Bright World edge closer to Safeguarding accreditation with Child-Safe

In Partnership with Bright World

On Tuesday 15^th October Director of Operations, Avril Griffin accompanied Managing Director, Lana Foster to Child-Safe International’s Headquarters in Bristol (West of England).

Child-Safe is a unique organisation which aims to safeguard and prevent the abuse of children and young people living away from home.

 The two Bright World representatives met with the Charity’s leader and Founder, Chris Gould in order to discuss and learn more about Child-Safe’s Assured Partner scheme and their accreditation. 

Chris began Child-Safe in 2004. After 30 years experience within the police as a Detective Chief Superintendent heading the Child Protection Sector, he developed plans to build an organisation which focused solely on preventing the abuse of children and young people living away from home and received a Police Research Award for Innovation from the Home Secretary in 1999.

After meeting Chris for the first time back in 2011, Managing Director, Lana Foster has made bold changes within the team to shift the focus of the guardianship programme onto Safeguarding and Child Protection. By employing Safeguarding Manager, Brian McAllister and Director of Operations, Avril Griffin this year, Lana believes that Bright World can only improve and evolve as a company and guardianship organisation that is dedicated to protecting the children under its care.

“With all members of the Guardianship team undergoing specialist Child Protection training from Child Safe earlier this year, they are now more qualified to detect and resolve Child Protection issues.”

 Lana Foster, Bright World Managing Director

After a quick tour of the Avon and Somerset Police Headquarters, where Child-Safe are based, Lana and Avril discussed the remaining steps which will allow Bright World to become recognised Partner of Child-Safe and the Pilot accredited International Education Company worldwide.

There are four levels within the scheme – bronze, silver, gold and platinum. Bright World is currently working towards the Bronze level; an achievement which will further cement the company’s commitment to the Safeguarding and Child Protection of International students.

“I am really positive about the work that Bright World is doing in relation to safeguarding in it’s wildest sense and you are to be applauded for your dedication and positivity in this regard. I am really excited about having you achieve a level of Child-Safe accreditation.”

Chris Gould, Founder and Chairman of Child-Safe

Chris was also very excited to introduce Lana and Avril to Child-Safe’s ‘App’ SafeKnight.

The SafeKnight app was recently named in the top five safety apps competition globally at the recent WYSTC conference in Australia.  The app, once downloaded, can be used to launch the phone/device’s camera and not only records the photo onto the phone in the standard way but also holds a virtual copy which is date/time/location stamped and can be accessed to help track down a potentially missing person.

For more information on Bright World’s Safeguarding Policies and Procedures please click here

Stover School shortlisted for a national award

Bright World Partners, Stover School has been shortlisted for a national Award at the prestigious 'Independent School Awards' in the Outstanding Financial-Commercial Initiative category.

The Independent School Awards™ (ISAs) celebrate excellence in the strategic and financial management of independent schools in the UK. They are organised by the team behind Funding for Independent Schools magazine. The ISAs provides benchmarks for the sector as a whole and opportunities for schools to learn from each other. All shortlisted schools demonstrate value for money to their parents.

Two other schools from across the UK have been nominated in the Outstanding Financial-Commercial Initiative category and the winner will be announced at the award ceremony in November. Stover School is committed to playing its part to encourage all energy consumers to be more energy efficient and believe in the huge range of benefits - environmental, social and economic - that energy saving can bring in the future.

Two woodchip biomass boilers plated at 270kW and associated buffer tanks have been installed at Stover School, Newton Abbot. The system feeds the Senior School, Preparatory School and three Boarding Houses, providing heating and hot water to the entire School estate.

The school has been approved by Ofgem, for the production of heat under the renewable heat incentive scheme. Ofgem is responsible for implementing and administering the scheme on behalf of the Department of Energy and Climate Change and under this scheme the school will be paid for every KWh that its biomass boilers produce.

The Renewable Heat Incentive is the world’s first long-term financial support programme for renewable heat. This initiative was launched in November 2011 by the UK Government to encourage uptake of renewable heat technologies among householders, communities and businesses through financial incentives. The UK Government expects the Renewable Heat Incentive to make a large contribution towards their 2020 aim of having 12 per cent of UK heating coming from renewable sources.

Stover Preparatory School presently holds a Bronze Eco-School Award and this year, aim to reach Silver status. With this in mind, a working party and pupil committee has been formed to put into practise Eco-initiatives. This will help Stover School reach its target of being even more ‘eco-friendly’. 

If you would like to apply to this Co-educational UK Boarding School in Devon. Please enquire online today!

 For further information, or if you are interested in learning more about placement and uk guardianship, please get in touch with Sales & Marketing Manager, Charlotte Hamson charlotte@brightworld.co.uk, call 01273 835745 or visit our website. www.brightworld.co.uk

 

Circus visits Stover School

Happy’s Circus will be visiting Bright World Partner School, Stover School for one night only on Tuesday 8^th October 2013. Pop down and see the crazy clowns, magical illusions, daring aerialists and amazing speciality artistes in a 'Big Top' circus at Stover School, Newton Abbot. 

 

The Friends of Stover School, which is mainly run by parents of the School, have organised for "Happy's Circus" to visit and everyone is welcome to purchase tickets for the show.

