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Bright World offers a high quality guardianship programme at over 400 UK boarding schools, colleges, and universities across the UK in most schools and regions. In each area we have a local coordinator, and an excellent network of established host families and drivers to take care of our students.
Guardianship refers to a person or company in the UK who acts for overseas parents while their child studies in the UK. They’re a responsible adult living in the UK who is available to support the child in emergencies, provide a home for them, and liaise with the school on the behalf of their parents.
School guardians play a crucial role in safeguarding the child’s wellbeing, acting as a point of contact for both the school and the parents, and ensuring the student receives proper care and guidance whilst studying away from home.
To learn more about guardianship or to make a guardianship enquiry, please get in touch with us today for more information.
Most UK schools and boarding schools require all overseas pupils to have a UK guardian who can respond in emergency situations and act on the parents’ behalf. Guardians not only satisfy a boarding school’s requirements, but they also comply with UKVI rules for international students, keeping them safe while they are not in school or otherwise unaccompanied.
When selecting a guardian, parents can either choose a family friend based in the UK or a guardianship organisation such as Bright World to act in loco parentis for their child. Bright World is accredited to Gold standard - the highest possible in the UK.
Bright World UK guardians oversee the wellbeing of students from across the globe, including countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, and the USA. Wherever a student comes from, a Bright World guardian can support them here in the UK.
When applying for a Child Student Visa, there are certain rules that apply. For example, you must specify who will take care of your child during the holidays. This Nominated Guardian can be Bright World Guardianships.
If you choose Bright World Guardianships, you will need to put our details on your Visa Application form, and we will provide you with a Letter of Undertaking, which will be required during the application process. Choosing Bright World guardianships means you can be reassured that your application will pass the scrutiny of the UKVI in the respect of guardianship.
If you wish to nominate a friend of the family to provide accommodation for your child, Bright World can help to ensure that UKVI Rules are met for visa and safeguarding purposes through our Family Friend Verification Service.
If you have nominated Bright World as the umbrella nominated guardian, we can carry out all necessary checks and verifications to enable your child to live with your family friend, so long as sufficient time has been allowed for these checks to be carried out.
There are several key elements that make up our school guardianships. They include:
You will be allocated with a Guardianship Care Manager who is part of our head office team. They are fully trained and qualified to assist you and to liaise with host families and the school on your behalf.
Students on the Bright World Guardianship Programme benefit from the care of our Local Coordinator who lives near to the school. They are known to them as their Bright World Buddy and they visit the school on your behalf and make sure they are settling in. Our local coordinator team can attend school meetings on your behalf if you need them to.
The driver who collects your child from the airport on arrival is probably the first person they will meet from Bright World. It is very important, therefore, that they recognise them and can find them easily. It is also important that the driver arrives on time and is kind and caring.
All our drivers are criminal record-checked and carefully screened by the team here at Bright World. These are reliable and caring people who are fully insured with good quality vehicles. We will send you a full profile of the driver who will meet your child before they travel. This will include their contact details and a photograph.
As guardians, we also step in when there is an emergency situation. This could be a cancelled or delayed flight, a need for emergency accommodation, illness attendance, school meetings. Parents who choose Bright World Guardianships have access to our 24/7 emergency telephone and email service which can prove to be invaluable and offers great peace of mind. Scroll down to find out more about our emergency provisions.
Providing safe and welcoming accommodation for students is of the highest importance to us. All Bright World host families are subject to stringent checks and screening that comply with the AEGIS framework and Bright World's own set of high standards.
Host families complete an extensive application form, interview, and rigorous house inspections including the checking of fire alarms and paperwork for boiler and appliance servicing. We always ensure a high standard of accommodation for our students.
We also provide safe host family accommodation due to cancelled flights, early arrivals, and late departures, as well as for times when students need to leave school for short unplanned periods. We are always here to help.
Help us to choose your host family by using our online host family selection tool, where you can browse our large database of host families close to your child’s school. Once you have found your favourite host families that fit your requirements, we will be able to give you an update on their availability.
Our established network of local coordinators and host families and our emergency helpline manned 24/7 by our Head Office staff team guarantees that we will be there to help in an emergency on your behalf.
Additionally, all of our students have access to our emergency phone 24 hours a day 7 days a week during most of the year. Our phone is only ever switched off when all students have flown home during the holidays. You will always be notified ahead of time when the emergency phone is switched off and on.
