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FAMILIES SAY ... ASSESS A SCHOOL STUDENTS HOW WE TEACH SOFTWARE? OUR 3 CLASSES TIMETABLE TEACHERS PERSONAL SUPPORT EXAMS HOME EDUCATION USEFUL LINKS DOWNLOADS CONTACT US |
First College: Questions to assess an (online) school.You can DOWNLOAD this info as an RTF text file  When did First College UK start?We began planning First College UK 10 years ago in 1999 when Shan Morgain, one of its Heads, qualified as a professional online educator. The main preparations were done in 2004 and 2005. We finally opened to our first students January 2006. Does the Head/ the main teachers, work elsewhere during school hours? During school hours, NO! - we are always in school or in the office to receive calls during school hours, and normally until 7pm on weekdays. Shan Morgain is completely full time. John Davies does some part time lecturing for the Open University but this is not during school hours. How many teachers are there? 7 teachers all together: the 2 heads, 3 senior teachers, and 2 junior teachers. Which standard teaching qualifications do the teachers hold? PGSCE/ Cert OET/ Cert TEFL/ Open University in-house training. How many years has the Head or comparable person been teaching online? 7 years Which qualifications in Online Education/ CML are held by key teachers? Shan Morgain, Cert OET, Institute of Education, University of London 2000. We train all our teachers ourselves. What length of experience do the key teachers bring to the school? 30yrs and 20yrs teaching experience. What experience did the Heads of school have previous to First College, in running a school or organisation? Both Heads have been running organisations and communities, commercial, public service and nonprofit, since 1980, that is, almost 30 years. How would you compare First College UK with other broadly similar online schools? There are two other online schools which provide live interactive classes as we do. Each of us suits different kinds of families. We worked with Interhigh helping them get started in 2005 but decided to return to our original plan of our own school. The young couple who run it provide a competent tutoring service best suited to a parent who does not want to get involved in a school community. The Head of Briteschool worked with us for a while then set up on his own. He has great flair as an exciting teacher and his approach suits a techie student who loves all the latest technology. Hope this helps you see what suits you. Do you offer new enquirers a "trial lesson" No don't worry we certainly don't allow anything like that! You are entitled to privacy and safety in all school services, and you have it. You can rest assured that your student's lessons are not going to be disrupted by complete strangers wandering in not knowing how to do things, needing a lot of extra attention from the teacher on how to cope, so your student doesn't get enough. (Registered new students receive training before going to class for the first time so their arrival is not disruptive.) Nor would we ever use your student's lesson as a live demonstration for anyone from outside to observe. Your student is not there for someone else's benefit but for their own needs. Apart from respecting a class as serious (but fun) work time for your student we would not allow outsiders in the school because it raises a high security risk. The wrong kind of person would only need to ask for trial access to see what software is in use. It would then be fairly easy to hack into it. Some internet risks are exaggerated by the media but in the area we are very careful of the children's safety. How can a new family get an idea of how the school works, what it is like? We encourage enquirers to have comprehensive conversations with us and to interrogate us very thoroughly and fully before booking a place. There is a LOTof detailed information on the website. We can provide examples of lesson records, and samples of homework set. We can also ask one of our families to talk with you direct. With all this we have never been told by a family who joined the school that they were taken aback, surprised, or felt misled or unprepared in any way. Can a family have a "trial period"? Yes this we can do. You register with us, going through our careful foundation discussions with you so we understand each other. Your student takes our careful induction training so they know what to do right from their first day. You pay the standard deposit £100 and first month's fees. You then need to give your trial a reasonable length of time for settling in, and you need to TELL us if there is any difficulty during those important first weeks. If by the end of the trial month, after discussing the matter with us, it is your decision not to continue, we will not ask you to pay the normal one month's notice so you can leave with goodwill, without extra payment. COMMUNITY & PERSONAL ISSUESHow do you ensure a student is not just another name on a list? We keep classes very small, normally 6 -12 and always under 15. We set long break periods to give time for contact outside classes. We welcome students or families phoning us 10am - 7pm weekdays, plus messaging and emailing frequently. All teachers are supplied a short description profile of the student with the key facts they need to know. This is based on the questionnaire sent to all parents when they join the school. How do you ensure that online study is not impersonal? First of all as long as the groups are kept small, which ours are, online study is not impersonal. As well as small group study there is the option always there to open a private chat with a teacher or another student. In addition we contact families frequently by phone and our telephone office hours are 10am - 7pm weekdays. Finally we plan in-person meetings for families, and at least one summer camp. How do you support sensitised students? Students with troubled experiences are carefully identified through several conversations with the family, and our introductory questionnaire. Then a short description is given to all teachers and we check on a minimum weekly how the student is managing. We provide special adapted packages e.g. limited homework requirements by agreement with the family. We also provide personal counselling. What do you do to ensure student discipline and courtesy? A student who is significantly late, or absent, who has difficulties responding in class, or fails to complete homework, gets our attention fast, and if direct contact with the student does not seem to solve the problem, we will approach parents to discuss what we all see together as the best plan of support. Students are not allowed to behave discourteously to each other, or to teachers. But neither are staff allowed to behave discourteously to students as students learn first and foremost from