Approved School

Approved School is a term formerly used in the United Kingdom for a residential institution to which young people could be sent by a court, usually for committing offences but sometimes because they were deemed to be beyond parental control. It is similar to a reform school in the United States. They were modelled on ordinary boarding schools, from which it was relatively easy to abscond. This set them apart from borstals, a tougher and more enclosed kind of youth prison.

The term came into use in 1933 when Approved Schools were created out of the earlier "industrial" or "reformatory" schools. Following the Children and Young Persons Act 1969, they were replaced by Community Homes, with responsibility devolved to local councils; in Singapore, which by then was not longer under British rule, Approved Schools continued.