what happens when the school gates close for the summer?
a snapshot into a week of departures
The end of the school year spans several weeks for us here at Bright World, with students starting to leave in early June, after examinations, and with departures continuing right through until mid-July. School boarding staff close up shop and have a well-deserved break over the summer. Once the school gates close, as guardians, we take over and make sure students get home safely.
We thought it would be interesting to give our readers an insight into a typical departure week for Bright World staff.
forgotten passport
A young student, who had spent the night with her host family, realised half way to the airport that she had left her passport behind. There was no time to return for the passport without her missing her flight. We acted quickly and arranged for another driver, near to the family, to collect the passport and try and reach the airport in time.
The student's driver stayed with her until her passport arrived - just in the nick of time - and ensured that she was able to check in safely, and continue on her journey home for the summer.
forgotten test
The parents of another student assured us that all was organised for their son's flight home and that the school was organising his travel to the airport. However, on arrival at the airport, while they were on their own and checking in, the student was told that he needed a PCR test as a requirement of the airline to travel home. He called our emergency telephone and we jumped into action. We arranged for a test to be taken at the airport with fast results and he was able to get on a later flight the same day.
flight cancelled!
Flights to China were heavily restricted. There were no direct flights between the UK and China, and those that were available were infrequent and required a connection partway through the journey.
One of our students was booked on a weekly flight to Beijing via Stockholm. Two days before they were due to travel, that the flight had been cancelled. With the next scheduled flight a week away, we arranged a lovely host family near to the airport, until the new flight date. We also booked a new set of time-sensitive tests, in order to comply with airline requirements.
we've got the summer covered
Over the years, some students were unfortunately unable to make the journey home. This was particularly true for those from Mainland China and Hong Kong, due to the restricted flight routes and quarantine requirements at home. We were happy to extended our services through the summer holidays offering accommodation in host families and on residential programmes until school started again in September.
My thanks and admiration go to our Guardianship Care and Travel & Accommodation teams. Emergencies rarely happen at convenient times, when we are all in the office, so we rely on our staff on the emergency out of hours rota to stand in and help. I am so impressed at these times to watch the team pull together to help our students.
