PARENT AND CARERS OF NEW LEARNERS
As a parent you know that this is a crucial time for your child when making decisions for their future career paths and deciding where and what to study. At Weston College we want to help support you in what can seem like a daunting decision-making process.
Our focus is on ‘careers not courses’ and as a result we have a dedicated team at the College that can support you and your child with their application and transition to Weston College. Please click here to access all the information on our School Liaison Team and how they can help. All events and activities are advertised via the events pages Events | Weston College
In addition, we have an exclusive bit of software that can support you and your child to explore their career options.
Our Career Coach programme allows you and your child to:
- Explore careers and labour market information
- Undertake a career assessment to identify your child’s key characteristics and skills and which careers these link to
- Link together our courses and the potential careers available on completion of one of our courses.
Click here to use this website from the National Careers service for an explanation of all the options available.
Understanding the post-16 Education Landscape
Today, there are not only a large number of subject areas, but also a number of different types of qualification that are available to study at post-16. To help you and your child navigate this, our School Team have created a really useful and concise guide that takes you through the five key qualifications your child has to choose from at Weston College:
- Technical Qualifications (BTECs, UAL Diplomas, NVQs etc.)
- T Levels
- A Levels
- Apprenticeships
- Traineeships
Before your child applies to study at Weston College we also recommend visiting the College at an open event. These are a great opportunity for you to speak to our wonderful tutors and learn more about our programmes and see our state-of-the-art facilities for yourselves. You can book one here School Liaison | Weston College
In addition, we have introduced 360 degree tours to our website, allowing you to relax, kick back and take a look around our campuses from the comfort of your own home here Interactive Virtual Tours | Weston College
Support
At Weston College, learners are at the heart of everything we do and we will support your child to grow, achieve their ambitions and reach their true potential. We also appreciate that support is integral to this, so please be reassured that as a college we have invested in high-quality wrap around support for all our learners. Your child will have access to:
Your child will have access to:
- Welfare and Pastoral Support Services
- Additional Learning Support
- Careers Advice Team
- Specialist Mental Health Team
- Wellbeing @ Weston programme
- LibraryPlus services including Learning Tech
- Team
- Safeguarding
- Students’ Union
- College Chaplain
KEY CONTACTS FOR COLLEGE SERVICES
Below provides an overview of key faculty contacts and absence lines, which should be used to report if your child is not attending college.
YOUR QUESTIONS
This is an important time for both you and your son or daughter – decisions made now could have a big impact on their future. If you have any questions or comments, please give us a ring on 01934 411 411, use the live chat or email enquiries@weston.ac.uk
Applications usually open the first week of October (please check with our school team). All applications are done online via the Weston College website. If you need assistance or don’t have access to a device, please give us a call and we can take you through the process. If applying please remember to use a personal email address and not a school one.
There is no limit to how many courses you can apply for however, if you have 4 or 5 very different options, we will usually contact you to provide you some more guidance on your choices. We usually say between 2-3 options are fine.
The college has no formal deadline but we would usually expect all applications to be in over the Christmas period. Please check with your child’s school as they will have their own deadlines.
Once you have applied, you will either book your interview straight away or you will be invited to log back into your account and do this at a later date. You will then attend a virtual interview via Microsoft Teams, and be offered a place on the course. You then log back in and accept your offer of place. You can then begin to fill out your pre-enrolment information, once you have done this you will be invited to book onto an ‘Insight Session’ for your chosen course, to give you even more of a taste of what you will be studying when you come to us. More information on those here: https://www.weston.ac.uk/insight-sessions Then, after GCSE results day, you will be invited to formally enrol and become and official Weston College student!
Each course and level of course will have different entry requirements. You can find entry requirements in the prospectus and via the website. We will make you an offer based on the predicted grades that you will receive from school, this will be discussed at interview, you do not need these in order to apply. No matter what the grades we will always make sure that you start on the right level for you!
If they don’t manage to get a 4 in Maths or English then they will continue to study this with us at college.
Yes, please visit Financial Support
If your child has changed their mind about what they would like to do, they will simply need to reject or withdraw their application through the application portal and make a new application for their preferred subject choice.
Yes of course, we encourage all learners to keep their options open and make the right decision for them.
Our School Liaison Team are on hand to help with this. The team can support with a transition package to suit individual needs, including application support, bespoke tours, introducing them to the right support teams, interview and enrolment support, and organising extra meetings with tutors and teaching staff, just get in touch to talk it through.
All communications will go to the email address provided upon signing up, and we encourage this email address to be that of your child’s, to give them autonomy and responsibility over their own application. It’s worth checking in with your child and making sure they are checking their emails regularly for all correspondence. We will occasionally contact them by letter or the phone number provided, but in the name of sustainability we are trying to move towards being as paperless as possible.
Yes of course, our School Liaison Team are more than happy to help with any queries. Contact them on schoolteam@weston.ac.uk or alternatively you can use the Live Chat function on this website and this will be passed on to them.
A PARENT'S VIEW
“I know I’m so impressed by everyone that has contacted me from my first email, you’re all wonderful and doing a fantastic job, just the level of friendliness and helpfulness that comes across in a few emails from you all has certainly made the whole process an easy one.”
Marie G, Priory parent
“Thank you sooo much you really inspired jess this evening. I haven’t seen her that excited and positive about anything for a long time. She cannot wait till September now.”
Emma, Gordano Parent
“I understand you met with my daughter yesterday, inspiring and creating some excitement about college and giving her information and the GCSE exams etc that she needs to qualify for the course. It’s lovely to see her so excited for this,, thank you.”
Debbie, Backwell Parent
