Jonathan Thomas (00:12)
Welcome back to the Angotopia podcast, the podcast for Americans fascinated by all things British travel, history and culture. I'm your host, Jonathan Thomas. And today we're gonna go behind the ivy colored walls of British boarding schools with someone who lived it firsthand. Our guest is Naomi Kent, CEO and founder of the Boardroom Company, where she helps executives transition into corporate board roles.

I know Naomi because she's the president of the board for the British American Business Council in Chicago. But what makes Naomi special for our show is her personal journey. She grew up in a traditional girls boarding school and now lives in America as a British expat. Today, we're going to dive into what boarding school was really like. Was it anything like Hogwarts? What were the daily routines, the own written rules, the friendships, and how did that uniquely British experience shape her into her successful business career?

Whether you're a Harry Potter fan wondering about the reality behind the fiction or just fascinated by British culture, you're in for a treat. Welcome, Naomi.

Naomi Kent - The Boardroom Co (01:13)
Thank you, Jonathan. And like I said before, really never thought I would ever be interviewed about my experience at a boarding school, but I'm so excited to share it with you.

Jonathan Thomas (01:23)
Well, we're happy to have you because as soon as you proposed this, I was like, I gotta have her on the podcast because this will make a great episode. So, all right. So give us, please give us some background. How on earth did you end up in a boarding school in England? Because it's actually a really interesting story.

Naomi Kent - The Boardroom Co (01:38)
Yeah, so I'll give the summary version. ⁓ My father went to live in Hong Kong when he was 19. At that time, that was actually part of the UK, so you could move around pretty easily. And then my mom followed pretty soon after. They got married, they lived in Hong Kong, and then ⁓ he got a job there. And then he got a job with a hotel chain. And so he moved around. We grew up in Asia. I was born in Jakarta in Indonesia.

And then he got an opportunity to work in Thailand. So we lived there. Then an opportunity came up for us to live in the UK. So at about eight years old, I came back to the UK. I went to just a regular school because my parents were living in around the London area. And then he got another job offer to go and work in North Africa, in Tunisia, in Hamamet. So one of the hotels there, it was like a resort hotel.

So ⁓ they speak French and Arabic there. weren't very many sort of British schools or international schools there at that time. We're talking the eighties at this point. ⁓ And so he proposed and the company proposed that they would ⁓ fund our boarding school for both myself and my sister. At the time I was 11, my sister was 14. A ⁓ quick story, ⁓ she went to a school called

Cheltenham Ladies College, which for anyone listening knows that that's one of the top all-girl schools in the country and a boarding school. I tried twice to get into that school and failed twice. So we ended up going to different schools, but I basically wasn't smart enough to go to her school. So I ended up at a school called St. Michael's ⁓ in Petworth. And I vividly remember my mother saying to me, ⁓

Jonathan Thomas (03:15)
no.

Naomi Kent - The Boardroom Co (03:29)
And she was very upset about it. I don't think she wanted us to be, you know, to leave the home, but she was going to go and, you know, be with my father in North Africa. And we would go out there, you know, three times a year, four times a year, sometimes five times a year. But she was very upset. And she said to me, listen, I've got some terrible news for you. You know, you're going to have to go to boarding school. And I was 11 at the time. And all I remember was saying, oh, that sounds really interesting.

that sounds like a great experience. And she was sort of shocked at my response, right? But my thought was, great, no parents around, we can have fun and we can mess around. That was kind of in my mind. My sister wasn't as excited about it as I was, ⁓ but definitely that was the reason why it was because ⁓ he got an opportunity to work and it was a huge promotion for him too. So he really thought about it and thought, you know what's great education.

I still get to see the kids, you know, it be every day. so, yeah, so that's how I ended up at boarding school.

Jonathan Thomas (04:27)
We're going have to talk about Petworth because I've been to Petworth. ⁓ yeah, so I buried the lede there. So let's talk about that later. ⁓ Petworth is a beautiful part of the country. ⁓ And the house there, the National Trust House there is one of my favorites because of the Turner's. Anyway, off topic. ⁓ So can you paint us a picture of your first day at boarding school? was going through your mind when you arrived at this, you know,

Naomi Kent - The Boardroom Co (04:31)
you have been to pet work.

It is, Petworth, West Sussex, yes.

Yes.

Jonathan Thomas (04:56)
stereotypical almost, I've seen the pictures, which I'll put pictures up on the overlay when this comes out. ⁓ What was it like showing up at a boarding school in England, you know, like...

Naomi Kent - The Boardroom Co (05:08)
Yeah, so boarding schools in England tend to, at that time, again, it was 1989. I actually looked up the dates. was 1989 when I went to boarding school and 1996 when I left. I was there for seven seven years at two schools actually. So the first school was in Petworth and it is since closed down. And I'll tell you the story about that later. But a lot of boarding schools in England, because they've been around for so long,

they were in some stunning buildings, right? So you had these very old buildings. The one in Petworth in West Sussex was, it still actually had ⁓ bricks in some of the windows where during the Second World War they had to actually, you know, put blackout windows essentially. So, you know, it had a lot of history. You walked into the front entrance, beautiful black and white tiled floor, this massive, ⁓ you know, ⁓

fireplace right in front of you in this staircase that just again it looked regal right so it was just quite it was quite impressive when you walked into the main building and then of course as you went around the school there were more modern buildings that had been built ⁓ but yeah it was definitely quite a wow factor and i remember there was a long ⁓ driveway about a probably just under a mile from where you leave the road

to when you get to the building. So there's almost like this kind of long, yeah, this sort of long, scary kind of drive. And there's a little old chapel, which by the way, all of this is still there. They converted that school into apartments. So it's been changed, but the crux of the building, it still looks exactly the same. So I would say it was quite an impressive first impression. But then ⁓ I remember the first night.