Our guardianship students occasionally require emergency chaperoning, either during term time or during the holidays, to A&E or hospital appointments or similar. These visits are often unexpected and urgent and can occur at weekends, during the evenings, or even overnight. For this reason, we have a significant number of registered chaperones on our team so we can always be assured that someone will be available.
Our first port of call is usually the student’s Bright World Buddy whom they will have met before. If that person is not available, or if the situation deems a host family a more appropriate solution, we may call on one of our registered Emergency Chaperones. We have Emergency Chaperones across the UK to serve all of the areas where we have students placed who may need support.
When you enrol on the Bright World Guardianship programme, you will automatically receive your login details to Blink. This bespoke cloud-based parent portal has been designed to match the needs of overseas parents so they can keep a close eye on their child's progress anytime they choose.
Our clients (parents and their agents) benefit from the use of BLINK, our cloud-based parent portal where they can see a live timeline of our reports, visits and parents evenings feedback forms.
Submit flight details, view your host family profile, Taxi Confirmations and driver profiles anytime. View, download and pay invoices and track your live guardianship expenses fund.
This innovation allows parents to:
In 2022, Bright World invested in a training and ongoing awareness programme with KRD Training. The programme is for Bright World staff and selected host families and will be specifically targeted towards the support we can offer to international students in UK boarding schools.
The aim is for our organisation to have a team of trained Mental Health Champions who understand Mental Health and how to care for and speak to students who are struggling whilst under their care. They will also be trained in the Bright World Emergency Safe Plan to ensure they know what to do in an emergency situation.
We understand that different families have different needs and preferences, which is why we cater both to families with accommodation support systems in place and to families who require more comprehensive support.
For the cost per term of our guardianship programmes, and guidance on any additional costs that may apply, please explore Guardianship fees for more information.
We offer an Essential Guardianship programme which is ideal for parents who have a family member or a friend living in the UK who will provide accommodation for holidays, those who want their child to travel home for exeat weekends and half terms, and those who do not need to use our transportation services.
This guardianship option is ideal for parents who require a fully comprehensive care and safeguarding service for their child while they study in the UK. It will include a seamless provision of regular host family accommodation during the holidays and safe and secure airport and UK transportation.
We are delighted to be able to offer a selection of holiday and revision programmes at our partner residential courses for students who would prefer an alternative option to homestay during Easter and summer Holidays.
We have a large network of host families who are able to offer accommodation during the Easter break to those students requesting this option. Schools close during Christmas holidays and Bright World does not offer any host family options during this time, requiring all students to go home or make their own arrangements in the UK.
Bright World is one of the UK's leading Guardianship Organisations and has placed thousands of students into UK boarding schools since its foundation. Bright World operates from its Head Office in Sussex, UK, and has over 30 local coordinators across the UK.
With over 25 years' experience of working with students and host families, we are particularly proud of our ability to match students with host families successfully. We listen to parents when they enrol and throughout their guardianship stay with them and we also listen to students. By gaining information on their likes and dislikes, food preferences, and looking at their age and the profile of the host family, we consistently get it right.
Unlike many other guardianship organisations, we are fully accredited by AEGIS (the Association for the Education and Guardianship of International Students) to Gold standard. This means our practises and processes have been thoroughly inspected and audited by this important organisation and we can therefore guarantee that we will act in your child’s best interest at all times.
We are also the first UK guardianship organisation to hold a recognised partnership with Child Safe. AEGIS reinspects guardianship organisations every four years; in our last reinspection, held in 2021, we are very proud to have achieved 100% in all areas of the reaccreditation.
As of 25th April 2025, we are delighted and very proud to have won the ST Secondary School Award for Guardianship Organisations for the fifth consecutive year, immortalising us as First Class Winners. We see this as a reflection of the trust parents place in us and the journeys we help students navigate every day, and proof of the respect we have earned and the high esteem our work is consistently held in.
To learn more about guardianship or to make a guardianship enquiry, please get in touch with us today for more information
Our UK Guardianship Programme is a service offered to students at UK boarding schools across the UK from as far north as Scotland and as far west as Cornwall and Wales. You can look for your school on our School Search page - see the button at the top of this screen.
