What we have committed to
We sit between families and UK boarding schools, which means we are held to two sets of expectations at once: consumer law on one side, and the education agent codes that schools use to vet the people they work with on the other. This page sets both out in plain English, and says plainly where something is not yet true.
We would rather publish the gaps than be found out on them.
The part with legal force
There is no UK law requiring an education agent to be registered or licensed. Australia has that; the UK does not. So there is no badge we are missing and no fee to pay to become lawful. What does have legal force is the following.
Since 7 April 2026, a school that has used us to recruit a student must record our details on that student's Confirmation of Acceptance for Studies. It applies to the Student route and the Child Student route, so it covers school placements. It applies even for a one-off placement and even with no formal ongoing contract, and the school has to update UK Visas and Immigration within 20 working days if the list of agents it uses changes.
We tell schools to do this at the point they report the student, not afterwards. Our page on it is written for them, not for families.
Our CAS agent declaration page →Since 6 April 2025 the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 replaced the old unfair trading rules. The Competition and Markets Authority can now investigate and fine directly, up to 10% of global turnover, without going to court first.
So the things we say to families are not decoration. If we say a school will interview your child, that has to mean it. If we call a fee non-refundable, that has to match what we then do.
UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018 apply to everything we hold. Most of our students are minors, so their reports and profiles get the higher level of care that implies.
Grade photographs are deleted after processing. Report cards are kept for 12 months. We do not use the content of a report card to train or adjust our matching, and we do not pass it to a third party outside the confirmation step the school itself is part of.
Privacy notice →The codes schools hold us to
The National Code of Ethical Practice for UK Education Agents is the one that matters most to us. It is not law — it says so itself — but schools put it into their agent contracts, and the UK Agent Quality Framework sits on top of it. There are five standards. Here is how we meet them.
- We act with integrity, and we do not present ourselves as better regulated than we are.
- We declare the relationships that matter: families and schools both pay us, and both are told.
- Our company identifiers are available on request to any school we work with, and we provide the details needed for licence and CAS filings.
- We do not claim a relationship with a school we do not have one with, and we do not use school names or branding on our marketing in a way that implies an endorsement.
- We do not help anyone submit a document we believe to be false or misleading.
- Which services are paid for by the family and which by the school is stated openly on both sides, before anyone signs anything.
- The commission percentage is not published, because our school agreement treats it as commercially sensitive. The National Code says that is acceptable.
- Every family accepts our terms and fees before their profile goes to any school. The acceptance is recorded.
- There is a complaints route with published timescales for both families and schools, and a request for review if the first answer is not good enough.
- We do not encourage a student to leave a school in order to generate another commission.
- We advise on what actually suits the student, including when that means fewer schools rather than more.
- We describe a school only in the way the school itself describes it, and we do not make claims about a school we cannot evidence.
- Our family fees are published, and so is our refund policy.
- We do not claim government endorsement or a privileged relationship we do not have.
- Advice is tailored to the student, including on language level and on whether the fees are realistic for that family.
- A student is never discriminated against on nationality, race, gender, religion, disability or age.
- We act in the student's interest even where that costs us money.
- We tell families about schools and sectors that are not genuine, and about what to be careful of.
- We provide care and welfare support for students under 18, and we escalate to a family and to a school's safeguarding lead where there is a risk.
- We hold personal data under UK GDPR and do not share it with a third party without consent.
- We work to the UK education and immigration rules that apply to the students we place.
- Staff training records are kept. British Council agent training is on our list and we have not yet completed it, so we do not claim it.
- We tell schools where we are not yet fully compliant instead of letting them assume we are.
Membership and certification are not compulsory
You sometimes see agents claiming to be BSA certified as though it were a licence. It is not. The Boarding Schools' Association is a voluntary trade association, and its Certified Agent scheme is voluntary too. Not being in it does not stop us operating, and we are not going to present membership as something we hold when we do not.
It is worth being straight about why it might matter later. Membership buys distribution and credibility with schools, and schools that restrict themselves to approved agents will not use a service that has not been vetted by anyone they recognise. That is a commercial decision about who will list us, not a legal barrier.
What schools can still insist on: their own approved agent list. Each school decides this for itself, and the schemes are how most of them publish it.
The conflict we have, stated plainly
We are paid by families. We are also paid by schools. That is a conflict of interest in the plainest possible sense, and the National Code names it directly: transparency means declaring a conflict to clients especially where service fees are charged to both the education provider and the prospective student.
So here it is. A family pays us one application fee of £200, covering interview applications to the first four schools, and only once a school has actually invited their child to an interview. A school pays us a commission, calculated as a percentage of the fee income it receives from a student who joined through us. We do not publish the percentage; our agreement with schools treats it as commercially sensitive, and the National Code agrees that the amount does not need to be disclosed.
What the arrangement does not do is change what a family pays a school. The school covers our commission out of income it already receives. Our commission is the same per student whatever the school and whatever the outcome, and we do not accept payment for a place, a shortlist position, or a faster reply.
Where we are not there yet
Two things a reviewer would ask about that we have not finished.
Where to read the sources
- National Code of Ethical Practice for UK Education Agents, July 2025 — the five standards on this page
- UK Agent Quality Framework — British Council, BUILA, UKCISA, Universities UK International
- UK Visas and Immigration student sponsor guidance, sections on agents and third parties
- Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024, Part 4 Chapter 1
- UK GDPR and Data Protection Act 2018
This page is our own summary written in plain English. It is not legal advice, and where it simplifies something, the source documents are what count.