10 May 2024
Dear students and families
As we enter the busy exam season, we’d like to wish everyone who’s taking an exam or an assessment this Summer the very best of luck. We’re all right behind you and want to see you shine as you take these challenges on.
If you have any particular aspects of these assessments where you would like help or support, please talk to your teacher.
If you are feeling anxious or concerned about these next few weeks, we’re here to help. Again, you can talk to your teacher or to the Student Services team if you’d like support at this time. Also, we have on- line resources that can help too, they’re available here:
Finally, I would also like to share with you a message from the leader of the national exams regulator, Ofqual.
Most of all, we want you to feel you’ve done your best. We wish you well in the weeks ahead and will do all we can to help you realise your dreams! Good luck!
Peter Mayhew-Smith
Group Principal and CEO
25 April 2022
Dear students and families
We’re delighted to welcome you back to the Summer term of 2022, and if you have recently joined us, welcome to our Group of colleges.
Although it’s been a challenging year, we are very proud of our students and staff: we’ve kept going and managed to stay focused on your success. All our students have worked hard and helped us to keep our Colleges safe. Thank you so much.
Now we can look ahead and see the end of the year coming. We want you to do well and achieve your goals. Please keep up with all your wonderful hard work and ask us for any help you may need.
We do still have to take some measures to slow the spread of Coronavirus around our Colleges and to make sure exams continue to go well and our vulnerable students and staff are safe.
So, as we start the new term, we will strongly encourage you to:
- Continue to take responsibility for your and others’ safety
- Not come to College if you have any symptoms of Coronavirus; if you do, please stay at home and
- Take up a vaccination or booster if you are offered one
- Speak to a member of staff if you have any concerns or questions about your or others’ safety
Please note our priority is to protect students, staff and their family and friends, therefore we will ask anyone with a confirmed case of Coronavirus to stay at home for at least five days, longer if they have a high temperature. Please let us know if you do have a positive test result.
The NHS website sets out more detail about what you need to do if you have symptoms or a positive test, which you can see here:
What to do if you have coronavirus (COVID-19) or symptoms of COVID-19 - NHS (www.nhs.uk)
We really want to make this a very positive term ahead and hope you will achieve everything you’d hoped for. We have every confidence you will continue to attend all of your lessons and exams during this term and continue to show the high levels of engagement and commitment shown this year. We’ll be right behind you!
Take good care of yourself and very best of luck to you,
Peter Mayhew-Smith
Group Principal and CEO
Coronavirus update 25th April 2022.pdf
28 January 2022
Dear students and families
I’m writing today to set out how we are again adapting our measures to contain the Coronavirus infection. We can see its affect reducing at the moment and we know that many of the measures ordered by the Government have now been stopped. We have done very well in keeping infection levels low at our Colleges and you have been a very big part of that work and I thank you again for your great help.
Right now, we are still seeing a number of cases and we still have vulnerable students and staff among us. We will continue with some of our measures for a while longer and I will write again when we change things.
We have already removed our expectation that everyone wears a face covering at all times, but you may continue to wear one if you choose. Your teacher may ask you if you would wear a face-covering in class and we hope you’ll consider any such request carefully; face-coverings really do make a difference.
However, we would like to ask you to continue with all of the other measures that we have in place, so please:
- Stay at home and take a test if you have Covid symptoms; make sure you let us know, too
- Test yourself regularly; you can pick up packs of tests at the College entrances
- Take up the offer of a vaccination or booster if you are eligible
If you have symptoms or a positive test result, please let us know. We will ask you not to attend College, but will make sure you have the work you need and can do it at home.
As ever, we are all together in these challenging times and you have supported us very well in making sure our Colleges are safe. At South Thames Colleges Group, we remain alongside you and committed to your success.
With thanks and best wishes,
Peter Mayhew-Smith
Group Principal and CEO
Coronavirus update 28th February 2022.pdf
28 January 2022
Dear students and families
I’m writing today to thank you for the great response to the latest challenges brought to us by the pandemic.
We’re doing well thanks to you and we have seen very good attendance at the BTEC and Functional Skills exams this month and everyone has worked hard to make sure learning and assessment are taking place. At the same time, we’ve kept infection rates in the Colleges very low and you have been an important part of a wide effort to make sure our staff and students are as safe as possible.
We’d like to continue all our efforts to keep our Colleges safe, but we will remove our expectation that everyone wears a face covering at all times. This will no longer be required, but you may continue to wear one if you choose.