in at school. So your parents have all left, right? They've said goodbye. They've left you there. And I remember I was in a dorm, dormitory, but we called it a dorm, right? With eight people, eight total. So there were four bunk beds. And I remember, you know, lights out. don't remember who did the lights out. It's probably the mate, you know, the woman that sort of worked there. But I remember lights out and I was like, oh, fun, we can all have fun. I don't know, eat.

eat chocolate or something, right? And everyone else was sort of crying and kind of bubbling and very upset. So I was kind of confused. Why are we all so unhappy here? So was definitely an odd child. ⁓ I didn't sort of have that emotional separation, but a lot of kids did. So was a very, I think it was a tough time for a lot of kids, especially, we were young. There was one kid that was nine years old that was there. And again, a lot of them, was their parents that had to go abroad.

Jonathan Thomas (07:32)
No... No...

Naomi Kent - The Boardroom Co (07:57)
they didn't have proper schools in some of these countries. I think things have since changed, but ⁓ yeah, it was a little bit traumatic for some people, but for me it was fun, right? It was something fun to do, so.

Jonathan Thomas (08:08)
You're like, when's the party start? Come on, let's have our stereotypical adventures, right?

Naomi Kent - The Boardroom Co (08:14)
Yeah, yeah, we had something called a tuck box. A tuck box was a, it was a, we all had very similar boxes. You just, I don't know, they had maybe like a brochure and you bought it from a brochure or something. I don't know how we all got it, but it was a wooden box, pretty big, and it had a latch on it. And it had a, you know, a latch so that you could put a, you know, a padlock on it. And I had my name on it. And by the way, everything had my name on it.

everything. So we had to sew my name into my socks, my underwear, my tops, my shirts, my everything had my name in it. So because you did laundry, right? No one knew whose was what. and so you had to have your name. So anyway, this tuck box had your name on it. And of course, your parents would fill it up right when they came to see you. And then it would and then it would either disappear because someone stole it right or you would just eat it.

So I was definitely like, ⁓ let's have a, you know, get Tuck. And there was a little shop in the school and you could buy Tuck, which was, you know, packets of, we call them crisps, right? Packets of chips, chocolate bars or whatever it might be. So yeah, we just ate basically. ⁓

Jonathan Thomas (09:30)
So for American listeners who may only know boarding schools through Harry Potter, ⁓ what's the biggest misconception that you'd like to clear up about boarding schools?

Naomi Kent - The Boardroom Co (09:42)
Yeah, well, OK, let's mention I was there in 1989 to 1996. There have been a lot of changes. And even when we were kids there, we were told that boarding schools are a lot nicer and a better place to be than they were years ago. So I think in general, things have often, you know, have changed. There are some strict rules. I mean, you're a school responsible for hundreds of

You know young girls. They have to be rules. You can't go out at night You can't you know, there's got to be some rules around it to keep you safe. So that's one thing ⁓ but And there and and we did there was one particular incident where and each teacher was a little bit more strict than the other right? But there was a situation where we were in a room and one girl Who was in our class, you know, she we were this was not in a classroom. This was in our

in our sort of where we lived and where we stay and where we slept. She was shouting, the teacher walked in and she said a swear word and she said, right, come over here. I'm gonna wash your mouth out with soap. So she didn't get her mouth washed out with soap. So I don't know if that's in the movie. I haven't watched all of them, but she definitely got reprimanded for that. then, we were disciplined. were, somebody was,

you know, the ruler on the back of the hat. Again, this is early 90s, right? Again, I don't think it's happening now, but certainly we saw that and we were given sort of strict rules to follow. But ⁓ is it exactly like it? ⁓ No. Did we wear uniforms and was it all very formal? Yes, it was and it still is. It still is today.

Jonathan Thomas (11:25)
So my listeners are usually most curious about nuts and bolts kind of things when it comes to Britain. So can you walk us through a typical day at boarding school? Like from the wake up bell to lights out, what was daily life like?

Naomi Kent - The Boardroom Co (11:33)
Yeah.

Yeah, so the way you say a wake up bell, that's funny because this is what would happen is there would actually be a physical bell, almost like the one on a church, right? So they have it in their hand and, ⁓ God, I'm gonna forget her name. I should have remembered her name. But anyway, ⁓ she would come around with this bell and you would hear it coming. So you'd slowly hear it coming down the hall and she just do-a-do-ing, do-a-do-ing. And then she'd open the bedroom and just...

ding this bell, which was so annoying, right? And she had to see you all get out of bed. So we'd all get out of bed and then she'd leave and we'd all get back into bed. So ⁓ that would be the start of the day. And then of course we would sort of get ready again. Always in a room until I got to the age of 16, 17, I was in a room with about three to four girls at any time. there was a big rooms, but...

We had our own little bed, which by the way, the beds that we had in that school do look like the ones you probably think of in your mind. They're sort of like the hospital beds, right? ⁓ And so, yeah, so we'd go out, we'd go to class. We'd actually, every morning, we would all have to go into the chapel and you would say, you know, some sort of prayer. And it didn't matter what religion you were from, you had to go in there. So it wasn't...