 

Happy’s Circus is an all-human small professional show touring the UK who are dedicated to bringing the enchanting world of circus to schools.  Happy’s Circus specialize in school circus and this is a rare opportunity for local children and parents alike to enjoy all the fun of the Big Top.

 

Tickets are limited and the cost is £8.00 per ticket. Under 3's are free. Tickets are bookable in advance at: fos@stover.co.uk or payable on the gate (spaces permitting). Gates open at 5.00pm for food and refreshments and the performance will start at 6.00pm. 

For more information about this Co-educational UK Boarding School enquire online or visit our website www.brightworld.co.uk

Bright World's close Hong Kong Partners' gain British Council IELTS status!

The British Council has appointed HKOSC as an authorized British Council IELTS Partner Agent in Hong Kong !

We would like to wish a huge Congratulations to our close partners at Hong Kong Overseas Studies Centre who are now an official British Council IELTS recognised Agent. We are looking forward to continuing our work with HKOSC on Boarding School placements and uk guardianship!

Participating in The British Council Hong Kong IELTS Partner Agent programme, Bright World's close Partner HKOSC is now recognized as IELTS Registration Centre for the British Council Hong Kong. The partnership aims to enforce and build a complete picture for student information towards their higher education pathways. With this collaborative scheme, we are delighted to register candidates on behalf of the British Council and provides advices with regard to IELTS and education in the UK.

If you would like to find out more about uk guardianship and uk placement please visit our website or contact Sales & Marketing Manager, Charlotte Hamson charlotte@brightworld.co.uk

Stover Preparatory School take part in Charity event

During Stover Preparatory School’s assembly recently, a guest speaker, Roisin, talked to pupils about the work of the NSPCC. The children were invited to help other children by raising vital funds to support the wonderful work of the NSPCC. Preparatory School pupils were given a spelling activity sheet with a set of words to learn for a 'sponsored spell' with a view to raising money for the NSPCC, while the Pre-Prep children were busy completing other sponsored activities. The NSPCC, together with Stover Preparatory School, are grateful for any sponsorship money you have raised, and thank you for supporting your child with their spelling challenge. We look forward to the NSPCC returning to Stover to thanks all of our pupils on Thursday 3rd October.

If you would like to apply to this Co-educational UK Boarding School in Devon. Please enquire online today!

 For further information, or if you are interested in learning more about placement and uk guardianship, please get in touch with Sales & Marketing Manager, Charlotte Hamson charlotte@brightworld.co.uk, call 01273 835745 or visit our website. www.brightworld.co.uk

Bright World Partners win 5th award at STM Awards 2013!

We are very excited to share with you our latest achievement from our close Partner Agents, Students International.

As a result of the international voting established by Study Travel Magazine, UK with participation of more than 3000 educational institutions and agencies from all over the world,
It is for the 5th time in a row that Bright World Partners, Students International have been awarded as a 'Star Agency Eastern Europe' and has become the first agency merited with SUPERSTAR status ever!

 
Together with all the SI offices and representatives, SI Moscow would like to express their warmest appreciation to you for your continued support and exceptional work that inspired them to such a successful outcome.

 

“We believe that it is their joint success and please accept our heartiest congratulations on this award. Not for the taking our energy expenditure off but due to the terms of this award - that this Fifth award will be our last."

 SI Team

Students International will officially celebrate the Award during the annual agent-training seminar held in Kiev, Ukraine from October 29^th to November 01^st.    

“We are happy to have served you well in the past and we look forward to continuing to provide students for your institution in the future.
As we face another year, we hope that we continue to reap more success. 
We hope that our partnership will last many more years.”

Best Regards,
SI team

With Growth comes Enhanced Service!

Bright World Guardianships continues to grow each year and each year we try and improve the service we provide to our clients as well a continuing to improve the level of safeguarding we offer each child under our care.  Having gone through another great year of growth, we have decided to restructure the Guardianship Department which will mean that our agents and parents will have teams of people dedicated to certain jobs and this should really improve things. 

With this in mind, we employed Avril Griffin earlier this year as Director of Operations.  Avril, pictured above, has been working in this industry for more than 20 years and brings a huge amount of experience and expertise to Bright World.  From this month, Avril will head up our UK operations team.

We are delighted, therefore to announce that we have a new member of staff who comes to us as Travel Manager.  Managing relationships with our drivers and organising transport for students to and from airports around the UK will now be the job of Hannah Newton.  Hannah will entirely manage this part of the programme under the watchful eye of Avril. 

New airport meet and greet partners, Airport Angels will also work closely with Hannah to offer an enhanced service to those children who are arriving unaccompanied and whose parents want an additional level of care.  Working with Airport Angels means that we are now able to offer our clients Airside pick up and escorting service right to the aeroplane. 

The Guardianship Care Manager team will now be able to focus entirely on host families and general pastoral care for our students.  You will still have one Guardianship Care Manager for your child but in addition you will have a dedicated Travel Manager to assist you with your airport transfers and UK travel. 

We are currently also reviewing our Emergency Phone service at the moment as we grow the phone becomes more and more busy at peak times.  We will be offering clients options when they call the emergency number that will direct them more quickly to a Duty Manager who can help them. We will send you more information on this soon. 

To find out more about Bright World and the guardianship service we offer to international students studying in the UK Enquire online or email Sales & Marketing Manager,  Charlotte Hamson charlotte@brightworld.co.uk