Following the Prime Minister’s 4th January announcement of a new lockdown and the news that schools, colleges and training providers will close to the majority of students. The Department for Education confirmed that they expected all scheduled vocational exams to go ahead. Further updates to this guidance were released 5th January to give schools, colleges and training providers the choice to offer students vocational exams, should they judge it right to do so.

Due to the lateness of the most recent announcement, we decided to continue with our BTEC exams scheduled to take place at 9am on 6thJanuary. We did not feel that it would be fair to our students to cause further disruption to their education by cancelling the exam at such short notice. We were particularly keen to ensure that our students would not be peanalised if we chose to cancel exams.

We recognise that students have worked extremely hard in preparation for their exams and will be anxious about this situation and the last minute changes from the government. Following further consultation with BTEC today we can now confirm that we will continue to run our exam schedule, offering students the option to attend if they feel comfortable and safe doing so.

We have implemented extensive measures to reduce the risk of Covid-19 transmission on all of our campuses. However, we understand that students may feel uncomfortable travelling to and from college. We can assure you that BTEC have confirmed that students will not be penalised if they choose to not attend their exams, and that this will not impact their attendance or enrolment at college.

How to inform us of your decision 

Please could you inform us of your decision to attend your exams by completing a short questionnaire found here . This will help us to ensure we have an idea of how many students will be attending each day.

If you do not sit the examination during January, an opportunity to sit the exam, or to be awarded a grade through another means will be offered later in the year, subject to Covid-19 restrictions. We will give you more information on this as we learn more from the Department for Education and awarding bodies.

If you do sit the exam you are strongly advised to get a Covid-19 test before you attend. We have booked these in for you and your tutor will be in touch to inform you of arrangements, you do not need to book these yourself..

Any further changes to this will be communicated to all affected students.