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UK guardians
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The role of guardianship services for children studying in UK high schools is very similar to that of an in-country agency office, bridging the gap between home and host country. Bethan Norris reports.
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The role of a company offering guardianship services is an essential one for high school students and schools and covers all aspects of a student’s long-term stay in the country. Alison Warne from Guardians UK in Somerset says that they offer a full guardianship service to students, which includes, “transport to and from the airport, host family stays for exeats [leaves of absence] and half-terms, visiting either side of half-term [and] attending parents’ evenings and events.”
For international students under the age of 18 studying in a high school in the UK, enrolling with a guardianship service is a legal requirement for acquiring a visa. The UK Border Agency states that for all child visa applicants, “all children studying in the UK must have suitable care arrangements in place for their travel, reception at port and living arrangements while here”.
Guardians, therefore, take on the role of de facto parents to their students and, according to Catherine Stoker, Managing Director of Gabbitas Educational Consultants in London, this responsibility provides an emotional support for students as well as a practical one. The company has offices in Tokyo, Shanghai and Seoul and has a guardianship team of 10 people. “Our guardianship includes careful selection of a UK family to act as guardian to each child, as well as giving educational support throughout the child’s stay in the UK,” she says. “The child very much becomes part of the family, some calling their English guardian their ‘English Mum and Dad’. We have no more than two children staying with one family, usually only one.” Lana Foster, Managing Director of Brightworld Guardianships – a boarding school and university placement service – in Hurstpierpoint, agrees and notes that a student’s safety and happiness should never be compromised. “What is the point of investing all that money in an overseas education at a boarding school and then leaving them to their own devices to and from airports, during exeat weekends and half-terms?”
Being on call for students away from home for long periods of time, 24 hours a day, means that guardians tend to be people who have experience of the travel abroad industry and knowledge of what is needed to help a child settle in. Stoker says that she worked as a housemistress at an independent school for 13 years before joining Gabbitas, while husband-and-wife team Duncan and Jane Hume from White House Guardianships in Bournemouth say that they set up their business after working with large numbers of EFL students travelling to the UK every summer. “We became disenchanted with the faceless aspect of group travel, the only students we remembered were the awful ones!” says Duncan Hume. “Also, the ruthless policy of cost-cutting and protection of profit became the driving factor of all company decisions, often to the detriment of student welfare. Now we can do what we feel is morally correct, even at substantial cost to us.”
Despite the importance of the service provided by guardianship companies, the sector is as yet unregulated in the UK, although the accreditation scheme offered by the Association for the Education and Guardianship of International Students (AEGIS) offers a way for companies to prove their standards. The association currently has 18 accredited guardianship companies as members and offers an inspection service to provide assurances for agents and parents. Pippa Hughes from Pippa’s Guardians in Malvern says that the accreditation system is extremely thorough. “It makes sure that all staff and host families have been police checked and thoroughly vetted and inspected and all safe, proper procedures are in place,” she says. “I think accreditation is absolutely vital in a field where anyone can set themselves up as a guardian to vulnerable children. Many schools will now only recommend AEGIS-accredited guardians.”
While some guardianship companies have offices throughout the country, many set their own limits as to how many students they act as guardians for to ensure the best personal service. Hume says, “We offer a nationwide service providing the essential local presence through a network of local coordinators, each within 40 minutes of any school in which we have students under our care. Every local coordinator has a bank of host families who accommodate day pupils full-time and boarding pupils for exeat weekends and half-term holidays. Local coordinators supervise varying numbers, according to the density of their area but as numbers increase, they employ their own staff to assist or we split the area.”
Richard Youdale, from Alpha Plus Guardian Services in Oxford, says that he and his wife, with a number of senior colleagues, are the appointed guardians for students in London, Cambridge, Bristol and Stratford-upon-Avon, and the largest number of students in the direct care of a guardian is 29. “Any more than this would be impractical,” he says. “Because it is axiomatic with us that we all maintain very close and regular personal contact with each of our students. It is this hands-on approach that our clients value and the reason why many of them choose our service.”
Ways of finding new international students may differ depending on the individual guardianship business. Hughes says that she relies solely on word-of-mouth and being listed on the AEGIS website. “I do not work with agents and I do not advertise,” she says. Youdale agrees that the personal approach works well for them. “We do work with some overseas agents though we prefer to deal with our clients direct,” he says. “We do not advertise our services either to clients or to agents except that we occasionally visit them abroad and leave copies of our brochure if they do not have them. By far the most effective form of promotion is via word-of-mouth of satisfied clients and through schools who have been happy with our work with their pupils.”
However, for other guardianship companies, agents can provide a valuable service. “We only [work with] students through agents,” says Hume. “We will not accept bookings direct from parents as, sadly, long-term education abroad can be a dumping ground for problem children and we rely on professional agents to block ruthless parents hoping for this solution. We take guardianship clients if they have been accepted or are already placed in a school.”
Meanwhile, Foster relates that 50 per cent of their guardianship business and 80 per cent of their placements are sourced via overseas agents. “We attend agent/school workshops such as Alphe to find new agents and the rest of our agent contacts come from our website, word-of-mouth and reccommendation from schools,” she says.
For some companies, guardianship is just one part of their business. “We offer a whole range of services across the company,” says Stoker, “From advice on independent school choices to UK and overseas parents, higher education applications and career choices and teacher recruitment services. Guardianship is an important part of our all-round support of parents who are interested in the UK independent school sector. We are a one-stop-shop.”
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