For us, it didn't feel like a religious ⁓ daily ceremony. It was a little bit like, you you go in and sort of, I don't know, kind of say your promises for the day or you say something good for the day. It was more like that. I don't think we saw it as a religious ceremony, but there, you know, it essentially was in ⁓ a sort of Church of England church, right? Because this was a Church of England school.

And by the way, that's another point, each school, I'm sure it's the same here. There were different religions, some were Catholics, some were not, et cetera, but this was a church of England. So we would do that every morning. We had to go and it was just five, 10 minutes. And then we'd start our classes. We would get breaks. ⁓ You could go up to your room in some breaks, but not all of them. So sometimes you had to stay downstairs and then you'd have lunch.

you know, snacks and all sorts of things that were prepared. I know we're going to talk about meals in a bit, but, ⁓ and then in the evening we would have homework. So we'd have to go into the library and do our homework together. ⁓ I was much more of a athletic kid, so I would want to go out and swim. We had a swimming pool right there. We had, ⁓ a beautiful, ⁓ you know, ⁓ the grounds were huge. I they went for miles and miles. So I used to do a lot of long distance running, which

I still, you I did throughout my life. ⁓ And then you would, ⁓ we would also have, so quiet time, they called it. I remember what that was, but you couldn't chit chat and talk. It had to be just homework and getting on with things. And then we were allowed a certain amount of time to watch the TV. So it was sort of regulated. So you weren't sitting there all night watching TV, but.

We'd watch a little bit of TV and then some kids, and don't forget this is back in the early 90s, would have sort of video games and stuff that they could, whatever those handheld video games were. But not all of us did, I definitely didn't. I barely had a walkman at that age. ⁓ And then it would be sort of lights out bedtime. And again, the ⁓ woman that worked in the kind of house, ⁓

she would come around and turn out all the lights and make sure everyone was there. So there was a lot of just, you know, checks and security as well, doors were locked and things like that. ⁓ yeah, that was sort of like a typical day. I was also what they call a full border, a full border or an international border is someone who stays over the weekend. I would sometimes go and stay with my grandmother. I used to enjoy spending time with her, but a lot of the time ⁓ we would just stay in the school and we got very bored and we didn't have a lot of...

distractions so we would entertain ourselves with all kinds of crazy things that we would do or we'd just start messing around and picking on someone and actually I'll tell a quick funny story. So there was one time there was a girl and she was just sleeping in her bed and she was one of these deep sleepers, right? So we just sort of.

dragged her bed out of the bedroom and into the hallway and just sort of left her there and watched her wait until she woke up and then went, why am I in the hallway? So when we would play jokes on people and we would mess around. So that was a lot of what we did as well. We just were getting bored, you know.

Jonathan Thomas (16:33)
speaking of messing around, what were the rules like? Were there any that were bizarre or old-fashioned that today would be horrified to hear or was it very kind of straightforward?

Naomi Kent - The Boardroom Co (16:42)
think a lot of them were straightforward. I think again, at the time when you're a young kid, you're like, why do I have all these rules? And then you look back and you're like, no, for security reasons. because, I mean, people are obviously putting their kids in these boarding schools. If anything were to go wrong, ⁓ that's a huge reputation risk for the business. And I see it as a business, it was a for-profit.

⁓ So I understand why there were rules. We used to, ⁓ I mean, there are all kinds of things. used to have, and I'll tell you the quick story of how I got expelled, because this is probably the story you're waiting for. So rules, yeah, your tea with milk, by the way, I'm very proud of you. So again, for security reasons, weren't allowed out. We were called out of bounds.

Jonathan Thomas (17:22)
⁓ okay, yeah, let's get my tea here.

Naomi Kent - The Boardroom Co (17:38)
out of bounds was outside of the school walls, right? You weren't allowed outside of the school. So they would lock the doors at night. But there was one door that you could open from the inside. And of course, again, back then they didn't have cameras and all these kinds of flashy things that they probably have today. But we would just stick a book in the door so it didn't close. And there was a boy school that was about a mile away in Petman. By the way, that one's still there. That school is still around. ⁓

and a very reputable one. so we were a little bit older. We were sort of 16 or something like that at that point. But one of my friends said, hey, let's go and visit with some of the boys that I know. So I went along with it. actually, it was just funny. We just walked to the end of the road and hung out in the street. I mean, that's all we did. And then of course, we got caught a couple of days later. But they even sat, she even, I remember the head mistress, we called them the head mistress.

She was like the Dean essentially of the school and she sat down with us and said, you know, I just, I, I, I'm going to need to expel you. I'm afraid. She said, but it's really to teach a lesson to other people. And at the time I just thought, listen, what is she talking about? Now I look back, I'm like, I totally get it. Right? Like this is obviously very dangerous for two 16 year old girls who are in the hands of a school. Right.

running around in the street. I you could get knocked over by a car, could creep out weirdos picking you up. I mean, who knows, right? So I totally understand the reason why there were rules. And then of course we had rules about shouting in the hallway, couldn't shout in the hallway. I got told off for that a lot. Swearing, got told off for that a lot. But I didn't get the soap in the mouth. I didn't get that. So I wasn't caught by the really nasty people that worked there. But no, I think actually if I look back, ⁓

It was mainly women working there. They were phenomenal. I mean, how they put up with us. We were obviously, you know, crazy, energetic kids and they put up with us every day of the week. So I take my hat off to them now looking back on it.

Jonathan Thomas (19:47)
Well, that's a get into spoiler territory here, but you were expelled. Did you end up going back or did you go to a different school after that?

