This is my first year at Chets in Form 3 (Year 9). I, like many of the students here, am a boarder in Boys’ House (made up of about 120 boys aged 13-18). Aside from trips back to my house, I have spent the whole year living in Boys’ House. Boarding life at Chets is fun and exciting and, by and large, is quite similar to life at home. There is an incredible variety of people, many of them multi-national coming from different backgrounds and aiming for different things.
My first thought about Chets was that it would be utterly focused on music and would not regard academic studies as an important thing. This turned out to be quite wrong; Chets builds a steady routine around practice, studies and recreation. I find that all the house tutors are very easy to speak to, and are quite ready to listen and advise about anything you have on your mind. One of the really nice things is that although it takes time to make friends, you will often see whole year groups going out and doing group activities where everybody is involved e.g. trips to restaurants or going out into town.
In the evenings after all of the working activities have finished there are a groups such as Christian Union, yoga classes, keep fit classes and all sorts of other things. Musically there are many opportunities to perform and so far I have performed eight times outside of school, there are also many performance classes and lunchtime concerts. Performance classes are held by the head of department and are in the style of a master-class. Chets has strong links with the RNCM so there are many regular trips to events might take your interest.
The school which I used to go to is quite different to Chets in the respect that there were fewer people. At first, the time I spent at Chets was quite disorientating, knowing only a few faces and having spoken to even fewer but soon I got used to it. The main difference is the timetable, as in my old school there were no timetable practice sessions, the effect of this is that now musical progress goes so much faster, also my previous school day was longer as well, but this is countered by the after school activities and practice. In general 2-3 hours of practice (sometimes more, sometimes less) happens each day.
Aidan Haslam
Form 3
