Every year the college arranges approx. 6000 interviews from January to August. We are aware of the impact of Covid on students education, and the need to minimise them missing any more lessons. For this reason we will be amending our admissions policy and removing the requirement that every student has a college interview.
Our applications team will short list to a set criteria and curriculum will either offer based on information provided on the application / reference, or request to speak to the student. Any interviews that do take place, will be outside of the school day (twilight sessions / school holidays) and will be either face to face, via telephone or teams. We envisage this will vastly reduce the number of students who require a college interview / discussion.
We are also mindful that Covid has, in some cases, disrupted our own students studies, so for this reason we won’t be committing to coming into schools to interview. Curriculum colleagues usually visit 20+ schools over a 5 week period to interview. This year we are unable to honour this commitment. Please be assured that we hope to be able to resume this for Sept 2022 recruitment.
I am currently in discussions with our EHCP team, and Foundation Learning teams about how we can best facilitate conversations with their potential students to ensure we are well prepared for these students joining us. Across college we are also looking at how we can ensure students are fully prepared for joining their studies with us, either via a series of “virtual” events, transition guides and (fingers crossed) Welcome Days in the summer.
Further information will be shared in the new year, but I am mindful that some schools have contacted us wanting information to share with parents.
