Terms & Conditions

UKschools.com is committed to providing knowledgeable educational advice delivered through experienced consultants who uphold high professional standards. Our staff set out to deliver successful educational outcomes for our family clients, while focussing on a child’s academic abilities, interests, needs and English language competency.  Our actions and advice will always conform to the relevant UK law and your rights as a consumer are fully protected.

Confidentiality

We are committed to maintaining the highest degree of integrity and commercial confidentiality in our work and relationships. That includes relationships with potential, current and past clients, schools, universities, summer school providers and tutoring agencies and the protection of personal information received in the course of providing our business services. We extend the same standards to all our clients. Your data is held securely under current British GDPR regulations and is shared only with educational establishments, summer course providers or tutors who are considering offering a place or support to your child. This is assumed to be acceptable to client families unless we are informed in writing at the start of a contract.

Fees

Our fees are fixed and agreed in advance with our clients. We offer a personalised, knowledgeable and experienced specialist educational consultancy, working closely with our client families to achieve a high-quality advisory service within an agreed budget and timeframes. Families are made fully aware of the service we provide, the timeframe of our work and the agreed fee structure and charges, in writing, prior to an agreement being signed. Clients should be aware that, at times, timeframes may be subject to alteration from a third party (school, university, provider etc).

Payment

All school placement fees are either paid in full in advance, or with an agreed two-payment option for services required over more than one academic year. Fees must be settled within seven working days following a school offer if this instalment option is selected and agreed at the outset of the contract. In addition to our fee, charges are made for the

following disbursements: consultant’s travel, accommodation and subsistence (meals) when accompanying a client family on school visits. The services of a translator are available to client families for school visits and a daily fee, together with travel and accommodation and subsistence (meals) will be charged additionally. Other relevant costs incurred throughout the contract will be discussed in advance. Any additional travel and accommodation arrangements made at the request of a client family are subject to an administration fee of 15% of the total cost payable at the end of a visit.

Intellectual property and moral rights

We retain the moral rights in, and ownership of, all intellectual property that we create. In return we respect the moral and intellectual copyright vested in our clients' intellectual property.

Quality assurance

We maintain the quality of our work through on-going review and discussions with our clients. This includes consideration of our aims, work, processes, outcomes and the value and costs of our work.

Professional conduct

We conduct all our activities professionally and with integrity. We take great care to be completely objective in our judgement and any advice and recommendations that we give. We set out at all times to ensure that independent, impartial advice is provided to inform the best and proper interests of our clients and with specific consideration to an individual child’s educational needs. Clients should be aware that recommendations of schools, universities and courses are inevitably also likely to involve subjective interpretations by consultants because of our own educational knowledge and experience; this is often regarded by our client families as enhancing the personalised service that we provide to them and their children.

Equality and discrimination

We always set out to be fair and objective in our advice and actions. We are not influenced in our decisions, actions or recommendations by any issues of gender, race, sexuality, creed, colour, age or disability.

Our terms of service

We are independent and impartial education consultants working for, and with, our client families. We accept no commission or referral fee from any school.

Our service provides client families with British school and university guidance and support, including accompanying a specific and identified number of school visits as set out in the Service Agreement document, until the month/year of school offers set out in the attached Agreement. Should a client decide to delay/extend the point of entry into a British school for their child from that which was originally agreed, an additional fee will be charged for the additional period of consultancy necessary.

Please note that our responsibility is to identify the most suitable school options for your child. Any concerns about the schools proposed should be raised during the process and no later than 24 hours following a school visit. Failure to do this will be regarded as acceptance of the school’s suitability for your child and no additional school searches will be offered. Should a client choose not to accept offers made by the schools that they have agreed to in the short-list, any outstanding fees will still be due, and no fees will be refunded.

Should families decide, for whatever reason, to stop the consultancy service with UKschools.com, no refund of fees will be due. This is because a significant amount of work takes place in the early stages of the process and information will have been provided which could result in direct approaches to schools still being made, without the use of our services.

We aim to communicate with you efficiently throughout the process with suitable frequency. If you wish for more frequent communication, then we would ask that you contact us immediately to make that request. There are times when the process may appear protracted and even slow, this is usually because of consultations with schools and the school schedules which are beyond our control.

Important

We do not, and cannot, guarantee that the schools selected by us will offer places. This is because only schools are authorised to offer places to applicants after academic assessment, interviews, confidential school reference and good school reports. However, our knowledge and experience working in, and with, leading schools for many years combine to ensure we consider the most suitable schools for each individual child, taking onto account their academic abilities, character, interests and needs.

Families who insist on their child applying for schools that we believe are not suitable for any reason do so at that own risk. We do not accept responsibility for the outcomes or offers of places for children applying to schools selected against our advice.

It is possible to identify and secure places at some British schools (as agents may do) but this may be because the schools are located some distance from London, may have less competitive entry and are more likely to have availability.