Sixth Form boarding in Yorkshire: Freedom, friendships & life skills giving Giggleswick students a head start
What if Sixth Form could be your first taste of independence?
Sixth Form Boarding in Yorkshire: A Day in the Life at Giggleswick
Your own room. Friends just down the corridor. Lessons, sport, activities, study, and still time at the end of the day to go for a swim, watch a film or catch up with friends.
Sixth Form boarding at Giggleswick school is probably less about the traditional idea of boarding school and more about learning to manage your own time.
As part of the wider Giggleswick Sixth Form experience, you have more independence. You’re expected to get yourself up, organise your work and decide how to use your time. But you’re doing it in a community where your teachers, tutors and House staff know you – and where help is never particularly far away.
For many pupils, it is a useful halfway point between home and whatever comes next.
A day that starts at 7.15am
As a Sixth Former, nobody comes to wake you in the morning. You’re expected to get yourself up, make it to breakfast and be ready for registration before lessons begin.
What those lessons look like depends very much on the subjects you choose. You could be analysing a text in English, carrying out an experiment in Biology or Chemistry, or swapping the traditional classroom for something much more hands-on.
Take BTEC Theatre Studies, for example. A lesson might involve devising and rehearsing a performance, learning about sound and lighting or exploring costume and set design. Through the Richard Whiteley Theatre, students can also work with theatre professionals, take part in workshops with directors and actors, and see live performances on their doorstep.
Music Technology could see you working on studio recording and production, experimenting with digital audio or learning the practicalities of live sound engineering. Art might mean printmaking, ceramics or life drawing, while 3D Design takes ideas from sketches and digital modelling through to prototypes and finished products.
It’s a curriculum designed to give you different ways to learn. Alongside A levels and BTEC options, the EPQ and Gold Arts Award, there is plenty of scope to take an interest further. An EPQ, for instance, doesn’t even have to end as an essay, it could become a film, an artefact or a composition.
Study periods are part of learning to work more independently too. Depending on how your studies are going, you might work in your room, use the library or head to the Sixth Form Centre. By lunchtime, your morning could have involved anything from a seminar or experiment to a rehearsal or independent research.
From climbing to ceramics
From 4pm to 5pm, there’s CASE (Creative, Active, Service and Enrichment) - Giggleswick’s co-curricular programme. With more than 160 activities across the programme, the difficulty can be deciding what to do.
You might go climbing or kayaking, join Debating, Gigg media or Young Enterprise, try ceramics, coding or robotics, take part in DofE or volunteer at our own Prep School. There are opportunities in music and drama, sport and outdoor pursuits, alongside activities you may simply never have encountered before.
And because CASE sits within the school day, it isn’t something you have to squeeze into an already busy week. It also gives Sixth Formers opportunities to take the lead. You might help run an activity for younger pupils, represent other students or take on responsibility within your House.
“Boarding gives pupils more time to immerse themselves in school life,” says Anne Coward, Head of Sixth Form. “Sixth Formers develop leadership and teamwork skills by leading co-curricular activities, taking on positions of responsibility, representing the student body, volunteering and supporting younger pupils. All of these opportunities provide a range of experiences to draw on when you’re applying through UCAS or creating a CV, and, importantly, plenty to talk about beyond your academic results.”
When the school day finishes but you don’t have to leave
After CASE comes prep and tea, followed by House registration at 6.50pm and another study session from 7pm to 8pm.
That hour doesn’t necessarily mean sitting at a desk in House. You might work in the library, head to the Art Studio for life drawing or spend time in Design. Teachers are also available in Houses on different evenings, so if you need help with something, there is usually someone nearby to ask.
Then, from 8pm, the evening is yours. You might head to the fitness suite, watch a film with friends, make something in the House kitchen, sit around chatting or head back to your room for some time to yourself.
“For me there really is something very special about the relationships you build in a boarding house. We share each moment of our day together - from making our morning coffee together to late night chats. Giggleswick can be challenging and full on, but it’s our peers in house that build us back up again." Leaver (2024)
Stay for the night or the week
Boarding at Sixth Form doesn’t necessarily mean staying at school seven nights a week.
Some pupils board throughout the week; others stay for a few nights. For someone living within travelling distance, that flexibility means you can make boarding work around your week.
You might stay because you have an activity that evening, because your friends are staying, or because finishing your work at school makes more sense than travelling home and starting again later.
What about the weekend?
Saturday still has lessons and activities, but Saturday evenings are more social. Sixth Formers have a say in organising what happens, with activities ranging from quizzes to themed evenings.
Sunday has a different pace. There are organised trips throughout the year, perhaps a city visit, Alton Towers or a Three Peaks walk. Or you can stay in House and have some downtime. After a week of lessons, sport, CASE and everything else, sometimes that is exactly what you want.
Come and see what a day here could look like
If you’re wondering what any of this feels like in practice, Giggleswick’s Sixth Form Open Morning is on Saturday 7 November 2026, from 10am to noon.
It’s a chance to see the school and boarding Houses, meet the people who live and work here, and get a better sense of what your own Sixth Form days might look like.
A bit more responsibility
The independence that comes with boarding isn’t only about having more freedom.
You have to get yourself up. You need to manage your study periods. You have to balance work with sport, activities and seeing friends. And living alongside other people inevitably teaches you a few things about compromise.
“16 to 18 is the age when young people begin to explore their independence,” says Headmaster Sam Hart. “Here they can develop that confidence, learn responsibility and life skills whilst benefiting from the structure and support of a school community.”
Those skills become increasingly important when you start thinking about what comes after school.
For some pupils that means university, including Oxford, Cambridge and other Russell Group universities. Others choose degree apprenticeships or move directly towards careers. Former pupils have progressed to opportunities with employers including Amazon, BAE Systems, Jaguar Land Rover, the Ministry of Defence, Rolls-Royce and Coca-Cola.
There is careers guidance, help with CVs and interviews, visiting speakers and support with applications. But there is also the less formal preparation that happens simply by being involved in school life, organising yourself, leading something, working with other people and becoming comfortable trying things you haven’t done before.
And what does that mean at home?
For parents, flexible boarding can make the week easier. There are fewer late journeys and lifts to organise, meals are covered and there is reassurance that study time is built into the day.
For you, it can mean something simpler: when you do go home, you can actually be at home. You’re less likely to arrive with an evening of work still to complete or feel that you need to choose between staying for an activity and getting home.
And that perhaps sums up Sixth Form boarding at Giggleswick. You still have registrations. You still have prep. There are rules and routines. But within them, you have increasing control over how you spend your time, who you spend it with and what you decide to get involved in.
It’s not quite university. It’s not quite home. It’s a chance to get used to what comes next.