The Australian film Flirting with Thandie Newton.
All written for kids and set in English Boarding schools.
The Jennings and Darbishire series by Anthony Buckridge.
The Billy Bunter series by Richmal Compton ?
The Worst Witch by Jill Murphy.
How about Goodbye, Mr Chips, for the teacher’s POV?
Nice one.
There’s a YA series by Gordon Korman known as the “Bruno and Boots” or “MacDonald Hall” books that is set at a Canadian boarding school for boys. There’s a girls’ school nearby, and students and faculty from there also feature in the stories. The books were written between the late '70s and early '90s and had a then-contemporary setting. They are pretty light, humorous books and probably not very realistic, but I enjoyed them when I was a kid. Korman was actually a kid himself when he started writing the series; the first four books were published while he was still in his teens.
The Liar, by the multitalented Stephen Fry, is a very different, darker and more adult sort of humorous novel that is partially set at a boarding school. The book was published in the early '90s but the boarding school section is set earlier, in the 1970s.
IIRC the YA fantasy novel Ella Enchanted is partially set at a girls’ boarding school. The book is set in a fairy tale world, so it’s not really historic or contemporary. There’s another YA fantasy novel that I’ve never read called The Princess Academy, by Shannon Hale, that also deals with a girls’ school.
Since you mentioned The Facts of Life, I take it that TV shows are fair game. Sister Kate was set in an orphanage, but I wouldn’t recommend it. Here’s a video.
I highly recommend Skippy Dies by Paul Murray. It is a novel set in a modern Irish boarding school. (And I do mean modern. Cell phones are ubiquitous and often important in the plot.)
It struck me as very realistic and funny. It does have some problems but I really liked it.
So Much To Tell You … and Take My Word For It by John Marsden are diary style novels set at an Australian boarding school in the late '80s. They’re pretty good, and quick reads.
Another vote for Tom Brown’s School Days, I loved that book.
The Lion’s Paw by Robb White starts out in an orphanage, but I’m not sure if this is enough for the OP. This book is mostly about three kids on a boat, trying to avoid the notice of authorities while they search for a seashell. There’s more to it than that, but my memories are faded, other than the memory of how much I enjoyed that book as a child.
I’m cheating here because this book is only in an orphanage for a while but it is the best chess novel ever written. The Queen’s Gambit by Walter Tevis, author of The Hustler,The Man Who Fell to Earth, Mockingbird, and The Color of Money.
In putting this post together I have discovered, much to my surprise, that his wikipedia entry is a pathetic attempt to provide information about a great American author. He wrote 6 novels and 3 became movies.
I hope to rectify this.
School Ties?
Possibly To Serve Them All My Days by R.F. Delderfield. After being injured in the trenches of WWI, a young Welshman takes a job teaching at a minor English boarding school and has trouble fitting in…
It was also a tv series in the early 1980s.
Set in the real-life boarding school of Lawrenceville School, near Princeton, the Lawrenceville Stories are a well-written look at boarding school life in the late 19th century.
StG
Hitting the “modern” theme harder than the “realistic” bit–The Gallagher Girls by Ally Carter. The first book is “I’d tell you I love you, but then I’d have to Kill You”
It’s about a boarding school supposedly for girl geniuses, but really for girl spies. The girls are all geniuses, of course, how else could they understand the number of languages they need to, and the science to make miniature devices, and change fingerprints or whatever.
The plot is a little on the flimsey side, but I love some of the details like the “prom” where they all practice appearing undercover as diplomats and the like. And the lunches where they are supposed to be practicing language skills, so the seventh graders are cheerfully Bonjouring each other, while the sophomores are carrying on normal conversation which just happens to be in French.
Joanne Harris’ Gentlemen and Players is stunning.
Musil, Young Toerless (With umlaut over the “o”). I come back to Musil often, but only read this once – it’s kind of a harrowing little tale, all about imaginary numbers and “confusions” [Verwirrungen] of this kid. Classic – kind of too bad Musil hasn’t taken his rightful place next to Proust, James, and Conrad as one of the handful of outstanding fiction writers of the modern era.
Pretty good movie by Schloendorff – can’t remember how to spell his name, but pretty famous director, a German I believe, not Austrian like Musil, but nobody’s perfect – by the same name as well.
Au Revoir Les Enfants was the first movie that came to my mind, although it’s set during World War II so it might not be what you’re looking for. It’s quite a fantastic film and based on the director’s own childhood experiences.
YES! This is a great, classic, incredible movie, with one of the best young casts I’ve ever seen. Brendan Frasier, Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Anthony Rapp, Chris O’Donnell, Randall Batinkoff and Cole Hauser all have major roles. And the incomparably menacing Zeljko Ivanek (who played Governor Devlin on Oz and a host of other evildoers) also makes an appearance. Ed Lauter plays Frasier’s dad. Really fantastic cast.
Deals with the issue of upper-class American anti-Semitism in the mid 20th century, a topic rarely touched on in movies, despite the number of Jewish screenwriters. Paradoxically, the Jewish David Green is played by gentile Brendan Frasier, while no less than three of his WASP tormentors are played by Jews (Batinkoff, Rapp, Hauser.) It’s also unusual and interesting to see Matt Damon in a very rare bad-guy role.
I can’t recommend this film highly enough - I’ve seen it a billion times.
Roald Dahl’s Boy: Tales of a Childhood has a large boarding school part. Plus, what a childhood he had!