boarding school guardianship - frequently asked questions

An adult or company in the UK who is appointed by a parent to be their representative while their child studies here. 

No, there is no UK law that relates to international students at UK boarding schools. However, Child Student Visa forms and ask parents to provide details of their educational guardian and most UK Boarding Schools insist upon it in order to uphold their National Minimum Standards for Boarding (NMS).

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.

No. A legal guardian is appointed by a court of law when a child does not have a parent. An educational or "education guardian" is an adult or company in the UK who is appointed by a parent to be their representative while their child studies here.

An important part of our job is to find a host family for your child during holiday times when they have to leave school. Our host families are all very carefully chosen, regularly visited and police checked. Once we have selected a family to match your child's needs, we will send a full colour profile of the family to you. 

You can help us to choose. When you send us your details we will give you a link to our Host Family Selection Tool where you can browse a database of our host families near to your school.  

Yes, we actively encourage overseas parents to meet the host family before their child stays there. This does, however take quite a lot of planning and work on behalf of the Bright World Guardianship Care Manager, so to avoid disappointment please give us at least two weeks’ notice.

Our policy is to aim for no further than 30 minutes' drive or 30 miles. We do not always achieve this but if we struggle, we will speak to our customers first. 

They will collect them and drop them back to school.

This is the ideal and usual scenario, but sometimes students request to be moved. Sometimes Host Families can let us down and become unavailable to host. In this case, we will find the child a new host family. 

Yes, our Admissions Manager, Cory Holden, can help you find a residential course during half terms, Easter and during the Summer. We do expect all students to return home or be cared for by relatives during the Christmas break.

As your guardianship company, we will make sure that your child gets picked up safely by one of our drivers on arrival in the UK. Driving a taxi in the UK does require a proper licence and Criminal Record Checks but we feel this requires careful checking by us to ensure safety. We check our drivers licences for you and make sure they have an ENHANCED Criminal Record (DBS) Check. If you choose a Bright World driver, you will be sent a full colour profile 48-72 hours after you have requested the journey which includes their photograph and phone number. Some parents prefer to use the schools transport and students can travel by train if they are aged 16 years or over.

Your own Guardianship Care Manager available to you at Head Office Two visits per year from your Bright World Buddy followed by a full academic and welfare report (mileage is payable at 55p per mile on all visits) Safe transfer of student to and from airport with a Bright World driver. You will receive a full-colour profile of your driver 48-72 hours after you have requested the journey.  Safe arrival notification and arrival report to parents including initial academic and welfare information 24 hour emergency telephone assistance Assistance with travel and accommodation arrangements for visiting parents Ongoing day to day liaison between the school, the student and the parents The provision of an excellent, hand-picked, host family fully checked out by the discerning Bright World Team. Privileged access to BLINK, our online Parent Platform - see reports, manage your account, submit flight details. View host family & driver profiles. Managing pocket money, opening a bank account and helping to source school uniform Medical appointment support Assistance with application to school or college and the care and support of our Head Office team

Yes, we offer Essential Guardianship and Full Guardianship

Arrangement of parent and host family meetings Our Airport Service – we can arrange for your child to be collected from the aircraft and escorted through customs upon arrival, or escorted to the aircraft on return. Arrangement of holiday and revision courses in the UK during holidays Chinese Counselling and Chinese translation services Attendance at parents’ evenings and school events when not included in your 2 visits per year

Termly service fees for full guardianship are £795 per term including VAT. This includes all of our services and at least two visits to see your child at school during the academic year. We usually ask for an expenses fund of £500 per term to cover homestay and travel which is fully refundable if not spent. 

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 the 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.

Unlike many other guardianship organisations, we are fully accredited by AEGIS (Association for the Education and Guardianship of International Students) to Gold standard. This means our practices 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 re-inspects Guardianship Organisations every four years with our last re-inspection held in 2021. We are very proud of the results where we acheived 100% in all areas of the re-accreditation.