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Cultural considerations box set: Europe

  • Date: January 22, 2024
  • Time: 12:30 – 13:30
  • Cost: BAISIS members box set – £225, BAISIS member individual session – £55, BSA members box set – £335 BSA member individual session – £75, Member additional attendee – £25, Non-member box set – £670, Non-member individual session – £110
  • Audience: All staff, boarding, pastoral, academic, leadership, marketing, admissions.
  • Platform: Zoom (online)

Course Outline:

Introducing a new webinar series for BAISIS members designed to promote greater understanding of different international markets for student recruitment. The session will discuss application during the marketing and recruitment stage, induction, and day-to-day care of international students who join our schools.

This five-part series looks at the key markets for international student recruitment in 2024-25:

  • China and Hong Kong (Oct)
  • Japan, Thailand, Malaysia & South Korea (Nov)
  • North and South America (Dec)
  • Europe (Jan)
  • Africa (Feb)

Each webinar will delve into the cultural sensitivities, language considerations, prospective family wants and marketing suggestions of each market to support members in adapting their marketing and pastoral strategies to maximise results and provision.

Training topics will include:

  • Cultural sensitivities, norms and differences from the UK (religion, lifestyle, health, wellbeing, medicine, body language etc)
  • Language considerations and communicating with current and prospective parents
  • What this market wants from the UK education system
  • Maximising marketing
  • Promoting best practice in pastoral care provision on recruitment and arrival.

Learning outcomes:

  • Greater cultural understanding of the markets you recruit students from
  • Increased awareness of what to focus on from a marketing perspective, and how to engage with prospective families
  • Understanding how to provide care and support to students from different cultural backgrounds.

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Speakers:

Theresa Glasmacher, Managing Director, Glasmacher Schulberatung

Theresa Glasmacher is Managing Director of Glasmacher Schulberatung, an agency specialized on the placement of students from Germany, Austria and Switzerland in British boarding schools. After having spent her Sixth Form at a UK boarding school herself, Theresa first did a banking apprenticeship in Munich. She then studied history and politics at the London School of Economics and at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy (Tufts University) in Boston. After university, Theresa worked in the field of environmental and climate protection in Munich and Berlin, where she was involved in Poland, Hungary and Estonia’s processes of becoming EU members. She joined the family business Glasmacher Schulberatung in 2006 and for many years worked alongside her famous mother Barbara. She has been the agency’s Managing Director since 2013.

Jill Storey, Head of School, Villiers School 

Jill holds a Bachelor’s degree in English and Philosophy and a Master’s degree in Philosophy from the National University of Ireland, Galway. Jill has also achieved a Higher Diploma in Secondary Education and Teaching from University College Dublin, a Graduate Diploma in Additional Educational Needs (AEN) from the Church of Ireland College of Education, a Graduate Diploma in Equality, Diversity & Inclusion from the University of Limerick, and in 2024 qualified in Coaching Practice & Ethics (Specialising in Educational Leadership Coaching).

Jill taught English and led the Additional Educational Needs (AEN) department at Villiers School for more than eleven years, before being appointed Head of School in 2011. Under Jill’s leadership, in 2017, Villiers was the second school in Ireland to be authorised as an IB World School. Jill leads the DEI Working Group in Villiers School, and her passion for equity and inclusion consistently inspires the entire school community.

Olga Govor, Director and Co-founder, Baltic Council

An MA degree in Philology (English & German) and ESL.

Director and Co-owner of Meridian Group ( a language school  and education abroad agency in Latvia) founded in 1994.

Director and Co-founder of Baltic Council for International Education (offices in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland; a provider of education abroad programmes; an organizer of the fair Days of International Education and Secondary Focus; a Cambridge and IELTS exam centre). Both companies are members of BSA and BBSN, also have a status of an ICEF Approved Agent.

Olga has been working with UK public schools and independent colleges since 1996, when she placed her first student at Lancing College. During these years she have visited a lot of schools and has established business relationships with many people in charge including schools registrars, marketing directors and headmasters/headmistresses. She is experienced in counselling families regarding the British education system, different types of boarding schools, programmes, extracurricular activities, guardianship. She has a team of professional and dedicated staff who also visit schools and work with students and their families in the office. She sincerely believes that this is a school that should fit the child, not vice versa and the fact that we have a lot of people coming to us as a result of word of mouth proves that this approach appears to be right. There are many aspects that we take into consideration while recommending this or that school: the child’s academic results, their abilities, hobbies and interests, their character, ambitions and plans for the future. Although in her offices we have several people who deal with boarding schools applications, she remains a main contact for the schools which makes the whole communication process easier.