Destination Boarding

We'reWatching You: A Coastal Family's Boarding School Journey When Katie and Dan Toney left careers in television journalism to run a holiday park in the tiny coastal community of Seal Rocks, boarding school wasn't part of the plan. In fact, it wasn't even on their radar. But as their children approached high school, long daily bus journeys, limited local options and a growing real...

You Just Make It Work - OneMum's Journey Through Loss, Boarding School and Bush Resilience What happens when the life you planned changesin an instant? For Sophie Elliott, the answer has been onestep at a time. Born and raised on a cattle station outsideWinton, Sophie grew up learning through the School of Distance Education beforeheading away to boarding school herself. Years later, she found...

In Part Two, Amanda and Annabel continue their conversation, exploring academic struggles, learning support, friendships, confidence and the lessons boarding school taught that continue to shape Annabel's life today. Now a paediatric occupational therapist and business owner, Annabel shares practical advice for parents and new boarders, along with insights into how children process change, unc...

Over the years I've interviewed hundreds of parents, educators, boarding staff and former boarders. I've spent countless hours talking about homesickness, transition, resilience and what it means to send your child away from home. But today I'm sitting down with someone whose story I've never really explored. My daughter, Annabel. Now that sounds a bit ridiculous when you say it ou...

As we continue travelling throughout regional New South Wales and Queensland for our Boarding Schools Expo events, we’re revisiting some of the conversations from the vault that continue to resonate deeply with families researching boarding school. This week’s episode with Amy Clark is one of those conversations. Amy is a rural mum of three boys living between Walcha and Bendemeer in northern NSW....

As we continue our From the Vault series while travelling for our face-to-face Boarding Schools Expo events, this week we’re revisiting a conversation that feels especially meaningful in the lead-up to our Wagga Boarding Schools Expo. Sarah Ryan lives with her family on a Merino stud at Quandialla, not too far from Wagga, where she also runs her much-loved creative business, Quandialla Candle Co....

As we continue our From the Vault series while travelling for our face-to-face Boarding Schools Expo events, this week’s episode feels especially timely. We’re revisiting my conversation with Robert Bevern from Dubbo on the eve of our 2026 Dubbo Boarding Schools Expo - because Robert’s family story began at this very event. Boarding school had never really been on the radar for Robert, his wife Tr...

While we’re travelling across regional Australia for our face-to-face Boarding Schools Expo events, we’re opening the vault and revisiting some of our favourite past conversations - the ones that still offer reassurance, perspective and encouragement for families considering boarding school. This week’s episode with Lisa Green from Dubbo is one of those conversations. When Lisa first joined me on...

As we hit the road again for our face-to-face Boarding Schools Expo events, we’re dipping into the vault over the next few weeks to share some of our favourite past episodes - the ones that still speak so clearly to why we do this work and why these conversations matter. This week’s episode is one of those. It features Angie Nisbet, who many of you will remember from our Mount Isa event in 2024. A...

Over the next few weeks, while we’re out on the road for our face-to-face Boarding Schools Expo events, we’re opening up the vault and sharing some of our favourite past episodes with you - conversations that still hold so much value for families researching, preparing for, or living through the boarding school journey. This week’s past episode is a really special one. Many of you will remember th...

Peter Debus is the Managing Director of PrincipleFocus , a financial management and advisory business based in Dubbo NSW with branches in Sydney and Warren, servicing clients all over Australia. We're bringing this one back from the archives because honestly, it's just that good! When we first sat down with Pete, I wanted to talk about the decision he and his wife Virginia made to send the...

Ruby Riethmuller grew up on a farm outside Wagga Wagga and like many country students, the path to opportunity eventually led her to boarding school. In this episode of Letters from Home, Ruby reflects on those years and how they helped shape the person she would become. From discovering new passions and leadership opportunities to building the confidence to step outside her comfort zone, boarding...

A Gunnedah mum’s honest story of school refusal, confidence, and why regional boarding became the circuit-breaker. Tina Clifton is a Gunnedah mum of two boys, raising them on the land with horses, cattle, sheep and mixed cropping at the centre of family life. She’s also a veterinary surgeon, whose career has evolved from mixed practice, to intensive poultry industry, and now into a government role...

