Significant safeguarding rule changes for Child Student Sponsors

The Home Office recently announced significant new safeguarding changes to the Child Student Visa route, which will affect independent schools sponsoring Child Students. Due to come into effect on 29 May 2025, the measures are aimed at strengthening child safeguarding with new requirements relating to sponsored boarders and their care arrangements outside of school boarding.

All student sponsors (including universities and colleges), however, also need to brace themselves for other key immigration changes, including CAS and visa fee increases, a new Genuine Intention to Study requirement in the Short Term Student Visa route, the removal of visa correction changes from the Administrative Review process, a new Recruitment Agent field on CAS, plus new permitted Remote Delivery teaching provisions for certain Higher Education Providers. These Study Route changes are explored in a separate article.

Child safeguarding changes in Child Student Visa route

The Child Student Visa route is for children between the ages of 4-17 who wish to study at an independent school in the UK. With child safeguarding a long standing area of concern for the Home Office, there are already specific Child Student Safeguarding Duties set out in the Student Sponsor Guidance. All student sponsors who recruit enrol students under the age of 18 must ensure that there are suitable care arrangements in place for them in the UK.

However, the new child safeguarding rules are designed to ensure that sponsored Child Students are placed into appropriate UK care and living arrangements with additional requirements relating to Parental Consent and Nominated Guardians.

Under the new Child Student Visa rules:

• A Child Student must live in the UK in one of the new list of six permitted UK living arrangements. Two new categories have been added to the current four permitted UK living arrangements to account for the different types of boarding arrangements where a Child Student is at a residential boarding school in the UK. The two new categories include:
  • Weekly boarding at a residential independent school during term time and at weekends, and outside of term time living with a private foster carer or a close relative; and
  • Flexi boarding at a residential independent school, and also being cared for by a person who is a private foster carer or close relative.

Full time boarding at a residential independent school remains one of the permitted UK living arrangements but with new conditions on the sponsored boarder’s UK care arrangements outside of term time, as examined below.

The three other permitted UK living arrangements for Child Students are as follows:

• Living with a private foster carer or close relative who is a British Citizen or settled in the UK;
• Living with a parent or legal guardian who has permission as a Parent of a Child Student; or
• Aged 16 or 17 and living independently.

• Under the new rules, the Parental Consent letter should also specifically confirm with which of the six permissible UK living arrangements the Child Student will enter into in the UK. There is also an indication that student sponsors may need to insert the Child Student’s UK living arrangement on the CAS but this is yet to be specifically confirmed by the Home Office.
• A definition of a ‘Nominated Guardian’ will be added to the Child Student Visa Rules for the first time. A ‘Nominated Guardian’ will now be expressly defined in the Immigration Rules as a person “aged 18 years old or over who is appointed by the Child Student’s parent, legal guardian, or school as the Child Student’s carer in the UK outside of term time for less than 28 days and / or is the school’s emergency contact in the UK.” A ‘Nominated Guardian’ is further defined as a person who is not a private foster carer, close relative or the Child Student’s parent who has immigration permission as a Parent of a Child Student.
• With the new Child Student rules now distinguishing between full, weekly and flexi boarding, there are new conditions on care arrangements when a sponsored boarder is not in the care of their school as set out below:
• Full Boarders: Must stay at school during term time and with a British Citizen / settled person who is either a ‘Nominated Guardian’, private foster carer or close relative outside of term time.
• Weekly / Flexi Boarders: Must stay with a British citizen / settled person who is either a private foster carer or close relative at weekends/when not boarding and during holidays.
• Under the new Child Student Visa rules, ‘Nominated Guardians’ will now have to meet the same Child Student visa application requirements as for close relatives and private foster carers. This means the Nominated Guardian, private foster carer or close relative must be a British Citizen or settled in the UK. The Nominated Guardian must also now provide a ‘letter of undertaking’ with the Child Student’s visa application confirming certain information about the proposed UK care arrangements and their contact details. This letter of undertaking will be in addition to the Parental Consent letter requirement.
• Home Office caseworkers will have broader powers to refuse a Child Student Visa application where the Child Student’s intended UK carer has committed a relevant criminal offence, or where they are not satisfied there are appropriate care, living and, where applicable, guardianship arrangements in place for the applicant’s safety whilst in the UK. An example of a relevant criminal offence is one in the UK or overseas for which the person has received a custodial sentence of 12 months or more. This power to refuse a Child Student Visa application on criminality grounds extends to anyone ‘regularly living with the Nominated Guardian’.
• Child Student Sponsors will also have a new duty to make reasonable efforts to collect information on travel arrangements for sponsored students with a ‘Nominated Guardian’.
• Sponsors will have to:
  • Keep records of when the child is arriving;
  • Record details of the person collecting the child;
  • Record where the child will be staying if they are not proceeding directly to school; and
  • Report to the relevant authority if the child does not arrive at school.

The rationale for this new duty is to account for the fact that sponsored boarders can arrive in the UK up to one month before their course start date – and before they are in the care of their school sponsor. The Home Office therefore wants sponsors to have more oversight in relation to a Child Student’s UK travel and reception arrangements. This is especially because ‘Nominated Guardians’ do not fall within the safeguarding remit of the local authority in the way that private foster carers do.

Further clarity awaited from Home Office on Child Student Visa Rule changes

For many sponsored Child Students in full time boarding, the child safeguarding rule changes mean that there will be a new mandatory visa requirement to have a ‘Nominated Guardian’ in the UK when they are outside the school’s care. However, the independent school sector urgently awaits further clarity from the Home Office about what the new rules mean in practice for flexi and weekly boarders, given such boarders requiring Child Student visa sponsorship are not permitted to have a ‘Nominated Guardian’ when they are not under the care of their school.

It is hoped that updated Student Sponsor Guidance and Student and Child Student Caseworker Guidance, from 29 May 2025, will also provide much needed clarity on other areas of the new rules, including how the Home Office will assess whether a proposed UK living arrangement poses a safeguarding risk and whether the new duty to record travel arrangements only applies to full time boarders with Nominated Guardians. We understand from the Home Office that a new FAQ document is also being prepared on UK living arrangements and Nominated Guardians.

Actions for Child Student sponsors in light of Child Student Visa Rule changes

What is clear, however, is that the new child safeguarding measures mean that Child Student sponsors need to be far more diligent about checking a Child Student’s UK living and care arrangements before a CAS is assigned. Child Student sponsors need to update their internal processes and policies in light of the upcoming Child Student visa changes to remain compliant and also protect their visa refusal rates for Basic Compliance Assessment purposes.

In particular, student sponsors should check:

• What are the intended UK care and living arrangements for the prospective Child Student?
• Do such UK care and living arrangements fall within one of the six permissible UK living arrangements?
• Are such UK care and living arrangements appropriate for that particular student and do they present no safeguarding risks? This assessment is also important for sponsored day students aged 16 or 17 who have the right to live independently in the UK as one of the six permissible living arrangements.
• What are the proposed travel and reception arrangements on the student’s UK arrival? Although the new duty to record travel arrangements appears to only extend to full time boarders with a Nominated Guardian, sponsors should consider collating similar information as best practice safeguarding compliance for all their sponsored students under the age of 18.

Student sponsors should also ensure that mandatory parental letters of consent and letters of undertaking (where applicable) are obtained and retained on file, again ideally before a CAS is assigned.

Contact us

If you have any queries about how the new Child Student safeguarding rules affect your education institution and international students, please contact Anna Blackden or submit an enquiry form, below.