'They get the best of both worlds'

Camilla Wilkinson, 11, will be catching the bus from Wandsworth to her new school next term - all the way to Godalming in Surrey. She will not be alone.

Almost 50 other children will travel on the coach hired by Prior's Field School to collect weekly boarders from London and take them home again at the end of the week.

The service is a response to the growing number of London parents choosing boarding schools such as Prior's Field in preference to competitive London day schools, and a state sector which fills them with horror.

For Camilla's mother, Lucy, who runs the Bob Champion Cancer Trust and who sent her son, Toby, to nearby Charterhouse last year, the choice was simple.

"For both of the children, we simply felt we didn't want them going to school in London," she said. State schools were never considered and London day schools near the Wilkinson's home were rejected as too competitive.

"The top London independent day schools have very good facilities. But the competition for places now is so intense," she said. "London schools concentrate so much on academic studies. We wanted our children to be a lot more rounded."

Safety was also a key consideration. "As children get older, you end up being a taxi service, taking them to clubs here and extra lessons there. With three children, it would simply not be possible to take the children to everything you wanted them to do. You wouldn't want to be the parent who says to your child: 'no, you can't do that', if you couldn't take them. At boarding school, you know there will be no limit to the opportunities open to them and they will all be entirely safe."

Attitudes to boarding have changed radically in recent years. "Among the children in Camilla's class, so many are doing what we are doing, some because they were always in favour of boarding, others because London day schools are so competitive. Years ago, if someone mentioned at a dinner party that they were going to send their child to boarding school, the reaction would be: 'how could you do that'? Now the question is: 'yes, we're doing the same. Where are you sending your's'?

"In the old days, you sent a child away to boarding school and that was the last you saw of them. When they came home, you didn't recognise them.

"But we can be down to Godalming in 40 minutes and the children spend the weekends at home with us. They get the best of both worlds."