Naomi Kent - The Boardroom Co (19:54)
Well, so the school was actually closing down at the time. yeah, so the school was closing down because it was being sold. The whole, was like a network of schools called the Woodard schools that don't exist anymore. But this Woodard schools was obviously bleeding money. They weren't making any money. And I think a lot of it was the buildings. They were so old. The maintenance was expensive. They couldn't raise prices, et cetera, and they couldn't compete.

It was very, very competitive in the boarding school space ⁓ and especially for international kids coming over. So anyway, it was closing down and they said, listen, it's closing down. You're not gonna be able to go to the end of year, you know, goodbye party kind of thing. So I said, all right, whatever. I don't even think I was gonna go anyway. So ⁓ I ended up going to ⁓ moving schools and going to Queen Anne School in Caversham, which is still there. And Caversham is in Reading.

⁓ in Berkshire. It's about an hour or so away from London, so it was very close to London. And I went there from 16 to 18, so I ended up going there. And a beautiful school, so yes, the pictures that I sent you, are, maybe I can try and get you a picture of St. Michael's as well, the original one, but ⁓ I went to Queen Anne's, which was, yeah, it's a reputable school, beautiful, and I think as well, I say this to myself all the time.

Jonathan Thomas (21:02)
Okay.

Naomi Kent - The Boardroom Co (21:22)
When I was there, when you're at boarding school, you're sort of frustrated, you're a teenager, you're angry, you're being locked up and all of these things. now I actually went back to the school, I wanna say about 10 years ago, I went back and I gave a presentation to some of the girls about careers. And I was just blown away by how beautiful the buildings were, how beautiful the grounds were, how nice the people were. And so just coming back.

after many years and seeing it from different lens, was really great experience.

Jonathan Thomas (21:55)
So did you have houses like at Hogwarts? Was there a house system or what was that like?

Naomi Kent - The Boardroom Co (22:01)
Yeah, there was actually. Yeah, we had four houses ⁓ and each one of them was named after one of the founders of this school system, right? Yes, and each one of them, we had different coloured shirts for each group. we wore, I don't know if, gingham a thing? Gingham? Yeah, it's like a checkered sort of art. And we each had a shirt of that colour.

Jonathan Thomas (22:03)
Okay.

Just like Hogwarts.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Naomi Kent - The Boardroom Co (22:30)
So mine was, ⁓ I was in the blue group. So there was blue, yellow, green and red, I believe. And so we each had a group. so, and you were just put in a house, right? ⁓

Jonathan Thomas (22:44)
There wasn't a hat to sort you.

Naomi Kent - The Boardroom Co (22:47)
No, no,

was all just shirts. I do want to mention something just on the uniform. They're very expensive. So, you spend hundreds of pounds, dollars, whatever, ⁓ to actually just buy your kids the clothing that they wanted them to wear. So, there were socks you had to buy. There were shirts, there were skirts, there were a big coat. You had to buy it.

a swimsuit, you had to buy the swimsuit with the name of the school on it. you know, there was, there was very military style type, you know, entrance into some of these schools where you really had to have the right, but yes, all, they all had houses and you would stay in the, in the rooms with, with the people from your group as well. And you stayed with them the entire time. You never changed.

Jonathan Thomas (23:40)
Were there rivalries with the other houses or was it?

Naomi Kent - The Boardroom Co (23:42)
absolutely. ⁓

absolutely. Yeah, definitely. Like they were, you know, we would spread rumors that, you know, the yellow group with this and the green group with that and what have you. So actually, I wasn't blue. I was green. Sorry. I was green. Green. I remember who was in my group as well. Like who was in my house. But yes. Yeah.

Jonathan Thomas (24:01)
So what were meal times like? Was the food really as terrible as stereotypes suggest or was it like a great meal every time you ate there?

Naomi Kent - The Boardroom Co (24:08)
I don't think it was that bad, actually. I think the food was actually pretty good and we got a lot of snacks and things. I'll tell just a funny story. ⁓ At about four o'clock in the afternoon, ⁓ just after maybe school had ended, I guess, I'm just kind of guessing at the moment because I can't really remember, but we used to have tea, of course, tea with milk, right? And toast, right? And they had bread, sliced bread. And you had Marmite, of course.

You had butter and then jam, think. I think that was it. was Marmite and jam and butter. We would just sit and eat so many pieces of toast. I mean, I can't even tell you. don't know. We were obviously like burning energy all day because we were, you know, as teenagers do. But I remember we would often have like competitions to see who could eat the most number of pieces of toast and who could put the most butter on it and the most Marmite.

Again, we're bored, right? We've got really nothing else to do other than compete and play stupid games. So yes, there was like this toast thing. And yeah, just a lot of tea, a lot of tea is Britain, so yeah.

Jonathan Thomas (25:19)
That's funny. What am I, you know, I've been at the Angletopia game for a long time, but when I first started traveling to Britain, one of the funniest things I noticed was that how the British considered toast to be a treat. And as an American, that's such a bizarre notion. Toast is a treat. It's just toast, toast is a very important part of the British diet.

Naomi Kent - The Boardroom Co (25:39)
Yeah, and I remember they had like industrial toasters so you could put like eight pieces in at once and, you know, cha-chung and down it goes. So yeah, was made for volume.

Jonathan Thomas (25:51)
I'm sure you miss proper toast here in the US because our bread's terrible.

Naomi Kent - The Boardroom Co (25:55)
The bread in England, the sliced bread is very, very good. Yeah, it goes off very quickly because it's much more fresh, but yeah, it is still one of the best.

Jonathan Thomas (26:03)
Yeah.

So ⁓ what happens when you get sick at boarding school? Where do you go?

