Guardianship

Most British boarding schools often require a guardian for international students. The student's application must include the name of the guardian, who must be a UK resident.

«Guardian» – not a very good translation. This person – not a nanny or a concierge.

This is a consultant that is neededfirst of all by parents. Yes, yes, to the parents, not the child! And, if you have chosen a professional guardian, you can sleep well: after all, you have set out into the unknown ocean of British education with an experienced pilot.

Which will help see the iceberg in time and will not allow your expensive Titanic to sink. But this is exactly what often happens: huge amounts of money have been paid, butsomething goes wrong. And what exactly? Parents do not understand, often relying only on the words of a child whose grades, behavior, or psychological state suffer.

90 percent of the time, this is due to the fact that people do not have reliable support to which they need to run for help or advice in any unclear situation. A great many of these will happen during your studies. After all,staying at a boarding school – this is life itselfand also (in most cases) the difficulties of adolescence. Go and destroy it all! Especially if the family is in another country.

In fact, a guardian (or rather, a consultant) is needed not only for those whose children study away from them, but and for parents living in the UK. Especially for those who have been here for only a few years.

As practice shows, they do not understand the system very well, they do not know exactly what the school offers and how to help the child take advantage of its opportunities. They do not always know how to establish communication with the school and give the child the right advice.

Parents do not know how to properly read school reports (they seem to be often laudatory, which is not always true). Reports cannot be taken literally, and this is exactly what, unfortunately, is done by the vast majority of parents who teach their children in English and do not have a competent consultant nearby (guardian).

How to read school reports

Therefore, we recommend purchasing the services of such a guardian-consultant not only to parents of children in British schools, but also to everyone teaching children in international schools, from Dubai to Turkey, from Switzerland to Georgia. Yes, and day schools (when the child spends the night at home) too!

As we have already written, the guardian mainly takes care of the parent: explains to him how to react to assessments, how to behave in the event of a disciplinary sanction for the child, what he can ask from the school and how exactly to do this, and what not to ask for. When is it better to just suck it up (and why). And what the consequences are if you don’t come to terms with it.

The guardian solves a lot of situations by explaining to the parents what happenedif the child suddenly got bored, or complains that he “has no one to communicate with”, that his “ they don’t feed well”, that school is “uncomfortable”, there is “weak football”, or “weak mathematics” or “in general the school is weak.” (These are just a few of the possible complaints).

The guardian, in the event of negative information from the child, quickly helps to resolve the misunderstanding, providing evidence of how things really are. And if a child is really offended, he does not hesitate to protect his interests and knows how to properly put pressure on the school.

The guardian seems to be unwinding the knot that has formed on the smooth thread of your child’s educational trajectory. Without it, such nodules would accumulate exponentially.

And would lead to despondency of the family and/or disappointment in the child/school/education system as a whole.

The guardian, being an experienced specialist, explains to parents why the child has a particular mood/reaction, and quickly receives feedback from the school so that parents have objective information. The guardian tells parents why the school behaves in one way or another, why it has certain routinesand traditions that seem not entirely adequate to parents from other countries.

He also, if necessary, organizes an online meeting with the right person at school, and translates,if you need a translation.

Unfortunately, many parents do not communicate with the school, do not find out what the tutor or housepert thinks, and prefer to perceive only subjective information received from the child. Which often leads to gradual maturation of the problem.

Whereas a set of measures is needed to resolve it at the stage of its occurrence. This is what a real professional guardian does.

Therefore, we recommend taking a guardian even for parents of those children who enroll in schools that do not require a guardian (these are Form 6 colleges for high school students and several full-cycle schools). Do you remember:guardian – this is the support of the parent.

One of the guardian's responsibilities is to attend parent-teacher conferences at school if parents were unable to attend and provide a report to parents. This is not just a translation into your native language, but the real state of affairs. For the reports of British schools, like communication in society as a whole, are based on hints that are not very clear to our citizens. The guardian provides parents with informationadapted to our mentality.

If, of course, this is a person who speaks Russian or Ukrainian. In our opinion, taking a British guardian – hugemistake. He is not customer-oriented in the way we are accustomed to, he does not understand our cultural characteristics, and what is important to us.

Briton will not give you his phone number, but only his email address, and will respond to your email within 24 hours at best, and not immediately as you would like.

Whereas as a professional guardian from the CIS countries:

• always keeps the phone on, even at nightand constantly checks it in case of calls from school or questions from a client
• replies to you evenings and weekends (British will not),
• does not leave the countrywhile the school year is in progress
• ready to go to school immediatelyif such a request is received from the educational institution in case of emergency.

Some clients seek to take on a friend as their guardian. Will your friend or acquaintance do all of the above?

It is unlikely that a friend who goes to work will be able to keep the phone on all the time, much less check it constantly. Especially on weekends, when you want to relax.

Will he fit his trips around your child's vacation schedule? Will he drop everything when he just came to a restaurant/theater/football match/to the doctor, and your son or daughter’s school calls asking him to come immediately? Doubtful.

And the academic year – long, and there will be many different unforeseen situations. Not every friendship can withstand such bondage.

And, let's not forget, most of the emigrants from our countries, even if their children studied in private schools, have only their own subjective experience. With all due respect, they are unlikely to be able to give you the really correct advice on what to do in your difficult situation. Stay in the hospital – does not mean becoming a doctor.

After all, during the education of their children, nothing like this could have happened. Perhaps their child was in day school, and yours – in a boarding house (completely different things), or yours – in the famous selective, and their – in the usual non-selective, or vice versa. Their children may be diligent excellent students, and yours – with laziness, or vice versa. You have different children and different experiences.

You need an objective professional who has seen a lot, who is always on guard – after all, guardianship – his only profession.
Unless, of course, you want to be sure that you have done absolutely everything for your child’s success at boarding school.

The school also needs a guardian to pick up the child in case of emergencies: for example, the child has grossly violated discipline and is expelled from school for several days. In this case, the guardian comes to pick him up and places him in a host family with whom this guardian works and which is verified by the police and the guardian personally. Here the child will live all days of the exclusion period.

It happens that the school closes for the holidays, and the child can fly home only the next day after closing. In this case, the guardian will also organize his accommodation and transfer to the airport.

The same applies to cases if a child falls ill with an infectious diseaseillness, or if some kind of accident occurs at the school itself, and all students must leave it. When the Covid-19-related quarantine was announced in Britain, guardians helped children with air tickets and provided accommodation while waiting for these flights, took them to the airport and even bought special clothing.

During the school year in the UK there are 6 holidays, including short ones (8-10 days) in October, February and May. And also excitates – these are weekends that occur twice in 1 semester when all students must leave school.

During this time, the foreign student must be somewhere, and the guardian places his wards in specially selected and checked by the police, as well as for hygiene reasons. Guardians also oftenplace children with them

Guardians offer packages with a different set of services, and the cost depends on their list. We offer time-tested guardians who truly love children, are caring and caring. And also capable of defending the interests of the child. Reviews about them are attached below. You can talktowith them via video communication, as well as with other clients who use their services. Everything is transparent with us andthere is something to be proud of!

Guardian – it's not just anyone with a British passport. This is someone who knows the independent (private) school secondary education system inside and out and understands how to use it.

Who is able to support both the child and the parent in a difficult situation, and give practical advice. And also become a mediator between school and family.