A guardian family provides a much-needed break from school routine with a welcome change of scene and company - a home-from-home where warm and long-lasting friendships can be created. We ask our families to open their homes to boys and girls from a different culture. Every child has different needs – that is why we seek such variety in our guardian families.

We offer four different levels of service to our parents and students, enabling us to also give our guardian families the choice of how much involvement they would like to have - this is often dependent on personal commitments with their own families, work schedules etc. We also take families on board who don’t have the time to look after one particular student but are happy to be available for emergencies if needed – the choice is yours!

Parents with younger children who opt to send them to UK boarding schools at an early age (usually from 8 upwards) often want reassurance that he or she will receive the best possible care at their guardian family home, together with an involvement in and encouragement of their academic and social progress. Parents of older students however will have quite different requirements, wanting the security of a family if needed but not the involvement that younger students need.

The majority of independent schools also recognise the importance of guardianship and will insist that the child has a UK guardian allocated to them. The level of involvement that they expect from these guardians varies hugely between schools, from those who are happy for the Gabbitas London office to be the named guardian with no additional family needed, to those who insist on a family being allocated within a certain distance of the school and for the student to stay with them over every exeat and half-term holiday.

If you want to apply to become a guardian family, or want to request a brochure, please click here.