Naomi Kent - The Boardroom Co (26:10)
Yeah, so you go to the sanitarium, it's called the sanitarium. It's as bad as you think it is. We used to call it the San, right? So first of all, you didn't want to go to the San. It was in this very old part of the building. had creaky floors, you know, or first of all, it was just didn't look nice. Probably smelled kind of, you know, like it was just a bit of an old building, a bit dusty. And the nurse that was in there,

Jonathan Thomas (26:13)
dear, that sounds terrifying.

Naomi Kent - The Boardroom Co (26:39)
I can't remember what we called her, but she was basically a nurse. She would administer if we needed a, you know, a shot, we needed like a vaccine or something, she would administer that. If we had a cough, she would administer that, you know, and she really did most things. If somebody got really sick, then of course they would be sent out of the school to a hospital or whatever they needed, right? So she would just be doing all of the basics that kids would generally need, you know, to kind of stay healthy.

⁓ so you really didn't want to get sick. Cause if you said, if they came in with the bell in the morning and the lights and you went, I feel sick. go, all right, go down to sand. You didn't want to go there. So you just, you just got out of bed, right? Because you went into the sand. First of all, wasn't a nice place to be. There was always someone who was sick in there and you'd be like, God, yeah, you know what it is. You'd probably catch something anyway. The nurse was this really big lady.

Jonathan Thomas (27:31)
Ha

Naomi Kent - The Boardroom Co (27:36)
And so anytime you went in, I still today remember some of the stuff she said, because I even say it to people, but you would go in there and this is one of the things she would say to you. I'd say, oh, you know, it really hurts. Like when I put my foot down like that and she'd go, well, don't put your foot down like that. She'd say that. I'd say it really hurts when I do this. Don't do that. Oh.

So she would talk you out of your sickness, first of all, to try and get rid of you. So that was kind of like you get humiliated, right? And then if you were really sick, you had to kind of stay there. You couldn't go up to your bedroom. You had to sleep in a bed upstairs where the nurse was, which makes sense, right? You wouldn't just go and be on your own. She would keep an eye on you, right? But it was awful in there. I mean, sickness was not an option of boarding school. You really didn't want it. And then,

if we did get a vaccine or anything, she would do this thing where she would, and sometimes we would have a doctor come in to do the vaccines actually, it wasn't her doing them, but she would sort of grab your head, she would stuff it into her chest and you'd have your arm out so that you wouldn't see it, right? Because if you saw someone with a big, know, injection, you might get the creeps and everything, which most of us did.

So she'd sort of hide your face, you'd get jabbed. And then she'd sort of like go, right, you okay? know, everything all right? So it just, the whole experience in the sand was terrible. So getting sick was just not an option, basically. Yeah, definitely didn't play sicky. That never happened, no.

Jonathan Thomas (29:14)
Yeah, I have this fantasy I'll just stay in my little bed in my little dorm room and be left alone. Nope, nope. That sounds terrible.

Naomi Kent - The Boardroom Co (29:20)
You had to go down

and be monitored. So if you were faking it, yeah, they knew you were faking it very quickly. And like I said, if you had a problem, like, it hurts when I do this, she'd say, well, just don't do that. Simple solution.

Jonathan Thomas (29:38)
So, you know, as we know, class kind of permeates everything in British culture. So how did the social hierarchies work at the school? Was there a clear pecking order amongst the students or they're very class divisions at all?

Naomi Kent - The Boardroom Co (29:51)
Um, I would say, um, it probably depend who you spoke to about that. I would say there was definitely a division between kids who were what we call full borders, who slept in the school, who stayed in the school over the weekend and people who were half borders. So a half border would stay in the school Monday to Friday and then go home. So often those were parents who both worked.

You know, they may have lived in London or a couple of hours drive away. And so they would go and pick up their kids on a Friday and then drop them back off on a Sunday night. And then they would have the whole week to work, right? And do their thing. ⁓ So we saw a lot of that, or they were just traveling a lot, parents who traveled a lot. So I would say there was a big difference because the ones that hung out over the weekend, we really got to know each other. Like we had spent a lot of time together. There were no classes and things like that at the weekend, although you could.

you know, granted you could go and play tennis or something, right? There was all sorts of sports available, but I would definitely say there was a difference between them. And then there was also a difference between the, because I mean, again, you know, these are boarding schools in the UK. I think today one term is about $20,000 and you have three or 20,000 pounds and that's three terms per year.

So, yeah, we're talking 60 and then add in travel, add in the uniform. We're talking 70, 80 grand per child, right, per year. So there were kids that their parents paid for it, like they were just wealthy. And then there were others who got scholarships and there were others who the company was paying for it or something like that.

So I would say there was probably a difference between those kids where they were obviously the wealthy elite versus people who were just really smart and got into these really good schools. So I'd say there's probably a difference there. And then there was, and then another difference would be kids that lived abroad. ⁓ So one of my very good friends, her name is Sam Ingram. ⁓ She was ⁓ at the school with me, her and her twin sister. And we all, our parents all lived in different countries.

And so we kind of bonded over that. So kids that were more international ⁓ kind of bonded ⁓ versus the kids that ⁓ just lived around the corner, right? We lived in the UK, so.

Jonathan Thomas (32:19)
Interesting how those linkages form amongst children. So that kind of leads into my next question. What was it like living so closely with the same group of girls 24-7? How did friendships develop differently than you would say if you had gone to a day school?

