Supporting Disabled Learners

We are committed to ensuring that you will be welcomed and supported in your needs. It may be that you have an impairment, disability or specific learning difficulty or are in need of assistance in accessing our courses and college facilities.

We will make sure you are provided with the right type of information so that you can make and informed choice about how you will best learn and the environment we need to create to make sure you have a good experience of learning.

There are many ways we can help you and below we have identified some of these. However, we are very keen to hear from you about other ways in which we can be of assistance and would ask you to contact Student Services in the first instance about ideas you may have.

Information on courses
There is an information sheet produced on every course giving you further detail about its content and entry requirements. If you would benefit from reading about our courses in a different format, we can arrange for Braille translation, large font printouts or an audio version.

Guidance and enrolment
Once you have found a course that you are interested in, you may want to talk to someone about it or we may need to interview you to see if it is appropriate to your needs. Student Services is open until 7pm Mondays to Wednesdays and our staff would be happy to arrange an appointment for a one-to-one meeting to discuss you options and to show you around our premises. If you prefer, appointments can be made during student holiday periods when the college is quiet, giving you the chance to explore the building to see if it will suit your needs.

If more appropriate, we can arrange to meet with you at a different location by arrangement because we are aware that for some students it is very difficult to come into a new building. There are lots of different ways of learning too and you may prefer to undetake a course through distance learning, as an example.

Assistive services
When we meet you, we will talk to you about how we can assist you at college. Here are some examples of the assistive services we offer:

Equipment

• Infra-red hearing loop system in many teaching rooms and also including the restaurant
• Laptops
• Magnification equipment
• Software such as Inspiration 8, Jaws, Dragon etc
• Height adjustable workstations

In class support: one to oneto one/one to group assistance in the classroom and in college social areas or additional support with your work from a Study Services tutor.

Dyslexia support: screening, assessment tutorials and support in class as well as materials provided in formats that best suit your needs.

Dyslexia: screening, assessment, tutorials and support in class as well as materials provided in formats that best suit your needs.

Exam support: if you think you might need special arrangement for your exams or you have had this in the past you may find that you are entitled to additional time, readers and writers. We will help set this up for you as well as offer various exam support suggestions.

Access to college sites
We have redeveloped many parts of the college over the last year to ensure you can access all areas of the college. Both the Milnthorpe Road site and the Allen Building have lifts and there are marked disable car park spaces by entrances that can be pre booked through Student Services.

When you start, you will be given detailed plans of disability access and parking spaces.

Consulting with Disabled Learners
We are very keen to involve disabled learners in our decision-making processes at the college. You can get involved by attending focus groups, talking to your personal tutor about issues that affect you or informing Student Services about improvements we can make. The more you work with us, the more we can ensure our college practices reflect equality for disabled learners.