This term has been very busy at Pippa’s Guardians. Over the summer we held our company annual conference, when all our Area Managers and our Office Team get together in Malvern. This is always a stimulating and interesting two-day event, where as a company we share best practice and continue to strive for excellence in all aspects of Guardianship. We launched our new Host Family Handbook – an in-depth guide for all our wonderful host families, including sections on what to expect when hosting our students and student safety. At the same time, we also launched our new ICE card scheme – this is designed to ensure our older students always have contact details for their host families and Pippa’s Guardians, in the unlikely event they lose their phone or need help while they are out independently.
During the school holidays, we also launched the first of our brand-new Integration Seminars, designed especially for Pippa’s Guardians students to help equip them for success at their UK boarding schools. The course, which will run again in the Summer of 2017, is designed to provide a strong foundation of information and skills for international student’s pre-entry to UK boarding schools. This is paramount for students to maximize their skills and to thrive both academically and personally. Its aim is to bridge the integration gap between international students and school, addressing the nature of expectations, education in the UK and the importance of social as well as academic prowess. Students who take the course, gain a better understanding of the British education system, which helps to place them in a strong position to become fully integrated members of the school community, to settle happily into all aspects of life as a UK Boarder and to get the most out of their studies.
At the start of the Autumn Term, we welcomed back our existing students and also our new students, who join the Pippa’s Guardians family from all over the world. Many of our students and their families also get to meet their host families at the same time and this is one of the most rewarding parts of our work. It is lovely to see the warmth of welcome our host families give to our International students and a joy to see this relationship grow over the course of the year as our students visit in the holidays.
At Pippa’s Guardians, we also welcomed our New Area Manager for Kent – Nicky Lee-Browne. Nicky, who graduated from Cambridge University, has a background in publishing, working as an editor and author of children’s non-fiction books. She more recently worked for Rydal Penrhos School in North Wales, were she worked as a Registrar. She has extensive experience of life in boarding schools as her husband was a head teacher at Rydal, and before that taught at Rugby, King’s Canterbury and Clifton College. She has also worked as a tutor and has a good understanding of the needs and priorities of boarders and their parents. Nicky’s husband is now Principal of Kent College Dubai and they have two teenage children who attend Kent College in Canterbury.
