All posts by David Meddows

How do I apply for an Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA)?

Everything you need to know about the UK Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA):

By April 2025, all visitors who do not need a visa will need an electronic travel authorisation (ETA) to travel to the UK. An ETA is a digital permit that allows people to travel to the UK country without a visa.

ETA app. logo

How do I apply for an Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) for my child?

It is easy to apply for an ETA:

  • The best way to apply is by downloading the UK government app. on your smartphone from the App Store or from Google Play.
  • You will get a faster decision if you apply using the app.
  • Using the app makes it easier to take photos of your child and his/her passport.

The app includes useful information about how to apply.

If you do not have a compatible smartphone, it is also possible to apply through the UK government website.

Watch this video guide from the UK government about how to apply for an Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA):

Should I apply for an ETA using my phone or my child’s phone?

  • It does not matter if you use your phone or your child’s phone to apply for an ETA. The reason is that the ETA will be digitally linked to your child’s passport.
  • However, you must be with your child when you apply. This is because you will need to use the phone’s camera to scan their face.
  • If you are applying for someone who is not with you, you should apply online.

How long does it take to apply for an ETA?

  • It only takes about 10 minutes to apply for an Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA).

How long does it take to get the result of an ETA application?

  • Usually the result will be ready in 3 working days.
  • However, we strongly recommend applying for an Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) as soon as possible.

How much does it cost to apply for an ETA?

  • It costs £10 to apply for an Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA).

What do I need before I apply for an ETA?

To apply for an Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) you will need:

  • Your child’s passport (the original document – NOT a photocopy).
  • A photograph of your child.
  • A credit card, Google Pay or Apple Pay.

*If your child does not have a passport, please apply for a passport as soon as possible.*

How will my child prove that they have an ETA at the airport? Is there a certificate?

  • After you have completed the application you will receive an email and a reference number to show that you have applied for an Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA).
  • Your child’s Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) will be digitally linked to the passport they applied with. So when travelling, your child will only need to show their passport.

Who needs to apply for an ETA?

  • All students who are from countries not requiring a visa to enter the UK, must apply for an Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA).

Who does not need an ETA?

Regarding teenage summer school students:

  • Students who are from a country requiring a visa to enter the UK, do not need an ETA as well.
  • If you have a British passport, you do not need an Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA).

How long is an ETA valid for?

  • An Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) is valid for 2 years or until your passport expires.

Can I use an Electronic Travel Authorisation ETA for multiple entries (trips) to the UK?

  • Yes, an Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) allows you to make multiple trips to the UK.

When can I apply for an ETA?

Citizens from the follow countries can apply from March 5, 2025:

  • Andorra
  • Austria
  • Belgium
  • Bulgaria
  • Croatia
  • Cyprus
  • Czechia
  • Denmark
  • Estonia
  • Finland
  • France
  • Germany
  • Greece
  • Hungary
  • Iceland
  • Italy
  • Latvia
  • Liechtenstein
  • Lithuania
  • Luxembourg
  • Malta
  • Monaco
  • Netherlands
  • Norway
  • Poland
  • Portugal
  • Romania
  • San Marino
  • Slovakia
  • Slovenia
  • Spain
  • Sweden
  • Switzerland
  • Vatican City

Citizens from the follow countries can apply now:

  • Antigua and Barbuda
  • Argentina
  • Australia
  • The Bahamas
  • Bahrain
  • Barbados
  • Belize
  • Botswana
  • Brazil
  • Brunei
  • Canada
  • Chile
  • Costa Rica
  • Grenada
  • Guatemala
  • Guyana
  • Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (including British national overseas)
  • Israel
  • Japan
  • Kiribati
  • Kuwait
  • Macao Special Administrative Region
  • Malaysia
  • Maldives
  • Marshall Islands
  • Mauritius
  • Mexico
  • Federated States of Micronesia
  • Nauru
  • New Zealand
  • Nicaragua
  • Oman
  • Palau
  • Panama
  • Papua New Guinea
  • Paraguay
  • Peru
  • Qatar
  • Samoa
  • Saudi Arabia
  • Seychelles
  • Singapore
  • Solomon Islands
  • South Korea
  • St Kitts and Nevis
  • St Lucia
  • St Vincent and the Grenadines
  • Taiwan (if you have a passport issued by Taiwan that includes in it the number of the identification card issued by the competent authority in Taiwan)
  • Tonga
  • Trinidad and Tobago
  • Tuvalu
  • United Arab Emirates
  • United States
  • Uruguay

Citizens from other countries (not listed above) cannot apply for an ETA.

