Being an Approved Agent member is a mark of quality, it recognises the valuable work that they do and it gives schools and families the confidence to work with them.
Our market-leading services provide the Contacts, Knowledge and Support to make it easy and cost-effective for agencies to build and develop strong partnerships with our 260+ member schools to successfully place boarding students from all over the world.
Membership for our Approved Agents is FREE OF CHARGE so membership cannot be purchased. The cost of running the programme is funded by school membership subscriptions. However, all agents have to meet our strict membership criteria as set out in our Agent Membership Programme, which includes triple-reference checking and an interview, before they can be granted membership of our valuable Network. Agent members are monitored by the BBSN team, with regular one-to-one reviews by Zoom and references are being updated every 3-4 years. All new members have a review call after the first six months.
Agents must have Approved status before they can attend our events, including the BBSW, and benefit from the members' portal with the database of schools, webinars and training.
Many schools have chosen to work only with BBSN Approved Agents because they know BBSN has high-standards and a rigorous process to gain Approved status.
In May 2023 the UKVI confirmed that use of BBSN Approved Agents is within sponsorship compliance requirements. This means that our member schools can rely on the BBSN agent reference checks if they wish, yet ultimate responsibility remains with the school. This has significantly reduced the amount of reference-checks being undertaken by members, saving all partners time and resources.
We recognise the vital role that professional educational agents and consultants play in the placement of international pupils into British boarding schools. Our new Agent Membership Programme was launched in October 2022 to formalise the work we have carried out for the last 18 years, and over 400 agents have now gained Approved status with many more applications being processed.
Our Approved Agent Programme:
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provides BBSN agent members with a certificate and annually updated logo to evidence and promote that their company is approved by BBSN as a mark of professionalism, credibility and endorsement;
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protects our agent members’ reputation and set them apart from competitor agents in this sector;
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provides validity and evidence of rigorous quality assurance for our member schools and to the client families our agent members work with;
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provides confidence to our member schools that they are working with high quality, reputable agencies, thus protecting their UKVI sponsor licence. UKVI confirm that use of BBSN Approved Agents is within schools' sponsorship compliance requirements. Our member schools are able to use BBSN references as part of their due diligence, if they so choose.
