The BFF Video Courses | Streaming from 1 September

The training your international team has needed for years.

Five courses. Twenty-five weeks of material your team can use the moment they leave the screen.

50% off for the first 30 BFF 3.0 delegates. Once those places are gone, standard pricing applies. Use code BFFCOURSE50

You're good at your job. Your school is good at what it does. And yet.

Families who seemed keen go quiet. Agents who promised volume send you one or two students a year, if that. Your pastoral team care deeply about the international students in their charg and still sometimes miss what's really going on. A deposit clears and somehow the family still doesn't feel like they've truly arrived.

None of this is failure. It's a gap and it's a gap almost every school has, because nobody taught you this part.

The families you want – the ones who stay, refer, and build your reputation in markets you'll never visit — can tell the difference between a school that understands them and one that doesn't. That difference is not your facilities. It's not your results. It's the people. It's how your team thinks, listens, responds and follows through.

That's what these courses are for.

Who you'll learn from

We have spent careers inside this world.

Not observing it. Inside it.

Susan Fang

International Market Expert

Years embedded in the Chinese education market, working directly with the agents who build shortlists, brief families and decide which schools they recommend. She knows what makes a school easy to work with and what makes them quietly move on.

Sarah Kershaw

ADMISSIONS SPECIALIST

Has sat inside admissions teams and knows exactly where international families are lost: not at the open day, not at the offer, but in the small friction points that schools never see because families don't say.

Sarah Capewell

GUARDIANSHIP & PASTORAL EXPERT

Works at the intersection of tutoring, guardianship and premium international practice. The person schools call when something isn't working with an international student and she knows what a school that gets it looks like from the outside.

Five courses

What's inside

Twenty-five weeks of material your team can use the moment they leave the screen. Every course includes a practical takeaway tool.

Led by Susan Fang · For admissions, marketing, registrars & international coordinators

The Engine Room

How to run your agent network

Most schools have agent relationships. Fewer have agent strategies. This course is the difference.

Week 1: Choosing the right agents — the non-negotiables and red flags; telling a serious agent from a volume merchant; the one who oversells, never visits, churns families or goes quiet once commission clears.

Week 2: What agents actually want and why it isn't only commission. Apart from response speed, what else can you do to build trust and make the agents look good in front of their clients.

Week 3: Beyond befriending the owner and reaching the frontline. With larger agencies you hold one head of partnerships, so how do your updates and offers reach the counsellor sitting with the family?

Week 4: What keeps you visible and what is theatre. Parent-facing fairs, agent-facing events, newsletters, video memos, social channels: which move placements, which are expensive habits.

Week 5: Rewarding loyalty so your best agents stay. Mechanisms not sentiment. Second-year retention commission, how to reward a family referral while still crediting the agent who brought the first lead.

Takeaway tool: the Agent Relationship Audit

Led by Sarah Kershaw · For admissions and marketing teams

From Enquiry to Deposit

Winning the international family

The family found you. They were interested. And then they weren't. This course is about closing the gap between interest and commitment without chasing, discounting, or guessing.

Week 1: Why your school blurs with four others. Becoming legible to an agent building a shortlist at 11pm, not just a British parent browsing on a Sunday. What makes a school cheap or expensive to recommend in friction, not fees.

Week 2: Speed is the deal. Admissions through the agent's eyes. Why response time is the biggest conversion lever and commitment has a half-life measured in hours.

Week 3: Selection without friction; exams and application design. How processes built for British families deter international ones and how to simplify the route in without weakening the robustness of selection.

Week 4: The offer and the deposit, made clear. The misunderstandings that lose families at the last step, and how yours stacks up against rivals.

Week 5: The handover that doesn't drop the family. Turning a cleared deposit into a confident arrival and why payment is a beginning, not an end.

Takeaway tool: the Conversion Scorecard

Led by Sarah Capewell (Wks 1 & 5) & Susan Fang (Wks 2–4) · For boarding, pastoral & guardianship leads

The Handover

Pre-departure to settled-in: the seam where children fall through

The deposit has cleared. The place is confirmed. And this is exactly when most schools stop paying attention, which is exactly when the family starts forming their long-term opinion of you.

Week 1: Pre-departure: priming the child before they fly. The academic prep work a school can issue in advance and the emotional groundwork that prevents avoidable first-term shock before anyone boards a plane.

Week 2: Holistic readiness beyond the medical form and packing list. Money and how a teenager manages it, phones, food and homesickness, faith and diet, what a British weekend really looks like, the social codes nobody writes down.

Week 3: Saying yes or no to the family's chosen guardian. Not a formality; the wrong guardian can sink a visa and threaten the school's sponsor licence. How to assess a proposed guardian and when to decline one, kindly but firmly.

Week 4: Protocols and escalation; communicating through guardian and agent. Who talks to the family, through which channel and in what order.

Week 5: Ongoing support. The scaffolding around the child. Building durable external support so the handover becomes a structure that tracks language and wellbeing against academic progress all year.

Takeaway tool: the Handover Protocol

Led by Sarah Capewell · For pastoral and boarding teams

Reading the Room

Cultural intelligence for international student care

This is the course your pastoral team didn't know they needed until the moment they did and it was too late.

Week 1: The performance of confidence. What families present; the polite unrevealing email, the smile at the open evening, the "everything's fine" that means the opposite. Why silence is an unraised concern, not satisfaction.

