English Language Courses for Juniors

Group Programmes

Newquay Open Learning CentreDisco PartyKaraoke nightTruro High common room

  • Adult supervision throughout the day during the language course in the mornings, afternoon and evening activities. Host families are required to pick up their students from evening activities that end at 9.00 p.m. or later.
  • In two of our centres, i.e. St. Austell and Newquay, the host families drive the students to the teaching centres every morning and pick them up from specified locations at the end of the day’s programme.
  • Host families meet their students on arrival at specified locations and bring them back for departure.
  • In large cities such as Plymouth where the students need to use public transport for their daily travel, the host families are made responsible to ensure that they know their precise bus or train routes. The cost of all bus and train tickets are included in the course price.
  • The Centre Supervisor uses a register to check the students in every morning. He or she is also present at the end of the day’s activities to make sure that all the students know how to get home using the public transport system. The chief activities leader is instructed to assist the foreign group leaders and the Centre Supervisor in ensuring that the students can move around the cities in safety.
  • All students under the age of 16 and all juniors on short stays of less than a week are banned from going out alone in the evenings. The host families are given strict instructions about this. Older juniors are required to be home by 9.00 p.m. at the latest.
  • Printed information and guidelines on a range of safety issues are given to all students. The teachers are required to go through these information leaflets with them on the first day of every course.
  • Emergency contact numbers are provided for all students. They are required to carry with them at all times the address and telephone number of their host families as well as their own ID cards. All group leaders and host families are instructed to have their students’ mobile phone numbers.
  • The Centre Supervisor is on call 24 hours per day for all emergencies including medical. He or she assists group leaders in taking students to doctors and hospitals where necessary.

Individual Programmes

  • A transfer service is offered for all juniors travelling on their own. A licensed car company is used to meet the students on arrival at the airport and drive them to their host family and to take them back for departure in the same way. The name and the telephone number of the driver is made available both to the agent sending the students and the host family. The mobile telephone number of the student is also made available to the driver. The drivers are instructed to inform a named person from Mercator and the relevant host family as soon as he or she has picked up the student.
  • Some agents arrange group travels for their individual students and send a leader who visits them during the stay and is in regular telephone contact with them.
  • A named person from Mercator contacts all students and their families soon after arrival to ensure all is well. Parents also of course are in contact with their children and are encouraged to contact Mercator should they detect anything being wrong.
  • Essentially the host families are in charge of the students’ safety and security. They can call on Mercator for assistance where necessary.