How you'll be taught
One reason why many students choose to come to college rather than staying on at school is because they want to have more independence. Everyone learns best in a different way and at South Thames College we try to work with you to find the way that suits you.
As a student here, you will get lots of support both in the classroom and in one to one sessions with your personal tutor. You will also work by yourself and in groups for different projects and assignments.
We are very keen that you are in class, on time, every time and it will be your responsibility to make that happen, we won't be ringing any bells!
Some of the things you can expect as part of your course are:
Lectures - these are the more formal part of your course where tutors deliver key information in a classroom. Our tutors will encourage you to participate and ask questions as much as possible. Class sizes are small so you'll soon get to know people and grow in confidence
Technology - many courses use our student intranet, called STCLive to deliver information to students. You can log on to this from home to pick up course information if you need to.Your tutors may use things like YouTube or mySpace to introduce you to new ideas or examples
Group work - you'll work in groups both in the classroom and sometimes have projects to work on in teams. This is great practise for the real world where you'll have to work with all sorts of people, whether you like them or not!
Practical work - this is a key part of most of our courses. If you are studying hairdressing for example, you will be practising either on models or real paying clients right the way through your course. If you are studying construction, you'll spend a lot of your time in the workshop, learning how to do things. We won't teach you these skills from books!
Guest speakers - the college has relationships with lots of interesting people from industry who'll sometimes come in to talk to you about a particular topic, like setting up your own business
Work experience - many of our courses include some work experience, great for your CV! If you study business with us, on our UK Careers academy courses, this could be a 6 week paid internship with a high flying city firm. Of course, if you decide that an Apprenticeship is the thing for you, then you'll be working alongside your studies throughout
Trips - you may get the chance to visit exhibitions, events or interesting sites of relevance to your course
Projects - you'll do some projects by yourself, where you'll do research and use our Learning Resources Centre which is equipped with all the books, DVD's and online resources you need
Competitions - many courses offer the chance to enter national competitions, like World Skills UK, a great way to meet new people and really show off your skills.
Our teachers receive training throughout their career with us on a whole range of things from classroom skills to equality and diversity to how to keep our learners safe, so you can be sure you'll be armed with everything you need to go on to a successful future whether via university or directly into work.