The host family provides a safe place for students to stay during their half terms,exeat weekends, if they are suspended from school for bad behaviour, or on their way to a flight or on their way back to school if their flights do not match their school closure and opening times exactly.
Picking up and dropping back to school
The host family is required to collect the students from school on the first day of the holiday and return them to school at the end of the holiday. This pick up and drop off service is an important part of the host family role. It is part of our promise to parents and is important primarily for safeguarding reasons but also for comfort for the student.
Host families in full time employment
A host family should be around when the students are there. We do have guidelines on leaving students in our Host Family Charter but if you work full time and will not be around all the time then please do not proceed with your application.
National Minimum Standards for Boarding
The National Minimum Standards for boarding states that under no circumstances should school staff be appointed as an educational guardian for boarders. A host family is not able to host a student from the same school in which they may work. Bright World Guardianships ask that we are kept up to date on this or any changes.
Who is guardian?
The term of guardian is not the same as legal guardian (i.e. someone who replaces a parent) but is a term that has been adopted at UK boarding schools to describe the role we undertake. We are
effectively an education guardian contracted by parents to act in loco parentis while their children are in the UK without them. Schools, parents and students often get confused as to who is actually their guardian and will refer to the host family and the Local Coordinator as their guardian.
You are their guardian host family and it is fine for them to refer to you as their guardian. However, technically and legally, Lana Foster is the guardian to the student as she is the owner of the guardianship company. As a host family you do not have the ultimate responsibility for the student and are protected by our insurance and company infrastructure.
What does the host family do?
You are not a hotel – you are a host and we believe that time spent in a host family also provides valuable benefits. Firstly, it should give students a home from home and somewhere to relax outside of the school environment. Living in a host family should also give them a tremendous cultural experience. We ask our host families to simply treat their students not as a paying guest but as a part of the family, as if they are their own children.
If you work at a school where we have students
You are not permitted to host students from a school where you work. It is important that you disclose your working at a school to us on application and let us know if you start working at a school where we work. If we ask you to host students at the school where you work then please let us know this is not possible.