Student Welfare and Safety
Key Points
- Every member of our staff has a criminal record check before being employed by us.
- Every staff member is given safeguarding training to guarantee they have an in-depth knowledge of our child protection policies.
- There are individual coordinators at all centres.
- There are assigned staff members to look after individuals at all centres.
Overview
Providing a world-class residential summer school is not just about academics. It means attending to the emotional, medical and environmental needs of all our students.
Not only do we provide staff who are responsible for welfare 24/7 in every centre but we also have a dedicated 24 hour emergency number for agents, group leaders, parents and students. All students are issued with a resident student handbook on arrival and are given a full induction lesson highlighting student welfare, campus safety and British, American, and Canadian laws.
Below we have outlined some of the key information that will affect your stay. For further information on student welfare please download our Safeguarding Policy here, and our Student Behaviour Policy here.
Arrival
All students under the age of 18 are met by a member of staff – who will be highly visible in our bright red branded t-shirts and carrying a clearly displayed red clipboard. They will ensure everything goes smoothly at the airport and during the transfer to their centre. At this point students are given an ID card with 24 hour emergency contact information – for their safety and so that they can be immediately identified as an our Junior student they should keep this with them at all times.
Our Staff
Every summer centre has a dedicated safeguarding officer who students can speak to if they have any problems. This is typically the Welfare Manager or Centre Manager.
In case of any medical matters arising, all centres have staff members trained in First Aid.
It is compulsory that all our members of staff are professionally DBS checked and trained in student welfare and safeguarding. In addition, all staff applications must be supported by a minimum 2 references. A risk assessment is written should this still be in process.
Risk Assessments
Our activity and excursion programme is carefully planned out ensuring the student’s safety is of utmost importance. To ensure this is the case, not only are all activities and excursions fully risk assessed, we also have a library of the risk assessments for the attractions we visit in every city.
If you would like a copy of any of our policies or risk assessments please contact us.
Medical And General Insurance
Students who are not covered by the National Health Service are advised to take out medical insurance before leaving their home countries. We strongly advise students to take out individual personal insurance to cover personal belongings, etc, before they come to the UK, US, or Canada.
Supervision Policy
We define juniors as anyone under the age of 16 and anyone between the age of 16 and 18 who are part of a residential centre. The Department for Education and Science advises the following supervision ratio of adults to students for ages 8 to 10 as 1:10-15 and for 11+ as 1:15-20.
Group Leaders can be included in the above ratios as responsible adults only for the students with which they travel. We adhere to these ratios when supervising students on leisure activities.
Students are also allowed free time on excursions. The amount of free time they are allowed depends on their age.
- Under 12 years old – no unsupervised free time. Must remain with OIEG staff or group leader at all times
- 12-14 years old – one hour unsupervised free time before returning to meeting point for registration (must stay in groups of min 3 students)
- 15-17 years old – two hours’ unsupervised free time before returning to meeting point for registration (must stay in groups of min 3 students)
More information on our supervision ratios can be found here.
Individual Students
We accept individual students at a number of our centres and pay particular attention to their welfare during the run up to and whilst our summer centres are open.
Individual students are assigned to the care of a Welfare Manager or Individuals Coordinator who will be responsible for their care throughout their stay.
Where possible we accommodate individual students in shared bedrooms. If this is not possible the students will be placed on a Staff corridor.