Naomi Kent - The Boardroom Co (32:23)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, well, some of them drove you nuts, And same with you, as a family, right? You almost feel like your sisters at the end of the day. ⁓ We kind of got into fights and then we made up and everyone was friends again. ⁓ Sam and a few others, you know, I still know today ⁓ and are still very close friends of mine. Because I think when you go through a boarding school experience, it's like no other experience that anyone can really understand. It's, you know, it's, there are...

Jonathan Thomas (32:38)
Right.

Naomi Kent - The Boardroom Co (33:06)
you know, it's a unique experience for a child. And so we spent more time together than I spent with my own sister, right? Essentially growing up. So you got very, very close to people. For me, it definitely taught me, you know, I think if you're an only child, you know, you have your parents doting over you and it's sort of whatever you want, whatever you, know, any time it's, it's, you sort of call the shots, but at boarding school,

It's just not like that. I had a sister, but for kids that didn't have any brothers and sisters, I think it was actually a really good way to get their kids around other kids, right? And to understand what sharing is all about and to sometimes fall out with people and have to make up and to have to be empathetic and see things from other people's perspectives, right? And stick up for yourself. Sometimes you were getting...

bullied or someone was spreading a rumor about it. Imagine school all day, all night, all weekend. I mean, you you had to stick up for yourself and you had to be independent. So ⁓ I think, you know, all those experiences helped us to bond as a group. ⁓ But Sam is definitely a really good friend of mine still today, I consider, one of my very close friends. So I think you definitely do based on the, you know,

experience, traumatic or not, sort of traumatic experience or a healthy educational experience as well.

Jonathan Thomas (34:35)
Thank

Well, it sounds like it really helps prepare you for the adult world because the adult world is terrible and you are going to be challenged constantly. And so to learn all that when you're young and informative, it probably helps equip you, you know, as an adult.

Naomi Kent - The Boardroom Co (34:55)
I absolutely think it does. And ⁓ if people are thinking, should I send my child to boarding school? I often say to them, are they emotionally strong? Are they emotionally strong kids? If they are, they're going to really enjoy boarding school and it's actually going to improve their ⁓ emotional intelligence. It's going to improve their people skills because you have to interact with people a lot. They're going to be more independent. And I think they...

Again, I could be wrong, but I do think it drives kids to be more ambitious and to, because they're around a lot of ambitious children too. And they're around a lot of kids that have, ⁓ you know, ⁓ great guidance and mentors. And so it's good for kids. So I personally think it's a good thing. And I think that if you, like I said, if you're emotionally strong as a child, ⁓ will really benefit from being in a boardroom environment. For me,

It was definitely independence. ⁓ I saw things a little differently. This was an all-girls school. I never saw, and I was, you know, it me and my sister. So we never got treated any differently from the boys. So there was no disconnect, right, in terms of gender. And I think that served me well in my career. I've never seen myself as different. I've fought to get promotions and jobs like anybody else. I've not seen myself as a...

a victim or anyone who has anything special or, you I feel like I have to ⁓ fight to get things just like everyone else. ⁓ And so maybe some of that is down to boarding school. Maybe not. I can't put my finger on it specifically, but I think it does, it definitely drove me to be more ambitious and to think about the world a little differently because again, the teachers were very, very good. The education you get at boarding school is very, very good. It's very high quality.

Jonathan Thomas (36:50)
Well, let's, let's sorry. forgive me. This question's not on the list, but let's talk about the educational aspect. what, what subjects are you studying? Is it like any other school or is it, you know, is it the classics or is it, you know, what's the focus that makes the education so good?

Naomi Kent - The Boardroom Co (37:07)
And again, I'll say this was 1989 to 1996. Things have definitely changed at all private schools and boarding schools in the UK. So ⁓ my experience is obviously from, you know, 30, 40, whatever it is, years ago. ⁓ Yes, we had traditional subjects and we were taught by some amazing educators ⁓ and we were pushed, actually. I think the biggest thing is we were pushed to do better.

we were always encouraged, and if there was someone who was outstanding in the group, ⁓ they were given additional help and they were given additional coaching and mentorship to be better. And the kids that were very smart or very good at sports, again, they were encouraged. I'll give you one quick example. I would go out jogging and running, and ⁓ one of the house mistresses, we used to call them house mistress. she, ⁓

So there was house mistr- you're now remembering it. House mistress was the woman who looked after the kids in their dorms, in their rooms. And then there was head mistress was obviously the dean sort of role, the head of the group. Anyway, so one of my house mistresses saw me running and said, hey, I think you're pretty good at that. You should do more of that. So she said, don't you do it in the morning? Why don't you wake up early and go and train and work out? And guess what? Since then I've been training and working out in the morning and-

and it's been very good for me and it was a very positive ⁓ change that happened in my life. So I ⁓ think just the environment, the education, the people ⁓ and the things that you do and the sports and everything that you have available to you is of huge benefit.

Jonathan Thomas (38:53)
So we kind of talked about this a little bit already, but were there any rule breaking adventures or midnight feast that, you know, you had a chance to bend the rules a little bit? Yeah.

Naomi Kent - The Boardroom Co (39:03)
Apart from sneaking out in the middle of the night and getting caught.

