MB: We’re owned by Study Group and our reason for being, our mission, is to give a pathway for students to progress to UK universities. We’ve got GCSE and conventional A Level provision and we’ve also got our own Bellerbys-designed, one-year foundation course, moderated by Lancaster University.

The PIE: Tell me about the new specialisms across the four Bellerbys colleges.

MB: Brighton does a full range of courses, with a special focus on GCSE programmes offering full boarding provision; the other colleges are now specialising. Cambridge is Engineering and Science because of its links with the area in technology; London is business, being in the commercial capital; and Oxford is for Creative Studies, focusing on Art, Humanities and Law.

Being based in Oxford it’s great for law; we’ve got the law courts here or we can get down to London quickly. And we’ve put in quite a bit of investment on the creative side – we’ve increased from one to three art studios; we’ve got a new darkroom, film and editing suites, and a print room.

I think it’s being well received in the market. Rather than trying to be a ‘jack of all trades and master of none’, we’ve now got a much stronger focus. We’re into our first full cycle of recruitment now and I’m pleased to say the numbers for September are up. We’re quite excited about that and we’re trying to encourage the market to direct to us creative students, thinkers, people who want to influence society.

“The majority of our students come here with a burning passion to get back to their own countries and influence change”

The PIE: Have you seen much change in the subjects international students are interested in over the years?

MB: I think it’s quite timely, because there’s a growing interest in foreign countries for the more arts, media related subjects – whereas I think if you looked at the market ten years ago it would be business, business and more business. There is a growing interest to diversify and the majority of our students come here with a burning passion to get back to their own countries and influence change, so getting a broader range of skills is really good as well.

The PIE: So you have all the creative students!

MB: It’s certainly changed the feel of the college; I’ve already noticed that. Whilst we loved dearly and we’re sorry to lose Science and Engineering, they’re a serious bunch of students, and very dedicated but quite quiet, whereas we’re getting more bubbly and interactive and creative students. It’s lovely. Very creative, very enthusiastic.

The PIE: How many students do you have?

MB: 290 at the moment. GCSE is very small, about 10; A Level about 40 and the rest are foundation.

The PIE: And where do they come from?

MB: We have 46 different nationalities on site. China is quite a large market and growing.

The PIE: Have you seen any fallout from the rouble crash in terms of your enrolments?

MB: We have experienced in the last couple of years numbers increasing, and we haven’t seen any evidence yet that that’s changing – but realistically, I think it probably will. It depends a little bit how long it goes on for, but given we’re just winding up to full speed for recruitment for September, I think it’s round about now we’ll start to see whether there’s going to be an impact.

“We’re trying to develop our infrastructure all the time into places like South America, so wherever there’s a potential we’re trying to recruit”

The PIE: If you did see numbers dropping off would you try and ramp up recruitment in that region or let other markets fill the gap?

MB: A bit of both, I think. It’s a difficult thing to push back against – there are a lot of factors that are outside our control. And we’re trying to develop our infrastructure all the time into places like South America, so wherever there’s a potential we’re trying to recruit.

The PIE: A number of independent schools have said they’re seeing more students coming abroad at a younger age. Have you seen that at Bellerbys?

MB: We’ve got a very small cohort for GCSE, but Brighton are focused on that; it’s a new market for Bellerbys so early days, but we believe this to be a growing market.

One of the obvious advantages is that if a university’s got thousands of applications on their desk, they’re more likely to go for the ones that look outstanding and have a well structured academic history. So I guess that’s where the demand is coming from.

The PIE: From an academic perspective, do you think it makes it easier for students to progress when they have that foundation at a younger age?

“Any opportunity to get into English education earlier is an advantage”

MB: I think probably it does. There’s a lot to take on board in a year while studying and getting your English level up, so any opportunity to get into English education earlier I would think is an advantage.

The PIE: Do you offer additional English support?

MB: We run English language courses and we also put on additional IELTS classes, which support these courses because most UK universities would expect 6 or 6.5 IELTS. Our entry requirements are actually foundation 4.5 and A Level 5.5, so particularly on foundation we’ve got quite a lot of work to do to get them up to that level.

The PIE: And how else do you equip students for university?

MB: I think people focus on our academic achievement and progression, but what we try to do is think of each student as a customer – and we want to give our customers an experience that prepares them for university. So obviously they’ve got to get the qualifications to get there, but through things like enrichment or sports and social clubs we’re trying to give them an experience that prepares them for university.

We also do some lecture-style delivery and one of the new things we’re looking at is e-portfolios, because increasingly we’re seeing universities are quite happy to click onto a website and see students’ art or sketches, or even their essays. It really is a holistic thing where we’re trying to make sure that when they get to university, they can make the most of that opportunity.

“One of the myths is that students could do Law A Level and go on to do Law at university, when that’s almost the last thing a university wants”

The PIE: When students come to you for pathways, do they tend to have a pretty good idea where they’d like to progress to?

MB: You get quite a variety. I think the real challenge is A Level, where students have a couple of top universities in their mind but they don’t know what the best combination of A Levels is to support that route, so there’s quite a lot of discussion to help them understand what they want to do.

We spend quite a lot of time talking to agents about A Level choices. One of the myths we were trying to counter is that students could come here and do Law A Level and go on to do Law at university, when that’s almost the last thing a university wants. What a university wants is someone who’s intellectually bright, who’s inquisitive, who’s challenging; but in fact, quite often in law they talk about undoing things that were taught at A Level. What they’d much rather see is a combination of facilitating subjects: Maths, History and Biology or a combination, so they’ve got a broad base before they start their degree course.

The PIE: Do you work quite closely with agents?

MB: Yes, we’ll get the agents come over and they’ll visit all the colleges, because from their point of view, when they support and advise a student, they have to live with that responsibility as well. If it doesn’t work out for them, it reflects badly on them and ourselves in their markets, so they’re as keen as anybody to understand what each college has to offer.

The PIE: With the general election coming up, are there any issues you’ll be looking out for that might affect international education?

“The government is tending towards tightening up visas controls, which does make it harder for us to attract new customers”

MB: My personal view – and I think it would be echoed elsewhere – is that the government at the moment is tending towards tightening up visas controls, which does in effect make it harder for us as international colleges to attract new customers.

The sad thing about it is I think they did a very similar thing in Australia a few years ago and then their numbers decreased rapidly – and then they realised they were losing a lot of revenue and reversed the policy. Australia is now seen as a growing market, as well as the US; whereas in the UK, while we’ve got a tremendous reputation for education, it’s just getting tougher and tougher.

I think we do a really good job here; I’m really proud of the progression we’re able to give to our customers. Bellerbys overall got 87% of students into a top 50 university; Oxford got 79% of our A-level students into Russell Group universities.

So all we can do is produce the figures and do the job, and hope that we can convince people that we are providing a great service to international students.