The students of Hailsham boarding school are well tended and supported, and become just the sort of people the world wants them to be. But, curiously, they are taught nothing of the outside world and are allowed little contact with it. Within the grounds of Hailsham, Kathy grows from schoolgirl to young woman, but it?s only when she and her friends Ruth and Tommy leave the safe grounds of the school that they realize the full truth of what Hailsham is.