Update 22nd Feb: Re-opening Education
We are delighted that Monday’s announcement means that we will be able to start to welcome students back to campus soon.
The safety of our college community remains our top priority, and therefore we are currently working through all of the Government guidance to ensure that the return for staff and students is a safe one.
We will update this page when we have more detailed information to share with you. Any specific details for students and parents will be shared via MS Teams and email.
Update January 2021
Vulnerable Students
The College will remain open for vulnerable students, who have all been contacted directly.
Remote Learning (16-18, Adult & HE Students – full and part time)
To support all our students and minimise disruption, lessons will be taught remotely for all learners. We are committed to providing high quality learning, support and assessments.
Teachers will be aiming to work as closely as possible within existing timetables. Students will be provided with additional information from their teachers as to the format via MS Teams.
If you are unsure on how to access MS Teams, please click here for our guide:
https://www.cronton.ac.uk/accessing-solar-teams/
Click here to access our Remote Learning policy.
Apprentices
Your college day will continue as normal and take place remotely. More information will come out from your teachers via MS Teams.
Exams
The Prime Minister has announced that GCSE and A level exams will not take place this summer. As soon as we have any further clarity on this and our other summer exams and assessment arrangements, we will inform students and parents as appropriate.
College Bursary and FREE College Meals
Bursary and free college meals payments will continue as normal regardless whether students are learning remotely or on campus. Bursary payments will continue to be linked to engagement in learning.
Support for Students
- If you are struggling with a device to access home learning please contact your tutor and we will endeavour to support you.
- If you need any support for your mental health and wellbeing, please contact your Personal Tutor or the Health and Wellbeing team via MS Teams or by phoning the College.
- College buses will cease to run until on site learning recommences, when they will resume in full.
- If you test positive for Covid please continue to inform the College via the absence line.
- As always if you are displaying Covid symptoms, please do not attend College under any circumstances.
Stay safe and contact your tutors or our support teams if you have any further questions.
In College = Wear a Mask
To keep you and others safe, please be advised that you will be expected to wear a face covering or visor in all your lessons and in all common areas AND on all transport unless you have a legitimate exemption.
Please be aware that the College can no longer provide free masks/visors and so a £1 charge will be implemented from Monday 21st September.
Our College is committed to safety and ensuring our learning environment protects you as well as offers outstanding teaching and learning. We have completed and continue to review (in line with new updated guidance) our Covid Risk assessment. You can access the full risk assessment here.
In addition to guidance we have adopted a number of approaches to minimise risk and keep students and staff safe.
- Creation of “bubbles” to minimise risk and exposure. Bubbles have been set up with different entrances, toilets, learning areas and lunch times. Please help us by sticking to your bubble.
- We are asking staff and students to wear a mask or face covering in all “common areas”
- Extra cleaning and deep cleaning schedules are now in operation to keep our buildings safe
- Practice the Catch it, Bin it, Kill it! Approach to good respiratory hygiene
- Extra hand sanitisers are located throughout the building. We would still encourage all college members to wash their hands more frequently
- Encourage students and staff who aren’t feeling well to follow NHS advice and not come into college. Please follow government guidelines
- Signs and information throughout the building to support you if you should begin to feel unwell whilst at college
- Try and cycle to walk to college if you can. If you are using transport please wear a mask or face covering
- Not come on campus if you don’t have any scheduled classes to help us control numbers
- No visitors to the college until it is safer to do so. We will update this as the term progresses
The government guidance that applies to Further Education colleges can be found here:
Please note that this guidance differs from the government guidance for schools.
The College is continuously updating its risk assessment and plans in light of new guidance, the situation in the local area and Public Health England findings.
The current arrangements will be reviewed in October and changes may come into effect after that point. If guidance should change dramatically before that then we may amend things accordingly.
We will do our utmost to not alter the timetable that you have been given, although we do apologise in advance if small changes have to be made to keep everyone safe.
The government are very keen for all students to return to learning. We feel confident that our mitigations and systems should make you feel more comfortable about coming into college. However, we have a number of teams dedicated to student support who would be more than happy to support you in this process.
Please get in touch with the Programme office if there is anything you would like us to be aware of or you feel you need a bit or support.
In College = Wear a Mask
To keep you and others safe, please be advised that from Thursday September 17th you will be expected to wear a face covering or visor in all your lessons and in all common areas AND on all transport.
Please be aware that the College can no longer provide free masks/visors and so a £1 charge will be implemented from Monday 21st September.
Face coverings should cover both your mouth and nose. This is in line with government guidance about face coverings for staff and children in Year 7 or above in England.
You must take care when putting on or removing your face covering. Clear guidance is available on how to wear a face covering. We recommend washable, fabric face coverings, rather than disposable ones, for environmental reasons. You are likely to need at least 3 clean face coverings during a college day, including your bus journeys, so please have these with you in small plastic bags, and then wash them each evening.
We would prefer plain coloured face coverings without logos or graphics which could cause upset.
Some people are exempt from the wearing of face coverings, and if this applies to you we ask you to wear a badge on your lanyard to indicate this, so that you are not requested to put one on
In the event of another lockdown, the whole college will continue all learning programmes online. We will stick to the as closely as possible to the existing timetable you would have been accessing at college. We are committed to supporting all our learners to succeed and are fully prepared if this eventuality should happen.
If a lockdown should happen, we will communicate via our website, via student emails, via MS Teams, as well as our social media channels.
At the moment, our key control measures are to:
- a) Reduce close contact by maintaining distinct groups (“bubbles”), with all students in the bubble able to attend sessions together.
- b) Reduce close contact via social distancing, with limited numbers in each classroom and a blend of on-campus and online learning.
