We cannot overlook the challenges that young people starting college this year will face in their learning. In most cases these students have not yet experienced formal examinations so it will be hard for them to step up to A-Level and BTECs. However, our experience of helping learners over the last year has given us confidence to put strategies, apps and software in place for the new intake and we started with transition days.
I am the Learning Support Subject Leader at Barton Peveril Sixth Form College and have taken part in expert panel discussions at BETT 2020 and BETTFest 2021 on Digital Inclusion.
Barton Peveril in Eastleigh is a large Sixth Form College delivering a range of A-Level and Vocational qualifications to over 4000 full-time students. It has won many awards including The Sixth Form Colleges Association Award for Independent Learning, Edufuturists FE College of the Year (2020) and was shortlisted for The National TES FE Award for Outstanding Use of Technology for Improving Teaching, Learning and Assessment. We are also a Google Reference College which gives us public recognition as a leader in embedding technology for learning in the UK.
An introduction to the college and…the technology
Owing to continuing COVID restrictions, taster days were moved online in 2020. We used Google Meet to deliver live lessons and Screencastify videos for pre-recorded material so we could introduce students to the college’s Q-XTRA enrichment programme and show them how Learning Support operated.
Face to face visits let students meet their teachers and peers and experience taster lessons on site, view the campus and facilities and get a general ‘feel’ for the college. But there are positives too with the online process. We used Google Workspace across the college and the taster days meant students engaged with Gmail, Sites, Forms, Slides and Jamboard. The lessons were made available through Google Classroom, a key tool used by teachers across all subjects.
Technology is essential for our students to engage with their learning, both in and out of the classroom and this let them experience how this would function in practice. It was also important when planning the online transition process to consider not only the impact of the pandemic on students’ education, but also on their wellbeing and communication skills.