a monthly rental offered, whilst tenants for smaller premises would compete on premium paid based on fixed monthly rentals. Unlike the generations of housing estates which preceded it, there would be designated market stalls and cooked-food stalls. Street vendors would be no longer be tolerated^[6].

The 1980s

A new town to be constructed on 240 hectares of reclaimed fishponds and wetland was conceived in 1987 to house 140,000 people. Since Tin Shui Wai was entirely a virgin development, it was conceived with wider walkways and larger open areas when compared to other urban developments in Hong Kong^[7].

Gallery

Shun Lee Estate below Kowloon Peak	Lok King House, one end of Lai King Estate	Shek Kip Mei Estate near Tai Po Road	Ping Shek Estate, Kwun Tong
Po Tat Estate, Kwun Tong	Easeful Court, Tsing Yi	Cheung On Estate, Tsing Yi	Cheung Hong Estate Phase II, Tsing Yi
Tin Ping Estate (centre), Sheung Shui	Fuk Loi Estate,Tsen Wan,New Territories.

Housing estate

A housing estate is a group of buildings built together as a single development. The exact form may vary from country to country. Accordingly, a housing estate is usually built by a single contractor, with only a few styles of house or building design, so they tend to be uniform in appearance. Generally housing estates are monotenure and provide social housing.

In Asian cities such as Singapore and Hong Kong, an estate may range from detached houses to high density tower blocks with or without commercial facilities; in Europe and America, these may take the form of town housing, or the older-style rows of terraced houses associated with the industrial revolution, detached or semi-detached houses with small plots of land around them forming gardens, and are frequently without commercial facilities.

Housing estates are the usual form of residential design used in new towns, where estates are designed as an autonomous suburb, centred around a small commercial centre. Such estates are usually designed to minimise through-traffic flows, and to provide recreational space in the form of parks and greens.

This word usage may have arisen from an area of housing being built on what had been a country estate as towns and cities expanded in and after the 19th century. Reduction of the phrase to mere "estate" is common in Britain, especially when prefigured by the specific name, but is not so called in America.

United Kingdom

In the UK, housing estates have become prevalent since World War II, as a more affluent population demanded larger and more widely spaced houses coupled with the increase of car usage for which terraced streets were unsuitable.

The Broadwater Farm Estate in North London. In the early 1980s it became a byword for poor-quality housing, culminating in a night of civil unrest in 1985 that left two dead. Following extensive redevelopment, it is now one of the safest urban areas in the world.

Housing estates were produced by either local corporations or by private developers. The former tended to be a means of producing public housing leading to monotenure estates full of council houses and therefore known as "council estates".

In addition, the problems incurred by the early attempts at high density tower-block housing turned people away from this style of living. The resulting demand for land has seen many towns and cities increase enormously in size for only moderate increases in population. This has been largely at the expense of rural and greenfield land. There is now much evidence coming to light of a severe and detrimental impact on the environment as a result, partly from the change of land use caused by the estates themselves, and partly because most estates encourage rather than discourage the use of the car for transport. Recently, there has been some effort to address this problem by banning the development of out-of-town commercial developments, and encouraging the reuse of brownfield or previously developed sites for residential building. Nevertheless the demand for housing continues to rise, and in the UK at least has precipitated a significant housing crisis.

In the UK the post war New towns were constructed en masse from housing estates rather than as organic growth from a population centre

Hong Kong

Due to the dense population, the most common form of residential housing in Hong Kong is the high-rise housing estate, which may be publicly owned, privately owned, of semi-private. Due to the oligopoly of real-estate developers in the territory, and the economies of scale of mass developments, there is the tendency of new private tower block developments with 10 to over 100 towers, ranging from 30-to-70-storeys high.

There is currently some controversy over the "wall effect" caused by uniform high-rise developments which adversely impact air circulation.^[1]. In-fill developments will tend to done by smaller developers with less capital. These will be smaller in scale, and less prone to the wall effect.

Tips for Watering Home Gardens

As food prices climb higher and organic foods rise in popularity, many homeowners are starting their own home gardens. Of course, supplementing the food supply is not the only reason to maintain a garden. Some nurture a relaxing green getaway in their own backyard by growing fragrant flowers and privacy bushes. No matter what kinds of flora you keep in your garden, it is necessary to allow plants to get plenty of sunlight and water.

Even the savviest gardener cannot control the sun, but the true green thumb knows how to encourage growth through prudent pruning, proper fertilization, and customized watering. The best rate and amount of water to give certain plants often stumps those who are trying to garden for the first time. Finicky species of plants can be just as put off by too much water as they are by dry conditions.

If you find yourself in a dampening dilemma, take a look at these common watering tips:

• Research your plants. Just like people, pets, and snowflakes, every plant is different. Depending on where they are found in nature, some may need monsoons while others can go weeks without moisture. Beginning gardeners should try to pick local plants for their first effort, because they are likely to thrive with only natural rainfall levels.

Books, landscapers and nursery owners are all good sources of information about how to care for certain plants. If you are still confused after seeking instruction, set up a simple experiment. Try watering different plants of the same type with the same amount of light at different intervals. Within a few weeks, it should be clear which method produces the desired results. Reliable information is certainly attainable with the proper amount of research, ask around or do your own searches to find the answers you are looking for.

• Water in the late evening or early morning. It may seem as though the middle of the afternoon is the perfect time to spend time in the garden tending to the plants, but it is best to leave the patch alone during the day. Plants are working hard in the heat to produce food from the sunlight and store it.

Though it does not hurt or "boil" the plant to water when the sun is at its strongest, the heat and wind cause loss of water and evaporation. This means that less of the moisture actually makes it to the plant. Waiting until the evening or working early in the morning allows the water to soak into the soil. Actually, morning watering is even more preferable because the sun will dry the crust of the dirt and keep the soil around the roots damp for most of the day.

• Use the right food. If you decide to add a fertilizer or any other additive to the water, make sure that the product is appropriate for the particular variety of plant. This is especially important for vegetable and herb gardens because certain chemicals can leave harmful substances on the food. The product should have plant recommendations and directions for use clearly listed on the packaging.



• Plan irrigation systems carefully. A professional landscaper can create a pleasing green area and advise the homeowner on proper watering techniques, but often they also design irrigation systems. These systems do not always need to be professionally installed, but they do need to be properly planned in order to ensure that all of the plants receive the correct amount of moisture.

Many systems use sprinklers and drip hoses that dampen the soil around the flora on a regular basis. Some can even be set to deliver more liquid to certain areas or change watering frequency automatically at different times of year. These setups also tend to conserve more water than hand watering.

• Be consistent. If you opt not to install an automatic irrigation system, make sure to stick to a regular watering schedule. Light, frequent showers encourage strong root systems that are less susceptible to drought. Giving the plant lots of water once a week may produce the same green, healthy appearance, but it will be less likely to bounce back after a dry spell or pruning.

Though watering is essential to the success of your garden, there are a number of other tasks at hand for the home gardener. Nurturing vegetables and flowers from seeds often takes months of hard work, but even planting mature plants can be a challenge. Proper preparation of soil, weeding, pruning, and fertilization are mandatory for a lush, lovely garden.
However, by observing these watering tips, you can get one step closer to growing your dream garden. After all, your plants depend on water to grow into herbs, vegetable, and flowers. Only you can provide them with this live-giving substance.


Author: Brian Jenkins