Duncan Taylor knows firsthand what it means to leave a small rural town in pursuit of education - and what it means to come home again. Growing up on a sheep and cattle property in Nimmitabel on the Monaro, Duncan headed away to boarding school at just nine years old. Like many country children of that era, the experience felt confronting at first. But over time it shaped his understanding of inst...

What happens when boarding school isn’t in your family “DNA”… and then suddenly it is? In this episode of Letters From Home, Amanda sits down with Robert Bevern - a NSW Police dad whose family story is a powerful reminder that sometimes the biggest decisions don’t begin with a grand plan. They begin with a simple moment of curiosity. Rob is a born-and-bred Northern Beaches local. His wife, Traci,...

In some of the most isolated parts of Australia, Bec Climie hasn’t just delivered the mail - she’s delivered connection, joy and community. On the vast station country of North Queensland, where families can live hundreds of kilometres apart and the wet season can cut roads for months, connection is not always easy to find. But for the families along the Kynuna-McKinlay mail run , connection often...

Not every boarding school journey follows a straight line - and sometimes, the bravest thing a parent can do is change direction. In this episode of Letters from Home , Amanda sits down with Geraldine Clark from Barraba, NSW, a mum who knows firsthand that “best intentions” don’t always lead to the right fit. Geraldine shares her family’s lived experience of navigating boarding school choices for...

When Daniel Bashford and his wife moved their family from the Hunter Valley to Walgett, boarding school wasn’t part of the plan. Daniel had taken up a promotion with the NSW Police, and together they embraced the move as a way to raise resilient, adaptable young people. What they found in Walgett surprised them - a welcoming community, strong friendships, local sport, and a sense of belonging that...

From one of Australia’s most famous cattle stations, this episode of Letters from Home offers a deeply grounded and quietly powerful reflection on what it means to parent from afar. Anna Cochrane lives and works alongside her husband on Newcastle Waters , managing life on a vast Northern Territory station while raising three daughters - all of whom now attend boarding school in Brisbane. In this c...

Amy Clark on belonging, “critical mass” in small-town schools, and choosing boarding to give her boys room to grow. In this episode of Letters From Home, Amanda chats with Amy Clark from Walcha on the northern tablelands of NSW, about the decision to send her children to boarding school, and everything that sits underneath that choice. Amy shares her unique background growing up between Sydney and...

Researching schools, navigating scholarships, and letting go with love. In this heartfelt episode of Letters from Home , Amanda sits down with Lisa - a single mum, teacher, and devoted advocate for her daughter Ellie - to explore what it truly looks like to research and choose boarding school as a single parent. As this episode goes live, Lisa and Ellie are preparing to head to Frensham , where El...

Tamara Nixon is a sixth-generation farming mum from Oaklands in the Southern Riverina, balancing life on the land with the big-hearted reality of parenting three children away at boarding school in Melbourne.  In this episode, Tamara shares why she believes so deeply in boarding - the resilience, diversity of opportunity, and the powerful sense of community it can create. But she also raises an is...

Western Australia’s size brings opportunity - and enormous challenge. In this episode of our capsule series Around Australia with the ICPA , Amanda Ferrari is joined by Jane Cunningham , President of ICPA Western Australia, to unpack the realities of accessing education across one of the largest and most sparsely populated states in the country. Jane shares how distance, travel costs and limited s...

In this episode of Nailing Homesickness , Amanda Ferrari chats with Phoebe , a Year 10 boarder at Methodist Ladies’ College in Melbourne , who began boarding at the start of Year 9 after growing up on her family’s farm in northern Victoria. Phoebe reflects on the early days of boarding - leaving a small country school where she’d been since kindergarten, adjusting to city life, and navigating the...

Throughout the year, we’ve been following the work of the Isolated Children’s Parents’ Association - the ICPA - across Australia. In these short episodes, we’ll be catching up with each State Council President to hear how their delegations to Parliament have gone, what motions were carried from their State Conferences, and the wins and challenges they’ve faced along the way. These conversations ar...