Column: Choosing A UK Education Guardian
[Column written by Dr Louise Legg]
When I lived in Bermuda, I watched friends, Bermudian and expat, put their children on planes to UK boarding schools every September. For most it goes well. But there is one gap many parents do not know about until something goes wrong: the education guardian.
In 2023 a 16-year-old girl from Hong Kong died in London, three weeks after arriving for a residential summer course, while in the care of a UK education guardian. The Guardian has reported on what happened. It made me realise that almost no one checks these arrangements.
Most UK boarding schools ask parents who live overseas to appoint a guardian, the adult who looks after their child at weekends, at half-term and in an emergency. In the UK, guardians are not regulated. They do not have to be trained in safeguarding or mental health, and a guardian arranged privately needs no criminal record check.
Recent UK checks on guardians apply only to children who need a student visa. Children who are British citizens, including most Bermudians and the children of British expats, do not need one, so those checks do not apply to them at all.
Before your child starts, it is worth asking:
- Is the guardian from an accredited agency [AEGIS or the Boarding Schools' Association's scheme]?
- Has every adult your child will stay with had an enhanced criminal record check?
- Who is the named person, how often will they see your child, and what is their out-of-hours number?
- Have they had safeguarding and mental health training, and what will they do if your child is in crisis?
- Will they tell you about any welfare concern within 24 hours, and never arrange services without your consent?
- If your child goes on a residential summer course, have you sent their health information to the provider yourself? These courses have no statutory standards and no inspection.
The risks are real. Three weeks after the girl from Hong Kong arrived in the UK, her guardian had not met her and did not seem to know the name she went by. A UK public inquiry recommended licensing and registering guardians in 2022, and the review into her death recommended regulation again. Neither has been acted on.
Regulation would not add much to parents’ bills. An enhanced criminal record check in England costs £41, and the service that keeps it up to date costs £15 a year: small sums beside boarding fees that often top £50,000 a year.
I have written a free guide for parents in Bermuda on spotting when a child is struggling from a distance, choosing a guardian, and raising a concern so that it is taken seriously. Link is here.
I have also started a UK Parliament petition asking for guardians to be registered, checked and trained, and for summer courses to have standards and inspection. British citizens can sign from Bermuda, and names are never published. Link is here.
- Dr Louise Legg is an HCPC-registered counselling psychologist in London. She lived and worked in Bermuda for ten years as an actuary before retraining.
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