Check if your child will need a visa on the UK government website.

For more information

For more information about how to apply for an ETA, please visit  the UK government website or call More Than English: +44 1584 812562 (office).

 

AI: More Than Human?

Still No1: The Human Factor

4 days. 32 lecture slots. 500+ lectures.

With the latest news for you from the world of English language teaching, we’re just back from the international IATEFL teachers’ conference. What a difference a year makes. In last year’s conference guide there was only 1 mention of AI. This year there were 46. The good news is that despite the rise of AI, The Human Factor is still No 1. Here’s why:

3 takeaways from the world’s biggest English Language Teaching conference:

The skills that make us Human make us more employable

1 of 3 > Making students more employable:

43% of Gen Z are worried about jobs being lost to AI.

However, Mike Mayor, Senior Director of Pearson’s Global Scale of English identified that the very soft skills that make us human are those that hold the key to students’ future employability:

  • Collaboration
  • Critical Thinking
  • Communication
  • Creativity
  • Leadership
  • Self-Management
  • Social Responsibility

Read more:

Effective strategies for teaching any language with Scott Thornbury

2 of 3 > “Reward communicative competence rather than accuracy”

Any teacher who has studied the CELTA (teaching qualification) will have read teaching methodology books by Scott Thornbury. Exploring the question of whether learning English is different from learning other languages (spoiler: it isn’t) he concluded with 4 main points relevant to teaching any language:

  • Reward communicative competence rather than accuracy
  • Teach grammar responsibly and at the time it is needed
  • Encourage memorisation of high frequency exemplars
  • Project your enthusiasm for the target language

Wise words from the grandmaster himself!

For teenagers experiencing life in an international community on summer school nothing is more joyful than learning new skills and exploring the world together, which is why at More Than English we put meaningful communication at the very heart of our programme from morning to night. Yes, we work hard on helping students develop accuracy and their knowledge of the language. However, what is equally important as how much English they know is what they can do with their English and that requires a whole extra set of ‘human skills’ (see next point).

Read more:
Meaningful Communication @ More Than English (pp10-21)

Chia Suan Chong: “it is relationships & trust that underlies successful communication.”

3 of 3 > Mediation and the power of human relationships

Legendary National Geographic course book writer Chia Suan Chong was clear: “it is relationships and trust that underlies successful communication in today’s world of fast and overwhelming information and AI.” And successful communication requires ‘mediation’ skills, or, in other words, building bridges between people:

Teaching mediation:

  • Transactional: mediating texts
  • Interpersonal: mediating communication
  • Evaluative: mediating concepts

At More Than English we are not just teaching students the language they need to have everyday conversations. We are training them to communicate across cultures and explore the world of ideas from different perspectives. We are training them to work effectively in international teams to develop new skills and deliver projects from Model UN debates to panel discussions and theatre productions. We know, because we have seen it so many times, there is no limit to what our teenagers can achieve together, and for the forseeable future, AI will not come close.

Read more:
Subjects & Specialisms at More Than English (pp10-21)

More Than English founders David Meddows & Claire Norwood @ the 2024 IATEFL conference in Brighton

We’d love to talk with you on any topic from teaching methodology to airport transfers!

76 million reasons

76 million reasons to be positive in 2024:

Let’s be honest, if you turned on the TV news during 2023, you may be starting 2024 with a feeling of trepidation.

Let’s start the New Year with some good news:

100 trees

To celebrate the New Year, working with our partners at Ecologi, we’ve decided to fund planting of 100 extra trees this month. These will be part of a reforestation project in the Mau Region of Kenya (read more).

5,700 hectare reforestation project

Will it make a difference?

Working with people like you and us, Ecologi has already funded 76 million trees.

Want to create more good news?

Discover how your business or your family can become part of the solution with a subscription to Ecologi (read more) or kindly gift more impact from just £15 (GBP) (click here) .

Offset your carbon for the price of a weekly coffee & pastry

You might be surprised

A subscription with Ecologi is more affordable than you think. A family can offset their carbon emissions for about the same price as a cup of coffee & a pastry per week.