the model of adult behaviour. We back up ourselves being living human models with a clear set of rules with specific explanation of what they mean. One great advantage we have which is much appreciated by students and families, is automatic records of all situations. We can look up what happened, and use the record to create a report for those involved, with our notes giving guidance on how to handle matters better. If a student is careless, or has acquired unacceptable habits elsewhere, it is firmly and kindly explained precisely and exactly what is not allowed, and why. This is done privately, not in front of others, which the software supports. A student who refuses to accept guidance on classroom courtesy can simply be closed out of school, in seconds, pending more individual support. A lesser protective sanction is where software can permit the student to stay, but not allow them to send a message or speak so other students are protected. We have rarely ever had to use these sanctions. The teachers are all in instant communication with each other while their classes are actually running, via either the software, or telephone, and we can support each other very quickly. Through all this strong net of support and guidance we have created a culture among the students of good behaviour. This means that new, incoming studfents discover what is expected of them, very quickly, by picking up on how others behave. It is the force of group pressure like this which is the real backbone of good behaviour. What can you do to help about socialisation? physical exercise? Socialisation in the main is not a problem as we are very much a social learning community where friendships are made, and people work together getting to know each other. However our online community does not provide communication via body language. This is vital to the age group so we advise parents to ensure a student attends a local club, or organised activity so they experience body language in groups as well as at home or with individual friends. Familiies do not generaly have a problem providing physical exercise. Students go swimming, walking, dancing, riding, sailing or play sports they like. The advantage here is the student is not limited to what one organisation can provide, but can do the kind of exercise they like, which means they are much more likely to keep it up in the holidays. SOFTWARE & THE INTERNET ISSUESWhat kind of software is required? We deliberately keep it simple so the software (tthe computer) is the servant, not the master! A student needs 4 kinds of computer service: an internet connection; a browser (Internet Explorer, or Firefox etc); a word processor like MSWord; and an email account. If a student doesn't have an email account we can help them get a good one. We do not favour sophisticated software like webcams (camera) or powerpoint. These create a barrier to pass before the student can get to work, and a great many families or young people are not that much interested in software. The more sophisticated software is the more likely it is to break down. Webcam in addition acts as a major distraction. We want the student focused on the lesson not someone else's TShirt and hairdo! Also, this age group is typically very self conscious physically so many students find exposing themselves to judgement on their appearance is excruciatingly painful. Students who are happy to use webcam can do so in breaks or outside school hours but we ever require it during lessons. What help do you offer families in learning the software and procedures? A student has a one hour, one-to-one introduction session in the school to teach them how to use the classrooms. After that they use our very clearly written, friendly, very step by step instruction sheets, with pictures, that mean using our services is straightforward. We are constantly told how clear and helpful our guides are. But if there is a problem we are only a phone call away. What support do you offer for computer software problems as software is so vital to the school? Telephone support 10am 7pm weekdays plus fast response email within a few hours. What do you do to address internet security issues? We provide a guide to all families on how to ensure their computers are reasonably protected from internet risks. All our software has been thoroughly checked. Do you have backup services so classes etc are not disrupted? Yes of course. We can transfer a class in 10 minutes or less, to a second set of software, so as to cause the minimum disruption to lessons. FEES & CONTRACT ISSUESWhat are your fees? Average £165 per month over the year. £198pm with no payments July, August, ALSO discount schemes e.g. second child, or full year fees. Do you require a deposit? Yes. £100 but this is set against your final month's notice. Do you require a compulsory contract of one term paid in advance? No. You can pay monthly. What can we do if unhappy about an aspect of your service? Please write or phone us straight away! PLEASE do not only discuss in the family. Education can only be successful if everyone involved shares concerns and tries to put them right, together. On our side we have had a few problems over the years when a family tells us nothing, but is unknown to us, discontented about something. It is a great shock to us to suddenly find that the family is very upset after a long time but we did not know anything about it. In these cases if we had been told the problem it could have been remedied but if it runs on too long it can grow past the point of remedy, or at least become a very tough bundle to unravel. We find this very worrying as it is the student who suffers from disrupted education if a parent explodes without warning and withdraws a student having not tried to look at solutions with us. We will do everything reasonable that we can to satisfy you, but if we cannot, you are free to withdraw the student without fuss. Please do give us a chance to sort the problem out though before withdrawing. Do you require a penalty period of lost fees if we withdraw? No. We ask only one month's notice, except in the special case of the first month. Where a family feels that the online school does not suit their child's needs, after giving First College UK a genuine trial period of one month including discussion of any difficulties, we do not even insist on the normal one month's notice. Are you perfect?
No! Definitely not. We very much welcome parents' and students' ideas on how we can improve.Why not visit our downloads to get this information and other guides as documents. Then you can check through things offline, print it and read it on paper, or send it to your partner/ parent by attachment or post. Or perhaps you'd like to look at how to booknext? or just check the menus at the top of the page. |
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