If you continue to live abroad while your child attends a boarding school in the UK, you will need to appoint an Educational Guardian, which is required by law. Best Start Education is one of the few guardianship organisations, which is fully accredited by AEGIS (Association for the Education and Guardianship of International Students) to the highest level (Gold). This means that we provide a safe, happy environment to give your child the best possible opportunity to discover his/her own potential.
Our founder is a qualified teacher and examiner with many years of teaching experience in both state and private sectors in the UK, and is well placed to be able to offer students and parents a high level of relevant academic advice and support.
“Best Start Education offers the highest possible standards of care to international students. Parents and students are overwhelmingly positive about the service they receive from Best Start Education“ – AEGIS inspection report, 2021.
Prices and Packages for Guardianship
Standard Guardianship
Fees for the year 2025-2026 are £795 per term.
The following services are included in this package:
- Act as your child’s guardian as required by your child’s school and for the UK Visas.
- Advice on living in the UK and settling in support.
- Guardianship services for emergencies during flight cancellations or delays, suspension from school.
- Educational guardian is available during office hours to help the parents, the student and the school.
- We communicate with our students regularly by phone calls and messages.
- We will visit our students at school and send parents reports after each visit. During our visits, we will also speak with the housemaster/housemistress and other members of the boarding house. Two visits to school per year included, and travel expenses are charged as extra.
- 24/7 Emergency phone service for students and parents.
- Liaising on your behalf with the school for unexpected situations.
- Communication with the school on parents’ behalf regarding exeats and half term arrangements.
- Homestay arrangements during exeat weekends and half-terms. Our host families are carefully selected, trained and have enhanced DBS (police checks).
- The Guardian pays any extra expenses from the deposit (school trips, additional classes) on behalf of parents.
- Transport arrangements with carefully selected drivers.
Deposit is £500 and can be topped up at any time if needed.
The remaining deposit will be returned to parents at the end of the studies.
*Non-refundable registration fees of £130 will be payable upon registration of all new students.
We will charge for the following services from the guardianship deposit:
- Host family accommodation during exeats and half terms – from £70 per day.
- Travel expenses – 2 visits are subject to 60 pence fuel allowance charge.
- Attendance to school parents’ evenings, if requested by parents.
- Extra visits to the school or host family, if requested by parents.
- Extra visits on request – school tutor meetings, medical appointments.
- Emergency attendance at school, host family or hospital – £45 per hour plus travel.
- Airport transfers.
- Airport service – if needed, we can arrange to collect your child from the aircraft and escort them through immigration or to the aircraft on return – from £160
- Host family arrangements and guardianship support during Christmas and Easter holidays – £100 per week extra.
- Emergency removal from school for serious illness, including mental health issues, Covid or other infectious diseases, if a student is not allowed to stay at the boarding house, £200 arrangement service fee plus from £90 a day per for isolation homestay.
- Helping to purchase school or sports uniform, sim-cards, birthday celebration gifts.
Extra Support Guardianship
Fees for the year 2025-2026 are £1300 per term.
This package offers all services as our Standard Guardianship and in addition, it includes:
- Parents support services during out of office hours.
- Parents support services in corresponding with the school on all essential matters arising.
- Monitoring all the school correspondence.
- Help with completing all the essential school forms on parents’ behalf.
- On-going control over the progress of the studies (if requested by parents).
- Finding tutors if there is a necessity of extra lessons in certain subjects.
- Buying Christmas presents for housemasters (if required by parents)
Deposit is £500 and can be topped up at any time if needed.
The remaining deposit will be returned to parents at the end of the studies.
Emergency Support Guardianship
Fees for the 2025-2026 year are £550 per term.
*This package is suitable for older students who travel home for all holidays including exeats and do not require our support with the host family arrangements.
The following services are included in this package:
- Act as your child’s guardian as required by your child’s school and for the UK Visas.
- Advice on living in the UK.
- 24/7 emergency phone service for students and parents.
- Liaising on your behalf with the school for unexpected situations.
- Transport arrangements with carefully selected drivers.
Deposit is £500 and can be topped up at any time if needed.
The remaining deposit will be returned to parents at the end of the studies.
*Non-refundable registration fees of £130 will be payable upon registration of all new students.
We will charge for the following services from the guardianship deposit:
- Visits to the school if requested by parents.
- Emergency travel expenses, emergency homestay accommodation
- Emergency airport transfers.
- Helping to purchase school or sports uniform, sim-cards, birthday celebration gifts.
European Emergency Support guardianship
Fees for the year 2025-2026 are £350 per term. Deposit is £300.
Our European Guardianship is for EU/EEA students whose families wish to arrange everything direct with their school
It includes 24/7 emergency support
University Guardianship
We have a special package for university guardianship. Please enquire about it at [email protected]
Where we offer guardianship
We can offer you Guardianship Services in Hertfordshire, London, Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Berkshire, Surrey and Oxfordshire.
We can also offer Guardianship Services in other areas of England where we have local coordinators.
BEING YOUR CHILD’S SECOND FAMILY IN A FOREIGN COUNTRY IS OUR PRIORITY!
“Nothing is too much trouble for the staff involved with Best Start Education” – AEGIS Inspector
“Schools, students, homestays and parents all report extremely high levels of satisfaction with the work of Best Start Education”
We understand the importance of the wellbeing and happiness of your child and recognise it as our priority. Please contact us for professional advice you can trust and support you can rely on.
All policies and procedures are available on request.
Please contact us: [email protected]
Tel. +44 79307 32407