Head teachers cite the importance parents are now placing on their daughters' education the fact

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Head teachers cite the importance parents are now placing on their daughters' education, the fact that both parents are more likely to work, and the added security of children not having to travel to school on their own. Parents also have the opportunity of seeing their children more – many board less than an hour away from home and are able to return at weekends.Clarissa Farr, chairwoman of the Boarding Schools Association, said: "The idea that you send your children away to board, and that it is somehow an abrogation of parental responsibility, is very much in the past. Boarding schools like to work in close partnership with parents. There is greater flexibility about when children go home, for example. It's a form of education that can complement family life, not be an either/or."She said the resurgence of interest in boarding started at the beginning of the 1990s, predating Harry Potter mania. "I think more people are recognising that boarding education has a modern relevance.

Parents who work long hours recognise the fact that they don't have a great deal of family time, particularly during the week, and boarding can offer an excellent education academically, as well as a huge range of extra-curriculum activities for children. That pastoral care is a particular strength of boarding schools." Last year, there were nine boarding schools in the top 20 performing schools at A-level.Mrs Denman and her husband Richard, 53, a farmer, decided to give boarding a go when her eldest, Natasha, then just seven, begged to board at Windlesham House School, near Horsham, West Sussex, after visiting it. The school is just a two-minute walk from their home."I did wonder whether this was the right thing to do but what really struck me was the happiness of the children," said Mrs Denman "I thought, it can't be that bad It took her about a year, but she flourished. They had art, drama, everything that the other schools didn't have."Did I miss her? I was totally gutted. If someone said to me when she was five or six, 'Could you send your child to boarding school?', I would have said: 'Over my dead body.' But when your child is coming home and saying 'Please mummy, I really want to go', you're in a bit of a different position."When I sent Natasha I had this feeling of guilt because I had sent my daughter away. You feel as though you're going to sever something, like you're not going to have those cuddles. I think mummy suffers more than the children, but you do it for your kids I feel it's one of the most unselfish things I've done.

It's been fantastic." Her youngest daughter, Louisa, aged eight, who attends Windlesham, is at home from Saturday lunchtime until Sunday evening "She's having a blast. She's busy all the time," says her mother.Adele Maxwell-Glass, 47, who owns a residential home for the elderly, and whose husband, David, also 47, is a railway track inspector, finds boarding ideal, given the hours she works. Her daughter Stefanie, 13, has been at Hockerill Anglo-European College in Bishop's Stortford, Herts, for two years. She went to a state school, as her four older siblings had, but was moved to a private school when her parents became concerned about class sizes. "She wanted to go to boarding school because a lot of children who go to private school go there and my work is seven days a week, near enough 24 hours a day," says Mrs Maxwell-Glass, who has six children aged from 11 to 26, and lives in Frinton-on-Sea, Essex."I felt it would be good for her because I don't have as much free time as I did with the others, and they have a lot of after-school activities. I thought she would have more opportunities and a superior education. It would be better for me as a working mum, and we would have quality time when she comes home, on every third weekend in the month I speak to her on the phone every week I miss her more than she misses me.