Our mission is to continue to lead the way in providing services for UK boarding schools to successfully recruit pupils from a diverse range of countries in a cost-effective way. We do this by making it easy for schools to meet and develop partnerships with a global network of trusted educational agents.
In 2006 Suzanne and Antony Rowse set up the British Boarding Schools Workshop to provide a cost-effective way for British boarding schools to recruit international students. Having worked as the Marketing Director at a British boarding school for 8 years, Suzanne understood the challenges schools faced in overseas marketing and recruitment. During this time Suzanne implemented a successful international marketing strategy which enabled the school to achieve its targets of increasing the number of boarders and spreading the diversity of nationalities. Key to this success was the development of partnerships with overseas agents, which involved visiting agents in Europe, Asia and the Middle East.
The BBS Workshop brings together quality educational agents with representatives from UK boarding schools. The first Workshop, held in 2006, sold out in just two weeks. It was very well received with excellent feedback from delighted attendees. To meet demand for places from both agents and schools we now hold two events each year in March and November at the 4* Radisson Blu Edwardian Hotel at London's International Heathrow airport, which is perfect for our international delegation.
The Workshops have quickly gained a reputation for being high quality, targeted events, which have been attended by over 250 UK boarding school staff. Our range of services have been developed to includes international strategy training days for school staff, training days for agents, Agent Fam Trips (visits to schools) and BBS Connected, our online portal for schools and agents to search, share, connect and engage.
Connected was first launched in March 2015 and a new version was launched in May 2017. It was designed to enable schools and trusted agents to connect beyond our Workshops, facilitating quick and easy communication day in, day out. For the first time, agents can find the right schools for their client families by using a unique and detailed search faclity across the database of 170+ UK boarding schools, colleges and summer schools. In the same way, school staff can search the database of 700 international agent offices, view detailed profiles, set up groups for quick and easy messaging, access market intelligence reports, training videos, expert advice and a lot more.
Our website provides information about all our events and resources; we hope you enjoy browsing the site to find out more and we look forward to working with you.
Contact us
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Suzanne Rowse - Director
Suzanne has been working in boarding schools’ marketing for almost 20 years after international marketing roles in industry. For eight years she worked as the Marketing Director at a day and boarding school in Kent where she helped grow pupil numbers by 30% and created diversity in the boarding community. In 2006, Suzanne and her husband, Antony, set up the British Boarding Schools Workshop to provide a cost-effective way for schools to develop agent partnerships and recruit from a diverse range of countries. In 2015 BBS Connected was launched as an online community for schools and agents and a digital toolkit for marketers. Suzanne has worked as an international marketing consultant for boarding schools, is a regular conference speaker and has a son at boarding school and a daughter at prep school.
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Antony Rowse - Director
Antony is a technical illustrator and graphic designer and worked freelance until setting up the company with Suzanne in 2006. He is responsible for managing the visual aspects of the brand and oversees the production of the high quality Workshop handbooks. Antony also manages our IT systems and finances.
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Alicia Houghton - Administration Manager
Alicia joined the company in August 2012 and is responsible for organising the Workshops, fam trips and other events such as training days and user groups. She particularly enjoys the opportunity to use her knowledge of the boarding sector to support school staff in their roles. Prior to joining our team she had worked for almost 13 years at a day and boarding school in Kent, initially as Registrar and subsequently as Marketing Manager. During her time at the school, she regularly took part in the Workshops and hosted a group of agents as part of a familiarisation trip.
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Jan Shilling - Head of Strategy and Development
Jan joined the team in September 2016 as Head of Strategy and Development and is responsible for developing BBS Connected content and supporting client schools and agents in getting the most out of the system. Jan’s career in schools’ marketing has, in her words, been "lengthy and varied”! She is a modern linguist (French and German) whose initial marketing foundations were laid in export roles before she became a language teacher. From hands-on managerial marketing positions in several ISC schools, she has also worked in major strategic roles within the Independent Schools Council to advise schools and educational organisations on matters of policy, strategy and recruitment, both in the UK and overseas. Working for the former ISCis International, Jan headed up their consultancy service to overseas parents searching for UK schools and establishing strong links with overseas agents. For 5 years until August 2016, Jan was the Director of Marketing and Communications at King’s Rochester, the second oldest school in the UK and oldest Cathedral Choir School in the world.
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Sarah Heaslip - Head of Operations and Partnerships
Sarah joined the team in June 2017 and many of you will recognize her as she has been helping us out at the Workshops for over five years. Sarah is responsible for supporting 2,000 member users of Connected and works closely with Jan to further develop the Connected platform in terms of functionality and content. Prior to joining us she worked for an international media company (which organises exhibitions worldwide), in global operations, implementing procurement projects worldwide and managing the company’s travel.
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