Students enrolled on vocational courses will form “bubbles” within their curriculum area. Vocational students may access appropriate parts of their timetable online. Social distancing measures are in place across the campus, to ensure that these students have close contact only with those in their “bubble”.
Students enrolled to A Level courses attend lessons with several groups of students each day. These students can therefore not form “bubbles”, because their “bubble” would very quickly reach in excess of 800 students. Therefore, these students attend small group lessons on campus with social distancing measures in place, and access other parts of their timetable online.
Other schools and colleges are following the same government guidance, but their individual building layouts, student numbers and types of courses, may mean that timetables are quite different.
For students on blended learning courses; your learning will be delivered as a mix of face-to-face on-campus learning and remote and online learning. This will include live sessions, as well as recorded material and additional resources provided on your digital learning platform.
Whole class teaching sessions will be online in a mix of live and recorded formats. This will allow you to access your learning in a flexible way that suits you, through our VLE (SOLAR).
Smaller group and 1-to-1 sessions will be held both face-to-face on campus and online, and are designed to support discussion and collaborative learning, whatever the format. We will provide at least one face-to-face session with each of your teachers, every week.
Practical learning such as laboratory based, performance, technical skills, and studio based will take place on campus where needed, and we have put specific control measures in place to ensure that these sessions are delivered safely.
Your teachers, progress mentor and other staff are available to support you as always, both in person and online.
Your subject teachers will explain what the exact blend will be like in each specific subject area, and what you can expect each day of the week.
16 to 19 Tuition Fund
The college is pleased announce that in line with additional funding provided by the Education and Skills Funding Agency for academic year 20/21 we will be offering small group support tuition for all our eligible 16-19 students.
Covid 19 Risk Assessment
This Risk assessment will be under constant review and any changes made will amended.
TRAVELLING TO COLLEGE
- We encourage students to walk or cycle to College where possible.
- If you can, limit your use of public transport. If you can’t avoid public transport or College buses, please social distance where possible and wear a mask or face covering while travelling into College and dispose of / store it safely. It is a legal requirements to wear a face covering on transport and drivers do have the right to refuse entry to the bus/train if you refuse to wear a mask or produce evidence of exemption (daisy lanyard or pin badge)
- When on site learning is taking place all College buses will run as normal.
- Public Transport timetables and frequency is changing during the pandemic, therefore we advise any students using public transport outside of College buses to check timetables before travelling.
HYGIENE AT COLLEGE
The College has already put in place enhanced cleaning regimes throughout the day.
You can help by:
- Washing your hands thoroughly for 20 seconds and more often than usual. Also use hand sanitisers when arriving into College and throughout the day.
- Use the same pens, pencils etc. each time. It is a good idea to bring your own with you for all your lessons.
- Using cleaning equipment supplied to wipe your working area including the back of your chair before you sit down and if possible, try to sit in the same seat.
- In relation to new government guidance, it is a requirement for all students, staff and visitors to wear a face covering in the common areas within college. Visors are no longer deemed to be sufficient and should not be worn in place of a face covering.
KEEPING SAFE AT COLLEGE
To help keep students and staff safe and reduce the spread of Covid 19 we have introduced the following:
- A one-way system and stay alert areas throughout the building including separate entrance, exits and stairways.
- New socially distancing room layouts with new rules for different classrooms including, laboratories, workshops, salons and changing facilities.
- Blended timetables with some lessons taking place at college and others online, using Microsoft Teams and SOLAR.
- Students split into smaller groups known as “bubbles” with staggered start, lunch and break times and dedicated areas within the College.
- Handouts and marked work moving to an electronic format where possible to avoid the risk of cross-contamination.
You can help by:
- Maintaining social distancing practices, where possible, within all learning environments including traveling to and from College.
- Making sure you follow all of the one-way systems in College.
- Being on time to all of your lessons.
- Following all of the hygiene and travel advice.
- When possible using your own equipment.
- Wearing your ID badge at all times.
WELLBEING AT COLLEGE
We know that some of you will be feeling worried and anxious at this time, but it’s reassuring to know that our Programme Management and Health and Wellbeing team will be there to offer you continued support.
- Please speak to your Personal Tutor, any of your teachers or the Programme Management Team if you have any concerns.
HEALTH
If you or anyone you live with displays symptoms of COVID-19:
- Students should not come into College if you they unwell or if anyone in your household feels unwell. You will be asked to self-isolate for 14 days and get a test. A clear result on a test will allow you to re-enter College before the 14 days.
- Students are all asked to tell someone immediately if they begin to feel unwell while in College.
THE MAIN SYMPTOMS OF CORONAVIRUS (COVID-19) ARE:
- a high temperature – this means you feel hot to touch on your chest or back (you do not need to measure your temperature)
- a new, continuous cough – this means coughing a lot for more than an hour, or 3 or more coughing episodes in 24 hours (if you usually have a cough, it may be worse than usual)
- a loss or change to your sense of smell or taste – this means you’ve noticed you cannot smell or taste anything, or things smell or taste different to normal
The Government has issued strict safety guidelines and we have incorporated all of those measures into our plans, which is how the college year will start. In case things change it should be reassuring for you to know that whatever happens you can expect high quality lessons and pastoral support from us. This also means if you become unwell or are asked to self-isolate you won’t miss out on lessons.
* FACE COVERING EXEMPTION:
It is important to recognise that not everyone can wear a face covering. People are exempt if:
- They have a disability or health condition that means they cannot put a covering on
- A covering will cause them severe distress or anxiety
- They need to communicate with someone who relies on lip reading
- They have a reasonable need to eat, drink or take medicine