Parents, Guardians and Carers

Our aim is to give every young per­son the oppor­tu­ni­ties to achieve to the best of their abil­i­ties, so they can progress to fur­ther study with us, to find employ­ment or an appren­tice­ship or progress to high­er edu­ca­tion. We are com­mit­ted to ensur­ing they get the best edu­ca­tion pos­si­ble and we’ll do every­thing we can to help them achieve their goals.

The aim of this short guide is to give you some use­ful infor­ma­tion about the Col­lege, the stan­dards we expect, the ser­vices and sup­port we offer, and where to find fur­ther infor­ma­tion so that you can be ful­ly involved in the learn­ing expe­ri­ence. We look for­ward to a suc­cess­ful part­ner­ship, work­ing with you to ensure your young person’s success.

Janet Meenaghan
Prin­ci­pal of Stam­ford College

Eng­lish & Maths
If your young per­son hasn’t achieved their GCSE Eng­lish or maths A* to C | 5 it will be manda­to­ry for them to con­tin­ue to study Eng­lish and maths along­side their main qualification.Maths and Eng­lish form an impor­tant part of your young person’s study pro­gramme and we will ensure we sup­port them to achieve these qual­ifi­ca­tions whilst study­ing with New Col­lege Stamford.

A Lev­els
Study­ing A Lev­els will give your young per­son a broad knowl­edge base to con­tin­ue to uni­ver­si­ty. Although A Lev­els are an aca­d­e­m­ic, the­o­ry-based route, we pride our­selves on our mod­ern approach, which includes prac­ti­cal ele­ments, live projects and com­mu­ni­ty work.

Diplo­mas
These sub­jects will allow your young per­son to gain the skills and knowl­edge to progress to employ­ment. Lev­el 3 diplo­mas are equiv­a­lent to 3 A Lev­els and are an alter­na­tive route to Uni­ver­si­ty. If your young per­son knows the career path they would like to take, or pre­fer to learn in a hands on way – this is the route for them!

Appren­tice­ships
As a parent/​carer guardiany­ou want your stu­dents to get the best pos­si­ble start in their career. An Appren­tice­ship is a real job with train­ing which would allow your stu­dents to earn while they learn, gain­ing a nation­al­ly recog­nised qualification.

MYTH: A Lev­els are bet­ter than BTEC Diplo­ma qualifications.

FACT: Lev­el 3 BTEC Voca­tion­al qual­ifi­ca­tions are the equiv­a­lent to three A Lev­els in terms of UCAS points. Voca­tion­al qual­ifi­ca­tions allow for the devel­op­ment of invalu­able skills and stu­dents gain real skills for real life, so they’re pre­pared for the real world. At Stam­ford Col­lege you will find that our indus­try stan­dard facil­i­ties repli­cate real work­ing envi­ron­ments, and that we have links with over 4,000 local employ­ers for work expe­ri­ence oppor­tu­ni­ties. Work expe­ri­ence ensures your young per­son will have a strong CV and this will be imple­ment­ed with­in their course as part of their Next Steps Passport.

MYTH: You need to study A Lev­els to get in to university.

FACT: Stu­dents study­ing Lev­el 3 Voca­tion­al qual­ifi­ca­tions such as the BTEC Extend­ed Diplo­ma can gain up to 360 UCAS points (depend­ing on their grades) equiv­a­lent to 3 A* at A Lev­el. UCAS points along with the devel­op­ment of real work skills ensure that our stu­dents can progress to uni­ver­si­ty lev­el study. Appren­tices can also progress to uni­ver­si­ty lev­el study with High­er Appren­tice­ships (Lev­el 4).

MYTH: You have to go to uni­ver­si­ty to get a degree.

