21 Things You'll Know If You Went To Boarding School

Boarding school is the one place where your friends are more like siblings, you have name tags on your socks, canteen food is the bane of your life and communal showers are the norm. Boarding school can be one of the best or worst times of your life. Here is a rundown of signs you went to a boarding school...

1. Morning Wake Ups

The dreaded wake up. Its hard to know what was worse: hearing some first year squeak '1st bell' or being the first year and dodging all the well-aimed shoes each morning.

2. "Midnight Feasts"

"Oh, you went to boarding school? Did you always have midnight feasts?". No. We did not. Food is a commodity and the last thing you do is share it.

3. Ties

It's a well-known fact that a tie's first use is as a weapon. Secondary functions include being used to restrain younger students for no reason at all and occasionally to trip people up. Just because.

4. Post

"You got a letter" was possibly the best sentence you could hear in your day. People who got parcels were kings.

5. Prep

Even on a Saturday morning. This is one thing day-pupils were never going to be jealous of.

6. Punishments

Essays included "50 facts you didn't know about this blade of grass" and "Why I have the best looking prefect". Also, being 'gated' was the school version of being grounded.

7. Toast

A staple part of any boarder's diet. Every break time, there was a race to the common room as 50 people attempted to shove as much bread in the toaster as physically possible in the space of 15 minutes. Sugary tea and buttery toast will always bring you back to the good aul' days.

8. Rugby Matches

Always the most important events of the seasons. Face paint, school colours and the chants that everybody knew off by heart.

9. Tuck Shop

Possibly the best thing about living in school was the infinite amount of Freddo bars and bags of Tayto that were locked behind an office door.

10. Pillow Fights

More like a pillow war. Being smacked full on in your face isn't as fun as it seems in the movies.

11. Communal Showers

You've seen your best friend's bare ass more times then you can remember... but you're okay with that.

12. The Jealousy Of Watching Day-Pupils Go Home

Suddenly realising that the day-pupils were going back to hot, homemade dinners while you stayed in school eating mushy Shepherd's pie along with prep for dessert.

13. Sneaking A Guy Into Your All-Girls Dorm Or Vice-Versa

The excitement of attempting to get someone into your dorm. Not so exciting when you got caught though.

14. Prefects

Getting caught out by a prefect was always annoying... unless they happened to be a boarder too. It's not what you know in school, it's who you know.

15. Snow Days

There are no such things as snow days for boarders. When you live just a minute away from your classes, it's hard to get out of going to school. To make up for this, you'd steal trays from the cafeteria to use as sledges.