Dear Friends,

Greetings from the team at Bristol International College!

I am delighted to report that the summer has finally arrived, with Bristol and the rest of the UK bathed in glorious sunshine.  It has been a most welcome relief and we are all making the most of the wonderful British countryside.  Bristol has seen a real increase in visitors as consumer confidence returns and it is wonderful to see so many people enjoying the open green-space, historical sights and restaurants in the city, all offering a very warm welcome.

The value of teaching life skills

How to save money, start a business and look after their mental health are among the key life skills adults wish they’d been taught at school. Research of 1,000 parents of children aged 11-16 revealed they also wish they’d been taught how to organise their finances, create a CV and use maths in real life. Others say it would have been useful if teachers could have covered the basics on how to speak publicly and the importance of confidence.

It also emerged many think ‘life skills’ programmes should be offered to students at school – delivering knowledge about how to budget or start a business.  Most parents don’t feel prepared enough to teach their kids important life skills and would like to offer their children more opportunities to learn them – but don’t know how to go about it.

A spokesman from 8billionideas, which commissioned the poll, said: “Parents are clearly really keen to give their children the best chance in life and support them in any way they can. The opportunity to learn certain skills that could help them thrive plays a major part in that – but it can be difficult to know where to start.”

At Bristol International College the teaching of life skills such as confident conversational skills, how to study and live independently, and preparing for a career, is an integral part of the programme we offer, whether online or in person at our College in Bristol.

Girls’ education is the smartest post-Covid investment

British prime minister Boris Johnson is urging world leaders to back plans to get 40 million more girls in developing countries in school, calling it “one of the smartest investments we can make”. This is a focus of the UK’s presidency of the G7 group of leading economies.

He recently took part in a video link-up with schoolchildren in Kenya to promote access to education for girls. The prime minister announced an extra £55m for a global education project to share information on what works best in improving school systems, particularly in Kenya, Rwanda, Sierra Leone and Pakistan.

Since his time as foreign secretary, Mr Johnson has argued that widening access for education for girls is a highly-effective way of driving development in some of the world’s poorest countries, in places where girls had often been at risk of missing out on school.
As well as getting 40 million more girls into school in low-income countries, the G7’s target will be for 20 million more girls to be reading by the age of 10.