FACT: You can study uni­ver­si­ty lev­el qual­ifi­ca­tions at Stam­ford Col­lege. We have a ded­i­cat­ed Uni­ver­si­ty Cen­tre that offers a range of high­er edu­ca­tion qual­ifi­ca­tions such as HNCs, HNDs and Foun­da­tion Degrees. These career-focused cours­es are a great alter­na­tive to mov­ing away to Uni­ver­si­ty and if you want to ​‘top up’ to a full degree you can do in just one fur­ther year. We are part­nered with Uni­ver­si­ty of Bed­ford­shire and Bish­op Gros­seteste Uni­ver­si­ty who offer guar­an­teed pro­gres­sion to top up upon suc­cess­ful com­ple­tion of year 2.

MYTH: You don’t run a col­lege bus from where we live.

FACT: Our bus­es pick up from 85 dif­fer­ent loca­tions through­out Lin­colnshire, Peter­bor­ough, Cam­bridgeshire and Northamp­ton­shire, and most ser­vice bus­es run by Lin­colnshire Coun­ty Coun­cil also stop at the Col­lege. If you need to more infor­ma­tion, our Trans­port Advi­sor Nicole can help or if think you may have dif­fi­cul­ty pay­ing for the trans­port, finan­cial sup­port may be avail­able to sub­sidise these costs. Con­tact us if you need us: 01780 484300 ext. 344 or email transport@​stamford.​ac.​uk

MYTH: My young per­son is still unde­cid­ed and will miss the appli­ca­tion deadline.

FACT:We don’t have a dead­line for appli­ca­tions, in fact our appli­ca­tions stay open until late Sep­tem­ber! How­ev­er if your young per­son knows what they want to do it’s best to get their appli­ca­tion in quick as some cours­es are very pop­u­lar. Even if your young per­son starts a course they’re not hap­py on, our 6 week trans­fer win­dow will ensure they are on a course they love and are suc­cess­ful with. If they are unde­cid­ed, vis­it our taster event.

Study pro­grammes have been designed to boost the employ­a­bil­i­ty skills of our stu­dents. Stu­dents enrol on an indi­vid­ual Study Pro­gramme com­pris­ing of four main areas:

• Eng­lish & Maths (if a grade C|5 has not been achieved at GCSE)
• A main qual­ifi­ca­tion in their cho­sen sub­ject area
• A tuto­r­i­al programme
• Next Steps Pass­port Plus
• Work expe­ri­ence and employ­a­bil­i­ty skills Enrichment

All com­po­nents of the study pro­gramme need to be com­plet­ed to the expect­ed stan­dard for the stu­dent to pass. Stu­dents are encour­aged to stretch them­selves and will always be sup­port­ed to reach the high­est grade pos­si­ble to help max­imise their pro­gres­sion and employ­ment options in the future.

On suc­cess­ful com­ple­tion of their study pro­gramme, stu­dents can progress to Uni­ver­si­ty or employ­ment. Stu­dents will typ­i­cal­ly attend Col­lege 3 to 4 days per week with non con­tact time pro­vid­ed to allow stu­dents to under­take inde­pen­dent study, com­plete home­work assign­ments or par­tic­i­pate in work expe­ri­ence or enrich­ment. Where pos­si­ble we design our timeta­bles to reflect the expec­ta­tions of the indus­try they may go on to work in.

Appli­ca­tion & Enrol­ment
When your young per­son has applied to study at Stam­ford Col­lege they will receive an inter­view with the lec­tur­er of their cho­sen course. Through­out the year we will send them infor­ma­tion to remind them what they need to do in order to secure their place at col­lege. We will also send you infor­ma­tion at key times so you know what stage their appli­ca­tion is at.

Par­ents Evenings
When your young per­son starts col­lege you will be invit­ed to attend at least two par­ent evenings. You will receive infor­ma­tion on when these will be held near­er the time. As a guide, this year they are being held in Sep­tem­ber and Feb­ru­ary. To ensure you are kept up-to-date with infor­ma­tion on your young person’s progress, please check we have your cur­rent email address and mobile phone number.