How to Stop Homesickness for Boarding School Students

Catch Up With Video Calls and Social Media

Studying abroad can be a challenging for students of all ages, older students can struggle just as much as the youngest ones. The first year is normally the toughest as students are missing their family and are adjusting to their new environment. One of the most effective ways to reduce homesickness is by regularly keeping in touch with your loved ones through a video call. Free services like Zoom, FaceTime or WhatsApp are all great for international calls – hearing and seeing those familiar faces really helps!

Boarding school students can also use social media to keep in touch with family, former classmates and friends back home. Sometimes just regularly scrolling through your feed can make you feel like you’re not that far from home and stops the feeling of homesickness before it even starts.

For younger students that may not have access to social media or their own phone, the boarding house will normally schedule video chats and phone calls during evenings and weekends to allow them time to talk with their parents face to face.

Celebrate National Holidays

National holidays provide a great opportunity for boarding students to return home and celebrate with their family. However, it may not be possible for boarding students to go home for every event – which can create the feeling of homesickness. Whilst overseas students may find that the holidays they celebrate at home are not widely celebrated in the UK, British boarding schools are great at fostering international festivities. Schools often plan activities, special meals and games related to the event within the school grounds or boarding houses.

If you’re an international student studying the UK, you’ll also get to experience traditional British festive events such as Halloween and Guy Fawkes night with your school friends.

The festivities help bring everyone together and create stronger friendships between students whilst also keeping your mind off missing home – so make sure you get involved where you can, even if you wouldn’t normally celebrate them.

Make New Friends

Although making new friends can be difficult for international boarding students, forming new relationships can play a crucial role in minimising homesickness. New friends can be a source of entertainment, provide a sense of togetherness and are the foundation of a good support system, which will help ensure you don’t feel lonely.

Most schools provide ice breaker activities that aim to get new students working together and talking for the first time – which is normally the hardest part! Talking to your new friends about your situation will give them a better understanding of why you may feel homesick. Remember if they’re boarding too, they’ll probably feel just the same.

Lots of boarding schools use social media pages to connect incoming students before they start the school year. Facebook groups and WhatsApp chats allow students to ask the school questions and chat with other students in the same situation as them, all before they arrive. This means you can make friends before your first day – ask your school if they have one setup.

Engage in Extracurricular Activities

Getting involved in sports or extracurricular activities is a great way of reducing homesickness and having fun in between studying. Participating in extracurricular activities like sport, music and school clubs will not only enable you to learn new skills and maintain your fitness, but it’ll also keep your mind off feeling homesick and help build new friendships with other students that you wouldn’t normally meet.

Students can also take advantage of the different facilities provided by their school, such as common rooms, gyms, IT suites and media rooms. It’s an excellent way for students to bond over common interests and generally enjoy the time they spend together.

Read a Good Book

Reading a book can be a super way of escaping homesickness. Boarding schools usually have well-stocked libraries with a variety of fiction and non-fiction books that students can loan for free. As well as helping to cope with homesickness reading books helps international students improve their English spelling, punctuation and grammar.

Bring Something From Home

As a boarding student you’ll have your own space in a dormitory or even your own room, depending on the school. Make sure that you take some belongings that remind you of home, such as:

Plan a Busy Schedule

One of the best ways to ease homesickness is by having a busy schedule. Your school will give you a well-structured timetable when you start, including your lessons, sport, compulsory activities and mealtimes. Try to fit in some of the activities we’ve mentioned in this guide either before or after school. Make sure you keep a plan of your new busy schedule though – otherwise you might forget what you’re meant to be doing!

A well-planned schedule that balances your academic work with sport, extracurricular activities and some free time should help keep stress, anxiety and homesickness at bay.

Learn To Become Independent

Although being away from home can seem like a bad thing at first, it does have some worthwhile benefits – aside from enabling you to study at a great school!

Whilst it is really important to spend time with the people and places you know well, meeting new people and dealing with new situations will develop your ability to be independent – a key life skill. As soon as you leave your home to travel to your new school, you’ll start learning to be more independent. Make sure you explore everything you can – it’ll help keep your mind off homesickness.