GOING BACK TO OUR ROOTS FOR A TRULY INDEPENDENT FUTURE
We are announcing today that as of last week, and by mutual agreement, it has been decided that the AEGIS/BSA partnership will not continue.
The Trustees, the office team, and many of our members felt that although the relationship was positive in many ways for the exposure it gave us, we felt we were losing our important identity as an independent inspectorate and membership association.
We have been the leading experts in educational guardianship since 1994 so from today we have decided to look back at why AEGIS started in the first place. Independence is our core value and we need to grow in size and strength whilst maintaining integrity, transparency and autonomy.
INDEPENDENCE MEANS FREEDOM TO FLY
Guardianship is not only offered at boarding schools but also at state day schools, universities and colleges. It is essential that AEGIS retains its independence in order to retain its credibility as the only inspectorate in the UK for guardianship organisations who offer their services at all these different institutions.
CREDIBILITY IS KEY
Recent meetings with the DfE, ISI, ISA and other important associations has further increased our exposure and improved our reputation.
Parents also contract a guardianship organisation as an independent support service to safeguard their child in the UK.
WE ARE HERE TO HELP AND SUPPORT YOU
We want you to know that AEGIS is the voice of guardianship organisations and we are here to support you. The ongoing Coronavirus crisis has brought us all together as a united front and we hope that you feel supported by AEGIS and helped in putting out group messaging to schools on our position. Please continue to ask us for guidance and support and we will bring all guardianship organisation members together to reach a solution.
WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?
We have so many plans for AEGIS. Over the coming months we will be updating you, our valued members, on a host of new developments and plans for the future.
With the networking we are doing and the awareness-raising that we will continue to work on with DfE and other important stakeholders in the safeguarding of international children, we are confident that being AEGIS accredited will soon be much more of a requirement from institutions rather than us being a link on their guardianship page.