100 trees for the new year!

Small changes add up

Imagine: 76 million trees planted as a result of a simple subscription. Proof perhaps that small choices and simple actions made by individuals as consumers, voters, employees and citizens can add up to big changes. That’s all the reason we need to say:

Happy New to you all!

Let’s fill the world with possibility, positivity and progress in 2024.
David & Claire
Founders of More Than English

Create more good news:

Learn more:

Summer School Is Terrifying

Is summer school in the UK scary?

YES! There’s no doubt about it. Summer school in England is terrifying.

  • Travelling to a foreign country.
  • Learning to use develop new skills with other teenagers from 20+ countries
  • Surviving the Black Death.

This year brave students from South America, Asia and every corner of Europe came to More Than English. Watch the video to see how many survived:

As you can see there are so many reasons to feel brave:

1) We have friendly staff

For every 4 students there is 1 member of staff. As you can see in the photographs (below), they are very friendly.

 

2) You will sleep in a building that is only 300 years old

Everybody knows that there are never any ghosts in 300 year old buildings. At Halloween and when there is a full moon, you might see a lady in white looking for her fiance, but only if you are unlucky.

3) You will never do anything scary.

We prefer activities like making tea and picking flowers. We promise you’ll never do anything scary at More Than English.

You see? We told you so.

Still feeling brave? Good: we look forward to seeing you this summer. Our friendly staff will be ready to welcome you:

Find out more about what study options are available at summer school 2024 here. Or, click here to see our excursions & activity programme.

Still feeling afraid? Please watch this extra video to feel much better. See you in July/August 2024:

 

 

Jump into the first days of summer 2023

Jump into the first days of summer 2023!

Dear Parents!

You made the dream possible. Now you can share these precious moments.

For a small flavour of what happened in Week 1, 2023 click on the video.

Enjoy! And thank you.

Claire, David & Team More Than English.

Specialisms

Teaser Trailer

Take a ‘behind the scenes’ look at what our students did on Monday, which was Day 1, Week 1 of afternoon Specialisms.

English as a tool

Specialisms provide an opportunity for our teenagers to work with professional coaches to follow their passion or try something new. Improving their collaborative skills and learning to communicate across cultures, this week our students are using their English to:

  • create a dance show
  • develop their sports skills (Golf, Tennis, Football
  • write stories in English (Creative Writing)
  • learn how to storyboard, script and shoot a movie.

Take a peak

Take a peak at Day 1 of our fast paced four-day Specialism projects. At the time of writing it is Thursday. Tomorrow is Friday, how far will they have progressed? We’ll find out! 

Discovering Oxford 2023

Here we are with the class of 2023 discovering Oxford: the city of dreaming spires.

Come on parents… let’s jump in:
Francesco from Italy with David Meddows (More Than English co-director).

It’s busy. It’s international. It’s inspirational and it’s ours for the day. More Than English co-director David Meddows used to be a lecturer at Oxford Brookes University, so he was our guide for the day.

The Bridge of Sighs, Oxford, named after the Ponte dei Sospiri, Venice.

We got off the coach by the Ashmolean Museum and from there walked past Trinity College and under the Bridge of Sighs, named after the Ponte dei Sospiri in… where else (?) Venice.

Venice has gondolas. Oxford has punts.

Venice? So what do Venice and Oxford have in common? Well, while Venice’s waterways are on an altogether bigger and more dramatic scale, Oxford nevertheless has its own proud tradition of leisurely travel by waterway. In Venice they have the gondola. In Oxford, we have the punt.

Alexi from Mexico discovering the ancient backstreets of Oxford.

Winding our way through the ancient back streets, we walked half-way across the compact city centre ‘soaking in the atmosphere’ of the university colleges (that together make up the University of Oxford) and arrived at Magdalen Bridge for a punt on the river. This activity is in the tradition of Oxford University students who take picnics on punts and reflect on notions of philosophy, art and science.

**Warning: this video contains scenes of a duck attack on our students!**

Crossing the road we immediately entered the vast campus and lands of Christchurch College, you know, the one whose dining room features in the Harry Potter movies.

From there a leisurely walk brought us to the Covered Market where students enjoyed looking around the boutique shops. Our final destination was inevitably the Westgate Shopping Centre which provided students with a well-earned opportunity for retail therapy and a chance simply to relax and spend time together conversing in their linguafranca: English.

