Georgette McCready meets the couple behind a series of antenatal and parenting courses for parents
Edward and Sabina Borton, a couple with wide professional experiences and strong Bath links, run ESB Consulting which offers supportive antenatal and parenting courses for parents and services to help find the best education for children.
ESB offers support for families who may be re-locating, who have not been able to source professional antenatal advice or require guidance on early years parenting.
Sabina trained at the prestigious Norland College in Bath (2010 – 2012) and has worked with a range of UHNW (ultra-high-net worth) and royal families in the UK and around the world. She wanted to move into consultancy having got to the very top of her career and also coinciding with the birth of their son, who is now nearly two.
Edward grew up in Bath, where his family still live, and attended Prior Park College. His career in teaching included working in senior leadership at King’s College School, Wimbledon and he has a wide range of contacts in the educational world.
The most popular offering from ESB is the 1:1 antenatal courses. These are booked following a 20-week scan and are conducted face to face at home, or at your nearest Soho House. These sessions help prospective parents prepare for birth, from what to buy, to a birth plan and feeding and bathing the baby at home. These five or ten hour courses can be purchased as gift vouchers, a thoughtful present for a baby shower or prospective grandparents.
There is also advice and guidance in the form of sessions for caring for babies in the first year of life, taking in issues such as teething, colic and sleeping, as well as further help for those toddler years, with advice on potty training, separation anxiety and moving from a cot to a bed.
“Our family support-services are two-fold – troubleshooting issues that new parents have with their babies, toddlers and pre-schoolers, or confidence building andcoaching parents as they prepare for parenthood or begin their journey,” explained Sabina.
“These sessions are practical as opposed to medical, and unlike NCT (or other courses) focus on so much more than birth.”
For families with school-age children, Edward’s education consultancy services can save parents a lot of time and heartache in their hunt for the right school.
Edward uses his extensive experience of growing up in Bath, visiting schools regularly and carrying out considerable research into those schools.
“We work forensically with domestic relocators and international relocators to search for, advice and, in some cases, prepare children for their school admissions,” he said.
“A detailed survey is commissioned, we have a number of pre-school search consultations before I begin the process of matching a family’s aspirations to the schools that most suit their needs, taking in the various factors such as academic level, extra-curricular, day/boarding, single-sex/co-ed, and proximity to home.
“We do not exclusively search for independent schools – grammar schools are increasingly popular and our families are also keen to consider state-maintained (particularly primary), schools.”
The educational services cover not only Bath, but the wider South West area, including Bristol and the Cotswolds. They also serve Surrey and South West London.
ESB also holds a directory of a wide range of businesses which support families, for example, property search agents, nanny/childcare agencies, tutors, family lawyers and private wealth management.
Contact ESB Consulting at email hidden; JavaScript is required or visit https://www.esbconsulting.co.uk to book a discovery call.
Families can make a complementary discovery call. Quite often their issues can be resolved in a five-minute call, which Edward and Sabina are happy to do free of a fee, in return for word-of-mouth endorsement.