UK Guardianship
The ever-increasing number of students enrolling to study in UK schools – both boarding and day – shows the continued popularity and credibility with parents from all over the world of having a UK school education. Students now typically find themselves mixing with groups from all over the world, some of whom have to travel for over 36 hours to get to their boarding house. An increasing number of students now come to the UK for periods ranging from one term to a full course of two years or even longer.
The majority of good boarding schools, and a fair number of day schools offering international students a place, now insist that all their students whose parents are resident abroad have a UK-based educational guardian. Generally this person is expected to be over the age of 25 – though some schools insist on a higher age and be living permanently in the UK.
Why do I need a UK guardian?
Apart from emergencies, a good educational guardian will take an interest in the child’s development and progress, as well as supporting the school in good pastoral care. They provide a home-from-home environment for the student’s exeat and half-term holiday stays – and sometimes over the Christmas and Easter breaks as well if needed. They attend parent/teacher meetings and report back to the parents as well as generally monitoring the academic and social development of the student in their care. The school has someone who acts as a link between them, the child and the parent and who is an independent listener. At the same time the parents have confidence that if their child is in need of help or advice, someone is at the end of the telephone, email or text to help support, encourage and advise their child in their absence.
Where would I find a UK guardian?
Look no further than UK Football Schools as we can cater for various needs including football guardianship whereby we not only take care of personal guardianship but also cater for the serious footballers in private boarding schools that want to gain exposure into the football world with various packages.
What does a football guardian do?
These "football guardians" do not readily exist currently so in September 2018 we had 30 players using our service. By December 2018, six of these players (who were all from overseas) had been invited into professional clubs for trials through us. Many of the other players we placed are now progressing with their football very quickly and have generated a lot of interest from scouts.
As a result of these exciting developments, we experienced lots of calls and emails from these players, asking for our help and advice on footballing issues. These issues included help with trials, immigration law, (pro clubs pay thousands of pounds for lawyers to help them with such issues!), even things such as players not getting enough game time at school or being made to play out of position! The service is great for those who need general help with their football whilst they are schooling in the UK. Football guardianship is not readily available
