It's been a hard week's work for us all!!!

Well, all of us except one black and white hairy 'person' .........

What a busy week we have had this week at Bright World. Jane Forester is sunning herself on a beach in the South of France somewhere so extra work has been necessary for poor old Lana and Carol Gill in the office! Jane will be on holiday for yet another week but will return hopefully refreshed to carry on in the planning process for the guardianship students arriving in September.

A lot is going on at the moment. We are in full planning mode for next year for guardianship and as the bookings are coming in thick and fast we are busy visiting new host families and recruiting new Bright World Buddies to take care of them during the school year.

This week Lana Foster has visited about 8 families. Lovely people with huge and comfortable houses. Our students are so lucky!!!

Sheena will on holiday next week so we will all have to muck in on the boarding school placements. We do hope that Sheena has a good rest but we are already looking forward to her coming back as she has such a busy job that we know we will all have our work cut out to keep up with it all in her absence.

James is always busy with the finances and with university placements - august is his very busy month for placements with clearing and last minute bookings.

And during all this hard work our dog, Jake just lays asleep in his basket in the corner of the room, occasionally getting up to have a tickle under his chin or to ask for something to eat - it really is a dog's life!

Guardianship host hamilies - the key to our success

Good staff? - check

Good systems? - check

Good knowledge of students? - check

Good marketing department ?- check

Good host families ?- OH YES!!!

At Bright World it has taken us 8 years to really get to grips with what makes a good host family and to realise that this is the key to our success for our guardianship programme. With good, generous, educated, kind and giving families our students get the very best experience from their stay - yes they actually enjoy their exeat weekends and half terms and look forward to going.

Our families are not sourced through newspaper advertising but through the schools we work with and through word of mouth. This means that high quality is consistent. Plus you have go the fussiest person in the world checking them out - Lana Foster, MD of Bright World demands a very high standard from our families.

'if I would not happily stay there for a week then I would not expect my students to' says Lana who does most of the host family interviews and house inspections.

Our families really enjoy the experience of hosting international students. Many of them have been boarders before so they understand how important it is to have a home from home during holiday times and your parents are not around.

We are so proud of our host family network and realise that it is the key to our success now and in the future - so Bright World host families we salute you !