A fantastic day: congratulations to all our students.

Important: no ducks were harmed in the making of this video.

Home is where the heart is: a light game of football back in the spectacular grounds of Moor Park to finish off the day.

What’s for dinner chef?

A journey through food

Part of ‘feeling at home’ is having healthy and delicious food that makes you feel good.

Let’s take a quick look at what is happening in the kitchen:

Our team of chefs’ mantra is “locally sourced, globally inspired.” That means your children will try food from around the world including some British food.

British day

On Sunday we enjoyed that most traditional of English dishes: the roast dinner including Yorkshire Pudding.

Tacos without chillis?

Can you imagine Mexican tachos without the heat of chillis? The British cannot imagine roast dinner without gravy: it’s the ‘sauce’ that contains all the flavour.

The same day we enjoyed English breakfast (eggs, bacon, hashbrowns, tomatoes and toast) with an English picnic for tea by the lake in the spectacular 20-hectare grounds of Moor Park.

Bite-size snacks

Do you remember when your mother used to say ‘don’t eat too much now or you’ll spoil your dinner?’ Mother, of course, was right.

That’s why every day we also have ‘bitesize’ snacks at 1100am. Can you see the brownies in the photo? Deliciously ‘choclatey’ but with reduced sugar so everyone eats well at lunch.

To keep students ‘powered up’ during their busy day we also have snacks at afternoon break during Specialisms and  something light to eat at supper.

We’ll be visiting the kitchen again very soon! 

 

 

What are we going to learn?

Powerful life lessons

On the morning of the first full day, we asked students: “what are you going to learn” on summer school?”

Here’s what your children said:

Confidence:

The students told us how much they will miss their parents. They also told us that travelling independently without parents is an opportunity to gain self-confidence. We couldn’t agree more.

Communicating across cultures:

Our students understand that communicating with other teenagers from other cultures is a challenge, but also richly rewarding. While misundertandings can and will happen, gaining lifelong friends from the other side of the world is an opportunity not to be missed.

Global issues

Brazilians are experiencing climate change in one way. French in quite another. The students commented on the rich possibilities to look at global issues from the perspective of other teenagers in different countries.

Critical Thinking Skills

Developing language skills is of course important, but just as important as ‘how much English you know’ is ‘what you can do with the English you know.’ By exploring world issues and finding solutions to problems, our students will be developing their Critical Thinking Skills.

Collaborative Skills

10 hours to create a dance show. One week to learn the language of speech making then research and deliver your own speech. 4 afternoons to make script, shoot and edit a film. Looking after each other in the residence. Working together to keep bedrooms tidy. Our students understand that ‘no man is an island’ and together we achieve more.

Confidence

In their own towns and cities our students go to school with other teenagers they have known their whole lives. Here on summer school there is a golden opportunity for our students to redefine and expand their idea of who they are and who they want to be.

Any group of strangers who face a challenging new environment together become very close to each other as they travel that journey together. Being on summer school brings out the best in most teenagers helping them to develop their kinder more supportive side. Maybe the thought of speaking on stage in front of the whole school back home is terrifying. But here, with your new international friends who have joined you on the very same journey, suddenly you feel like you are with people who have ‘got your back’ and will support and applaud you to the very rafters.

Got a presentation to deliver in class tomorrow? No problem.

Language Skills

Naturally, all of this collaboration, thinking and doing will add up to rapid advances in English Language fluency. Very soon our students will be dreaming in English. But, if and only if, they apply everything that they told us on the first day.

Our students know what they have to do and what the benefits are. Together, we can make this summer a time of life changing moments. Thank you parents for giving us the opportunity to make this magic happen. You are superbeings too.

The Superbeings have ARRIVED!

Image

They came. They made friends. They impressed.

Thank you to our incredible team

A huge thank you to ou incredible team. You never stopped smiling despite some huge airport delays.

The power of youth

What was our first impression? Delight, to see children from countries including Mexico, Spain, Italy, Romania, Brazil,  France, Belgium and Czech Republic almost immediately using English to play board games as if they known each other for years.

Even after those long journeys, the children did not seem tired at all! So, they needed a short game of football to finish their arrival day.

Lights out!

Time to sleep zzzz. Good night everyone.