⁓ So yeah, midnight feast. mean, absolutely. You know, we would, a tuck box. was a tuck. It was tuck. So we used to, ⁓ we used to do that. I think we also used to, I mean, I probably should have chatted with some of, with Sam actually beforehand, but we used to do all sorts of things. We used to hide people's things, you know, and, and so someone would...

or literally they'd be at their, because we had all had a chest of drawers of our own, right? They'd be at their chest of drawers, they'd be doing something, they'd walk out the room, we'd just remove everything or just move it all around, right? And then just get back into bed and pretend like nothing had happened. So we were always playing jokes and messing about and we would hide someone's bag and everybody was dealing with it at some point, right? It was almost like a bunch of sisters, right? It's like your siblings, you always kind of.

messing with each other and then younger kids would kind of come into the school and you know, we would actually have mentors for some of them. So you would have a, we call it, I can't actually remember what we called it, but there was a name for it, like a big sister or a mentor or something like that. And so people would often sort of, know, shadow and chaperone people who came into the school. But then we'd also mess around with them as well.

play some jokes. So yes, so there were midnight feasts and some rule breaking ⁓ and definitely some disciplinary places as well. ⁓ what is it when you get, you can't do anything at the end of the day, get, what's the word? I totally lost it.

I don't talk about schooling much anymore, you get sort of not put in a corner if you got told off, but yes, you would kind of be isolated from the rest of the school. So we would get some of that as well. But we deserved it, by the way. We 100 % deserved it. This was not unnecessary disciplinary. This was definitely worth it.

Jonathan Thomas (41:04)
⁓

Was there corporal punishment or that had already been phased out?

Naomi Kent - The Boardroom Co (41:19)
No, so I did see some rulers on the back of the hand, ⁓ the mouth washed out with soap. ⁓ I think just raising, they would raise their voice and things like that, but there wasn't anything terrible. mean, yeah. But when we were at boarding school in the early 90s, we heard of horror stories of years before that.

Jonathan Thomas (41:35)
That's pretty mild.

Yeah.

Naomi Kent - The Boardroom Co (41:47)
girls would come back and say, you we used to get spanked and we used to get beaten and we used to this and that. you know, you'd have to go out. that was the other one. Someone said this, I did not experience this. I did not see this, but they were like, yeah, we had to go out in the cold and stand there with no shoes on or something like that for 10 minutes or something, you know. And if you know England, you know it's bitterly cold in the winter with the damp and everything else. that was torture. ⁓ But again, I never saw that. Those were things they talked about.

today, it's, you know, sure, you get disciplined if you make a mistake and you break the rules. ⁓ Just like any other school, I don't think it would be any different from any other school.

Jonathan Thomas (42:29)
Yeah, even at our public schools here in Indiana, they go so far out of their way to avoid having to discipline anybody, and they hate it when they have to because it just pisses everybody off. So ⁓ how did you handle homesickness, especially when you first started, or were you homesick because you had a very international childhood?

Naomi Kent - The Boardroom Co (42:30)
quickly.

Yep.

I'd say it went in waves, right? So, you when you were having a really great time at school and everything was fun, you know, you didn't even think about your family. And then when it was a more sort of quieter time or, you know, you just weren't, for whatever reason, you weren't in a good mood, then you would probably get, I think people got pretty homesick and I think a lot of kids did. A couple of things, we would write,

you know, letters to our parents and ⁓ the teachers would read them and often say, I think you should change this. You know, like, hey, you've written, I hate school. I hate, you know, I hate it here. They're like, your parents aren't gonna want to read that, right? So, ⁓ it was also like, ⁓ if we did miss our parents, and again, we didn't have phones, right? There was a physical phone on each floor of the building.

and it would ring really loudly and whoever picked it up and they'd say, you hey, I want to speak to Naomi or whatever. And then someone would yell for me and the next person would yell. And then I'd come out and I, you got a phone call, right? That was probably the most exciting thing of the day, right? Was to get a phone call. And back in those days, it didn't get a phone call every day. It was maybe every other day or maybe once a week. But the school definitely tried to limit the amount of kind of interaction you had with your parents if...

you weren't having a good day because no parent wants to hear their child like crying down the phone about how miserable they are at boarding school, right? That's the quickest way to go, right? Get them out. And also kids had bad, good and bad days, right? Some days those kids were the happiest kids and then other days they miss their parents. So I would say you had to be very, you had to manage that. And now I see it from a different lens because I'm older and I've obviously I can see it.

from a reputation perspective, the school wants to make sure that kids are happy. I ⁓ think ⁓ a lot of kids got surprise visits. And at one time my dad came and did a surprise visit, which was lovely. so, again, and I used to go out to North Africa to visit my family, my parents, my sister would come with me and we would go probably three or four times a year. So, and by the way, private schools in the UK, you have one month at

Christmas, one month at Easter, and you have two months during the summer off. So yeah, so this was some extended vacations that we had too. it wasn't, there was a lot of time that we did spend with our parents when we were there.

Jonathan Thomas (45:20)
Wow.

What were your favorite or least favorite subjects?

Naomi Kent - The Boardroom Co (45:34)
I would probably say it was the sciences. we had Latin. We had Latin class. So my logic, and because I had just started ⁓ going to visit Tunisia, I started learning French. And I really liked learning French because I could see the value in it. There were kids and we would speak together and I could communicate with people and I could be sociable and that's what I enjoyed. But then when I sat in the Latin lesson,

And I kept asking, who speaks Latin in the world? And they're like, well, no one. So what are we doing here? I don't really understand. But obviously years later, again, hindsight, years later, you realize that it's actually very valuable and it's the base of all languages. And actually it's very good to learn. But was it practical? And did it help me visit different countries or get better at my academic career or in my career after that?

Probably not. But yeah, there was, had Latin and then we played lacrosse, which is probably unusual for Americans to hear because it was was a predominantly a female sport. did not wear a helmet. So we often got hit in the face with the ball. So we had black eyes and all kinds of things. And if I remember rightly, but in both schools, I played lacrosse and I was one of the attacking kind of on the attacking side.

