Before the hostel, a student from the eastern islands who wanted grades eleven and twelve either travelled two hours each way on a boat that did not always run, or lodged with a relative, or did not go.
The hostel was built as two blocks with sixty four beds, a kitchen, a dining room, washrooms and a warden's flat, and it opened at the start of a school year with thirty eight students.
The first fortnight went badly and it is worth writing down. Two of the youngest students, both thirteen, stopped eating and told nobody. One went home after nine days and did not come back that year. The roll was taken twice a day and both of them were present at every count.
What was changed, and all of it came from that fortnight. Roll went to four times a day, including at six in the evening, which is when homesickness actually shows. The kitchen staff were asked to report any student who was not eating, to the warden, by name, which felt intrusive and is the single most useful rule in the building. Two assistant wardens were appointed so that somebody is awake and available at every hour. Every new boarder is now paired with a student from their own island in the grade above. And families are asked to visit once a term, and about three quarters of them manage it.
Sixty four students board now and the school has lost one student to homesickness in four years. The other thing the hostel produced was the evening study hall, because sixty four students with nothing to do between six and nine is a problem that had to be solved rather than a problem that solved itself.