However, we would like to ask you to continue with all of the other measures that we have in place, so please:
Stay at home and take a test if you have Covid symptoms; make sure you let us know, too
Test yourself regularly; you can pick up packs of tests at the College entrances
Take up the offer of a vaccination or booster if you are eligible
Your teacher may ask you if you would wear a face-covering in class and we hope you’ll consider any such request carefully; face-coverings really do make a difference.
We also would like to ask you to follow wider advice on face coverings outside College, including on transport to and from college. Further details can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/face-coverings-when-to-wear-one-and- how-to-make-your-own/face-coverings-when-to-wear-one-and-how-to-make-your- own
We are also working with you as winter turns to spring to make sure you are attending regularly and making good progress, so our course teams will be following up with support if anyone’s attendance has dropped. Please let us know if there is anything we need to know or that we can do to make sure you’re getting the best out of your time at College.
And, finally, most of all, we want to thank you for your effort and commitment in a difficult time. We understand how much it takes right now and are right behind you in making sure you succeed.
With thanks and best wishes,
Peter Mayhew-Smith
Group Principal and CEO
Coronavirus update 28th January 2022.pdf
21 January 2022
Dear students and families
I’m writing to you after the start of our new term across the Colleges in South Thames Colleges Group. We have had a very positive start and many students have engaged successfully in exams, with more to come over the next couple of weeks.
It is fantastic that attendance is so good, even with the ongoing COVID disruptions, and that students are participating so well with College life. Please continue to let us know if there are any challenges for you in coming to College. We are all here for you, and to work with you, to support you to achieve well and make secure progress towards your goals.
I am also writing to let you know that we are not making changes to our Coronavirus protection measures at the moment. We have managed to keep infection rates very low throughout the pandemic and are trying hard to reduce any disruption to learning while infection rates remain high in our local area.
We will continue to ask that you wear a face-covering everywhere in College and also expect that you:
do not come to College if you have Covid symptoms, but stay at home and take a PCR test
take up the offer of a vaccination or booster if you are eligible
take regular lateral flow tests
We have an exciting year ahead, with the opportunity to keep all of our classes running through Winter and into the Summer, but need everyone to continue to do their best to keep us all safe. The students in our Colleges have been wonderful in their support for one another and our staff and we ask that this carries on for the time being until we are sure that we can relax our controls safely.
We all wish you well and hope you’re thriving at College. With best wishes,
Peter Mayhew-Smith
Group Principal and CEO
Coronavirus update 21st January 2022.pdf
5 January 2022
Dear students and families
Happy new year! At South Thames Colleges Group, we all hope 2022 is a successful, healthy and fulfilling year for you. We’ve got lots to do together and look forward with real enthusiasm to the challenges and opportunities ahead; we all hope you’re ready and excited for the year ahead.
But it does also face us with some new hurdles, again brought to us by the pandemic.
We are committed to sustaining your learning and building your success through the months ahead and will focus very firmly on supporting you fully. This will mean doing all we can to keep our Colleges open for safe and healthy face-to-face learning every day.
We will need your help to do this and we are introducing further measures in line with Government guidance to stop infections happening in our Colleges.
From Thursday 6th January, when you will be returning to College, we expect you to:
Stay away from College if you have symptoms of Covid infection, take a PCR test and let your teachers know
Wear a face covering at all times unless you are exempt or you are eating and drinking
Take regular lateral flow tests and report your results, at least twice a week; if you need lateral flow tests, they will be available in your College. You are expected to take a test before returning to College. If you are unsure about how best to do a lateral flow test, there is a video here to explain: Covid 19: How to take a Lateral Flow test - YouTube
Take up the offer of a vaccine or a booster if you are eligible
If you have a positive test or have Covid symptoms, you will need to take a PCR test and self-isolate. I have attached on the next page a diagram on self-isolation and please find a link to the website setting out the requirements of this process: Stay at home: guidance for households with possible or confirmed coronavirus (COVID-19) infection - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
We are well aware of just how disruptive all of these measures are, but we ask you to respect the fact that are many vulnerable people among our students and staff and we all must do what we can to protect everyone as well as ourselves. Please play your part.
If you have exams over the next few days, these will go ahead as planned and we wish you every success.
Please ask your tutor if have any questions, but, above all, we wish you a happy 2022 again and thank you very warmly for all you are doing to help us keep the pandemic at bay,
Peter Mayhew-Smith
Group Principal and CEO
