Our Year 9 boarding students recently wrote what a typical day is like for them boarding at Taranaki Dio.
Here’s Eva’s typical day.
(Note: Details such as room configurations and bedtimes vary across age groups.)
6:45am: Wake up. Your friend might jump on your bed and don’t worry if you sleep in as the matron will pop round to wake up any sleepy people—pretty much like home.
Shower/Change: We go to breakfast in our uniforms, so those of us who have trouble waking up jump in the shower and get ready for the day. Sometimes the senior leaders are at breakfast when we arrive, they meet early in the morning. Breakfast is porridge in the winter and the normal breakfast stuff you have at home: fruit, toast, yoghurt—fuelling you up for the day.
8:00am: Breakfast finishes. Back to our rooms, we look for Henry the vacuum cleaner to make our rooms tidy, then clean our teeth, final check of our bags and off to school for the day.
8:20am: We leave for school.
8:45am: The school day commences and we have classes in so many different subjects it is fantastic. We really do have a lot of fun and, whilst the work is quite tough our teachers, all help us along the way.
10:45am: Interval. We come back to the dining room to collect our morning tea: fruit and homemade goodies. It’s chillax time.
1:05pm: Lunch. Lunch is served in the dining room and the day girls join us too. Sometimes the teachers come over as well so we can chat with them. Lunch is prepared by our onsite Chef and Cooks. It is really healthy and we have a treat food each day.
3:15pm: The school day ends and afternoon tea is served in the dining room. It’s always yummy and is a time to sit and relax with friends from lots of different year groups and the boarding staff. Often, we then have sports training or music practise to rush off to or we have leisure time. We have town leave on Tuesday to purchase any extras. On Mondays and Thursdays, we do our washing and check to see if we’ve got a Tidy Room Award.
5:30pm – 6:00pm: Dinner is served. There is hot food, as well as a salad every day.
6:10pm: TV time. Watching the news.
6:30pm – 8:00pm: Prep begins. This is supervised in the dining room for us and we have staff that come in at night to work alongside us to help us with our work. We are all learning a lot and now finding our feet with what is expected of us.
8:30pm – 9:00pm: Supper. If you want a Milo you can pop down to the matron’s office for a goodnight chat and perhaps a piece of tuck.
9:00pm: Bedtime. We are checked at this time and need to be ready for bed at 9. Often we will then read or chat with our roommate for a little while about our days.
9:30pm: Lights out. Exhausted, we jump into bed and soon fall asleep—ready to do it all again tomorrow!
