About My Study Programme

We want your learning experience at Suffolk New College to be a positive one, where you can make excellent progress and develop your skills to prepare you for your next steps - either employment or further study.

Link Tutor

Each course has a Link Tutor - this is the tutor who has overall responsibility for the course and for your progress on each aspect of your study programme. This tutor is normally the tutor who teaches you for most of your lessons and will therefore get to know you well and quickly. This tutor is your first port of call if you have any queries or issues that you need help with.

Progress Tutor

Your Progress Tutor is responsible for your pastoral support and all round development. You will have one hour per week for PD with your Progress Tutor where you will explore topics related to - keeping safe - eg PREVENT, drugs, gangs and county lines; citizenship and diversity, Fundamental British Values, money management and preparing for employment. You will also track your progress and set targets with your Progress Tutor at your Progress Reviews every 6 weeks,

Additional Support

If you require additional support for your learning, you should discuss this with your Link Tutor as soon as possible during induction, so that we can make arrangements for an appropriate assessment of your needs.

Initial Assessment

At the start of your programme, you will review your current skills, abilities and attitude and will be encouraged to think about targets to develop and improve each of these. This initial assessment helps us to plan your Individual Study Programme - which is completed and maintained on ProPortal. You will be shown how to use ProPortal as part of your induction.

You will complete a range of early 'screening' or induction activities, so that we can identify the best way to support your learning.

Target Grade and Progress Reviews

A target grade for your course will be set based on the qualifications you have achieved before starting your course. Your course tutors will then set a working at grade every half term to show how you are progressing towards meeting your target grade. This will enable you and the college to work together to stretch you to achieve to your full potential.

Your progress on your course (and target grade where relevant) will be reviewed every 6 weeks at your 1:1 Progress Review Meeting with your progress tutor. Your target grade and your progress reviews will also be recorded on Pro-Portal, together with feedback from your unit or subject tutors, including English and Maths, as to how you are progressing. This gives you and your course team a good overview of your progress and helps plan future targets.

GCSE and Functional Skills

As part of your college study programme, you may also study Functional Skills or GCSE in English and Maths if you haven't yet achieved a grade C or 4 at GCSE level. English and Maths are an essential part of your programme and preparation for next steps, whether this is employment or further study.

Industry Work Placement, Work Related Learning and Work Experience

You will also have an element of work related learning or work experience or Industry Work Placement as part of your college experience. The type of work related learning/work experience/work placement you undertake will depend upon the level you are studying at and the type of course you are on. The aim of this element of your programme is to help prepare you for employment in the future.