Tips for helping and supporting students during their Further and Higher Education.
Download your copy of our Parents' and Carers' Guide, to find out more about how you can support your young person during their time with us.
Course research
Picking the right course and the right college are important decisions.
It’s crucial the learner takes the lead with making course and career choices. Their interests and their goals should be at the core of research and decisions.
But it can be overwhelming having to make these choices – choices that can have a massive impact on your future – before you’ve left school or gained experience of the working world.
Providing support can mean chatting through options, discussing practicalities, sharing real world experiences or accompanying on college visits and open days. Sometimes simply providing a sounding board can make all the difference.
We also have a careers advice service. Feel free to contact the team with any queries or to book a chat.
There are also free career webinars for parents to support their children in a range of career goals, provided by InvestIN. Please click here.
Applying
Helping with the organisation of application documents and certificates, and working through the completion of forms can speed up the application process.
You may also need to provide evidence of income if applying for funding support.
Learning
During a learner’s course or Apprenticeship, it can be really helpful to chat about how things are going.
If a course doesn’t turn out to suit a learner, there’s sometimes a chance to change programme.
Otherwise, offering the chance to talk about college and the course is often all that’s needed. We all remember the feeling of being told to do our homework, so tread carefully where possible!
Parents can keep tabs on student progress and performance (for students aged 16-18) on our ePortal.
We encourage all students to aim for 100% attendance on their courses. Please support us in this by considering course timetables and avoiding booking family holidays during term times. Poor attendance can mean students can’t complete their courses or don’t receive full qualifications.
If you find out that there’s a problem with not attending, with other students, or with any other aspect of a course or the college environment, please get in touch with us.
Celebrating success
It’s important to mark the moment when a student gets good feedback, passes a course module, or successfully completes their programme or qualification.
So aim to be a part of celebrating success!
