Welcome to the PSO Buddy Family program! We support new families by pairing them with an established family who already has some experience at the school and living in Surrey or London. Buddy families can help new families with questions about how things work at school, where to shop, how to find a doctor and many more things. Simply extending the hand of friendship can be a life changing event.
New Families
Sign up for a Buddy Family by emailing the Buddy Programme Coordinator below. The Buddy Programme Coordinator will then send you some questions so that you can be matched up with the right Buddy family.
As much as possible, matches will be made on the basis of nationality, ages of children, native language and/or UK town of residence.
Returning Families
We need returning families to volunteer to be a “Buddy Family”. It is a simple thing for a volunteer to do, but it can make a big difference to new families.
To volunteer to be a Buddy Family for the 2021-22 school please email the Buddy Programme Coordinator below. The Buddy Programme Coordinator will then send you via email a few short questions so that we can make the best match possible between new families and returning families!
Buddy Family Experiences
HOST: The family was really glad to hear from me because they needed some information about the computer they should buy and so on. We contacted each other several times and I invited them to my house. I also invited some other Japanese families who have children in High School so they became friends before school began.
NEW: We had a lovely experience with the buddy family. My buddy told me about All passes which we would need. And took me around to show where to places I would need…playgrounds I need to know…Info about after school classes. She is wonderful.
NEW: For me , my buddy was wonderful as she could tell me about registering with the NHS, etc as well as recommending supermarkets, doctors, hairdressers, etc in the local area and talking about “how things worked in the UK”.