Week 2: Why they won't tell you — face, filial duty and shame. Why admitting difficulty carries a weight British staff underestimate and how duty and shame shape what can and cannot be voiced.

Week 3: The signals on the ground. What to watch when words give nothing away; distress that acts in not out, disappearance not disruption, the student who complies their way into invisibility.

Week 4: Responding without causing loss of face. How to raise a concern and intervene so a student and family save face rather than retreat further.

Week 5: Communicating with families across the gap. Reporting, reassuring and delivering hard news across culture and language without alarm or mistrust, so the channel stays open all year.

Takeaway tools: First-Term Risk Map & Cultural Response Guide

Led by Susan Fang (Wks 2–4) & Sarah Kershaw (Wks 1 & 5) · For heads of sixth form, careers, marketing & senior leaders

The Outcomes Conversation

University, destinations and the reputation that compounds

Your results are strong. But the families choosing between you and a competitor school don't always know that yet and by the time they do, they've often already decided.

Week 1: The destinations families judge you by and the routes to them. Why a list with Stanford and HKU does more for Asian recruitment than any prospectus, plus the rising US and Asia routes and why UCAS-only guidance fails a growing share of families.

Week 2: Win the parents first, early. In many cultures parents lead and decide. If you want a student to own their success, bring the parents with you first — and that takes time, so it starts years out, not in the upper sixth.

Week 3: What actually builds a strong applicant and what's just peace of mind. An honest weighting of internships, tutoring, exam prep and summer schools.

Week 4: Results day and Clearing, handled from afar. The 48 hours that set a narrative for a student alone abroad, and how to get a disappointed student into a proper university rather than the foundation programme they're quietly steered toward.

Week 5: The influence that compounds. Peers, alumni and parents as the referral engine in markets you'll never visit and how to keep those relationships alive rather than letting them lapse after Year 13.

Takeaway tool: the Destination Reputation Audit

WhAT CHANGES

What your school looks like on the other side

Agents who know your name, trust your process and bring you families worth having.

An admissions team that converts international enquiries with confidence, not guesswork.

Pastoral staff who know what to look for, how to read it and what to do when a student is struggling but won't say so.

Families who feel held from the moment the deposit clears — not just managed.

Students who reach their destination universities. Who call home with good news.

The quiet, compounding effect of a school that truly gets it. That is what international reputation is built on.

What the people who know us say

Trusted by the sector.

"Susan brings a depth of knowledge about the Chinese education market that is genuinely rare. Her insight into how agents think and what families are really looking for has changed how we approach our international strategy."

– Christine Cunniffe, Principal of LVS Ascot

"Sarah's webinars are always the ones I leave with pages of notes. She has a gift for making you see your own practice differently and for giving you something concrete to do about it before the week is out."

– Sallie Taylor, Director of External Relations, Royal High School, Bath

"I really enjoyed working with Sarah. She is professional, reliable and always has a great sense of what can work best for the individual students. She is one of the best."

– Olivia Fan, Founder, UK Schooling Experience

Early access pricing — first 30 places only

50% off for BFF 3.0 delegates

Use code BFFCOURSE50

You are seeing these courses before they go on general sale. The prices below are 50% off the standard rates that apply when the courses launch publicly on 1 September 2026. Courses are licensed by team size – named logins, streamed on demand.

SMALL SCHOOL

Up to 5 users

One Course

£475

All five courses

Saving £900

£1,475

best value

MEDIUM SCHOOL

Up to 15 users

One Course

£725

All five courses

Saving £1,375

£2,250

LARGE SCHOOL / DEPARTMENT

Up to 30 users

One Course

£975

All five courses

Saving £1,900

£2,975

Individual seat

For tutors, agents, guardians and solo practitioners. One person, one course, one year's access.

£175 per course/per year

Note: 50% discount cannot be applied for individual seats.

Why the bundle makes sense

The single course is the right buy if you have one specific, fixable problem. The bundle is the right buy if you want to change how your school thinks about international students from first enquiry to final destination. Five courses. Every takeaway tool. A saving of 35–40% on five singles. And a 60-minute Strategic Debrief with a BFF presenter – included.

OUR PROMISE TO YOU

We stand behind this content.

If after week one the courses are not right for your team, contact us. We will make it right. This content has been built with care and we mean that.

All courses stream from 1 September 2026. Access continues for as long as the course is on the platform.

FAQ's

Can we buy one course rather than the bundle?

Yes. A single course licence is available at the prices above. It is the right choice if you have one specific gap to close. The bundle is the right choice if you want to shift how your whole team approaches international recruitment and care.

How do named logins work?

Each licence covers a set number of named users: five for a Small licence, fifteen for Medium, thirty for Large or department. Logins are personal and not transferable mid-year.

Can we use the courses for staff training sessions?

Yes – this is exactly what they are designed for. Each week's video combined with the takeaway tool makes a natural staff training session. The Strategic Debrief included with the bundle is the ideal anchor for rolling this out across your team.

What if it isn't right for us?

Contact us after week one and we will make it right. We are confident in this content and want your team to feel the same

When do the courses go live?

1 September 2026. Licences can be secured now at founding prices.

READY TO BRING THIS TO YOUR TEAM?

You came to BFF 3.0 because you believe in doing this work properly.

These courses are the next step. Early access pricing is available for the first 30 delegates. Once those places are taken, standard pricing applies and this rate is gone.