Jonathan Thomas (46:45)
now.

Naomi Kent - The Boardroom Co (46:57)
But our teams were terrible. So I spent a lot of time just standing there waiting for something to happen that never did. So we were not the best. But I did a lot of swimming. did a lot of running. I did a lot of other things as well.

Jonathan Thomas (47:11)
So now that you're living in America, do you find yourself having to explain the boarding school experience to Americans and how do you do that?

Naomi Kent - The Boardroom Co (47:19)
I'll be honest, Jonathan, this is probably the most amount of explaining I've ever done since I left when I was 18. I really, you know, it's funny. I think if you have not experienced it, it's not particularly interesting or it's difficult to relate. Right. And, you know, I even actually my friend Sam, she has three kids. And when one of them was 11 or 10, actually, she went to boarding school when she was 10.

Jonathan Thomas (47:22)
Ha ha.

Wow.

Naomi Kent - The Boardroom Co (47:47)
One of them was 10. said, Sam, you remember you were 10 when you went to boarding school and she just looked at her son and she was like, there's no way I could send him to boarding school. Like it just seemed so foreign to her even though she had been through boarding school. But you know, I think for a lot of people and even she'd been through it, but for a lot of people, it just seems very strange. And when they look at their young children, they think, my gosh, I wouldn't want to send them away for any period of time. want to spend time with them. But.

saying that, and my parents didn't either, by the way, they didn't do it for any other reason, other than it was just a phenomenal career opportunity for him and it paid off in the long term. But actually we really enjoyed it. I had a great time. I actually think it was better for me to be in that environment as I was growing up than to have been in a day school with boys within a co-ed school.

So personally, it worked out for me. So I think it's very difficult for people who haven't been there to really understand what it's like. And as you said, people have these kind of, know, visions of Annie, right, and orphan, right, in a sort of boarding school. And don't get me wrong, I'm sure in the years and past, they were probably more aligned with that. But today, boarding schools, and I know because I keep in touch with the Queen Anne School, but...

You know, it's a very modern, ⁓ very, it's a great education. It's a very modern experience. And it's a very safe place for kids to grow up and to learn and to be educated. And they're around amazing people, right? You're around other ⁓ high achieving, highly educated people. And you get to really get, you get to know them on a very sort of personal level. So, you you really do build great relationships. So I think for...

relationships, environment, education. I think all of these things are really good, but yes, if you've not been through it, it can be a difficult one to explain.

Jonathan Thomas (49:47)
So after all that, what happened after boarding school? How did you end up in Chicago?

Naomi Kent - The Boardroom Co (49:54)
Yeah, so after boarding school, I actually took a year and sort of went abroad. It's called a gap year. I'm sure you've heard of that. And I went to France for six months and I went to Spain for six months and I applied for colleges while I was there. And then I came back to London. Well, I came back to the UK and I really wanted to be in London. That was sort of like a big city that I thought would be vibrant and exciting and it would be somewhere I wanted to go.

And so I applied for some colleges in London and I got into London South Bank University, which by the way, got effectively got me to the United States. So I'll talk about that in a minute. But so I studied there for four years. was a, it was a three year course. But the third, well, so was two years of study, one year of work experience. So you actually went to do internships and I went to France and Spain because I was doing French, Spanish and international business.

Then the fourth year you came back and you did a final year of study. So was three years of study, but one year of internship. And that actually turned out to be such a a huge advantage for me because I now had work experience when I went out to get a job and it was a huge leg up. again, for people who are, and also I've lived abroad for a year, so I'd done some work experience as well. for me getting that internship and that work experience really helped me get my first job, which...

I got through another student who was at the university. They introduced me to the company that I ended up working for for 12 years called Bordex and they expanded into the United States and that's why I landed in New York actually. So I ended up in New York for 13 years and then I moved to Chicago with another company that I started working with. I sort of moved around based on a lot of career moves.

Jonathan Thomas (51:48)
Well, as you know, Chicago was the best city in the world. ⁓ After London, of course.

Naomi Kent - The Boardroom Co (51:51)
It is, it really is. Now it is.

Well, can't show that. I know you prefer London over all of those cities, no, and I got my citizenship in 2016, so next year I'll be 10 years old ⁓ as an American. ⁓ So yeah, so I knew I wanted to stay here and actually...

The minute I touched ground in New York, I knew I wanted to be and live in the United States. So it was definitely, it was like the reverse. You've gone to the UK and you've fallen in love with the UK. I came to the USA and I fell in love with the USA.

Jonathan Thomas (52:21)
Yeah.

Chicago's happy to have you. So, well, what a fascinating discussion this was. Thank you for joining us on the Angle Topia podcast, Naomi. We will link to Naomi's website in the show notes. And if you want to connect with other British expats in Chicago, please check out the BABC. The links will be in the show notes. And if you come to BABC events, you'll probably see me because I will be at them as well. So if you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, like, or comment on the Angle Topia podcast. If you enjoyed the podcast,

Naomi Kent - The Boardroom Co (52:29)
Thank you.

Jonathan Thomas (52:57)
Please consider joining the Friends of Angotopia membership club where you get early access to new episodes and you support great long form writing about British culture, history and travel. So join us next time as we continue exploring the people, places and stories that make Britain's cultural heritage so endlessly fascinating to discover. So thank you, Naomi.

Naomi Kent - The Boardroom Co (53:16)
Thanks Jonathan, it's been a pleasure. Thank you.