Head Girl Jo Bettany returns to the Chalet School for the summer term, her last one, only to find she is based at a newly built annexe called St Clare's. It will prove a momentous term for her, involving victimisation but also strengthened friendships, near death and hilarious goings-on, midnight escapades and chance encounters.

Boarding schools have long been a staple of children's fiction, from Tom Brown's Schooldays to the Harry Potter books, and enthralled authors such as Charlotte Brontë, Charles Dickens and Enid Blyton, to name writers from just the British canon. Elinor Brent-Dyer's girls school was different: set up first in the Austrian Tyrol in the 1930s, it moved first to Guernsey and then to Herefordshire to escape the Nazis, next to Wales and then finally Switzerland in the 1950s.

Jo, the main focus of this particular title, happens to be the sister of the founder of this multinational establishment, but she will still have had to earn her place as Head Girl; no doubt this has been recounted in previous volumes, this being number 12 of some sixty volumes and published in 1935, three years before Hitler's Anschluss of Austria in 1938. There is, however, no hint of such clouds on the horizon in these pages.

As a newcomer to the series, I was initially a tad confused in trying to immerse myself into this rarified world. First was the profusion of names, at least eighty (I wrote them all down), a large number of which get mentioned in the first three or four chapters. Teachers, matrons, parents, family members, Middle School girls, Senior Girls, prefects and sub-prefects, even the odd local -- they all are there, with no real clue as to whether they will even make an appearance or take a significant part in the proceedings. But it was fun trying to picture them and work out their relationships.

Secondly, it wasn't easy at first to orientate oneself as, apart from Innsbruck, pretty much all the locations -- Tiernsee, Briesau and so on -- are fictional. A little research however reveals that Tiernsee is based on Achensee and Briesau on Pertisau near Jenbach in the Tyrol. Of course it's not essential to the enjoyment of the story to know these things but as the action does occasionally stray further afield it helps in establishing mental scenarios.

Jo is part of a quartet of friends who go back years: as Marie von Eschenau looks around at the others at the very end of the book she sees
Jo, tall and dark, and with that something about her that told of a great gift; Simone [Lecoutier], little, and dark, and keen; Frieda [Mensch], pretty as a picture in her white frock, with the coronal of plaits swung round her head. "Oh," she said, her voice quivering with the intensity of her feelings, "we have had beautiful schooldays here, we four. And we have had a beautiful friendship. Let us try to keep it always like his, even though other things come to us!"

There's then a valedictory note to this instalment in the series when the four aver that "Whatever comes to us, nothing can alter our friendship," and that all their schooldays have been happy, with the girls being so much closer during the last term. But all this is but a rounding off, a confirmation of school supposedly being the best days of your life, after all the enmities, escapades and encounters that we've learnt about and that are to be expected in school stories.

What I found attractive was the sense of an international community, with boarders hailing from all over Europe (not just western Europe but also Hungary, for example) and North America. The Chalet School is also an ideal society: close but not closed off from the world, hierarchical yet governed by consent and common sense, liberal but never lax, and intent on preserving a balance between rights and responsibilities. And though many of the girls see their future roles solely as wives and mothers (maybe after a stint as teachers) these are young women brought up to think, to enquire, to innovate and to be good citizens.

Even after its slow start it's testimony to how much I enjoyed this tale that I'd certainly contemplate reading at least another title in the series; and maybe even one or two more! I can see the attraction: there is a good-humoured quality to both students and teachers that not only makes the reader feel good but also suggests these are nice girls whom you'd be pleased to meet. As a retired teacher I'd have been delighted to have more of these types of students in my classes. ( )

Eleventh in the lengthy Chalet School series. It features Jo Bettany's last term at the Chalet School, where she is Head Girl. She and her four closest friends are shocked to find themselves moving to a new chalet as the most senior prefects.

A new matron works there, who does not understand how the school works, and clashes with Jo. This is one of the better Chalet School books, with interesting sub-plots, and some good characterisation. I had previously read it in the abridged Armada edition, but on the most recent readthrough, in hardback. There's more detail, more conversation and characterisation, but the entire story is there in the Armada, which has just 'minor frequent' cuts rather than anything major.

Recommended, but it's best to have read some of the earlier Chalet School books before embarking on this one.

Latest full review here: https://suesbookreviews.blogspot.com/2021/03/new-house-at-chalet-school-by-elino... ( )

I had forgotten how good this book is. The increasing maturity of the characters, and also of Brent-Dyer's writing, is evident. It is the last term at the Chalet School for Jo and her friends, and they are growing up. The girls are looking towards their futures, which are mostly limited to teaching, music, marriage and babies. Jo in particular is concerned about her lack of meaningful occupation once school is finished. A new character is introduced, who is recovering from the consequences of a bad marriage and the deaths of three of her children. It should be noted that these more mature themes are toned down in the abridgement. The only notable weakness in this book is the recycling of the nasty matron plot.