Coronavirus
Updates: Colleges & Business Units | Commercial Outlets and Nurseries
Advice for: Students, Parents and Carers | College Applicants | Apprentices
Updates: Colleges & Business Units | Commercial Outlets and Nurseries
Advice for: Students, Parents and Carers | College Applicants | Apprentices
Staff from EKC Group’s six Colleges have been helping students from across East Kent beat lockdown boredom with a range of weekly activities and challenges.
The movers, shakers and creators from the Group’s Colleges in Ashford, Broadstairs, Canterbury, Dover, Folkestone and Sheppey, have been creating a plethora of materials, videos and challenges to encourage students to get active and creative from the comfort of their own homes.
Sports Coaches and staff at the Group’s Dover Technical College and Folkestone College have been creating easy to follow workout videos and fitness timetables for students of all abilities to stay active during the lockdown. Whilst the Salon Academy at Broadstairs College have been encouraging their Hairdressing, Beauty and Media and Theatrical Makeup students to share their at-home hair and beauty creations.
Elsewhere, staff from the Learning Resource Centre (LRC) at Ashford College have been sharing wellbeing tips, along with their top book recommendations and links online study resources.
“The LRC team are lucky enough to support students on daily basis and we wanted to ensure that students not only felt connected to us, but to take the stress out of studying during lockdown too”, explained LRC Coordinator at Ashford College, Katie Butler.
Katie continued: “The team is focused on supporting students' wellbeing and academic needs utilising our social media channels and emails. My colleagues, Jill McAdams and Vicky Mason, champion wellbeing; they have continued to research and share inspiring online resources to support student mental health and general wellbeing. We also support students academically via email responding to a wide range of requests from renewals and sharing relevant e-resource links, to Harvard referencing support.
“The result has been incredibly positive as students have been keen to interact and ask for support. Despite lockdown, we are still a connected College.”
Meanwhile, staff from the Canterbury School of Visual Arts (CSVA) at Canterbury College have been showcasing their expertise creating and sharing a wide range of ‘how-to’ videos and online workshops via their social media pages. These popular digital resources include everything from creating a pinhole camera and lumen printing, through to sculpture making and Photoshop editing.
Head of Visual Arts at the College, Ben Kidger, commented: “This temporary separation between us and the students requires them to be even more independent and to adopt the work ethic of someone who works in the creative industry at this very early stage in their career. So far, the results have been outstanding and gives us the feeling which we all miss, that we are still connected to our students and inspiring them to make.”
Ben added: “Never more so than now, keeping mentally and physically busy is exceptionally important. The impact that this has had has already been encouraging and heart-warming. Many students are independently acting on these workshops and sharing their results with us and their peers.”
