Dear students,
I hope this notice finds you and your family healthy and together.
Firstly, I wanted to take a moment and say a huge THANK YOU for coming to classes, providing feedback and working in a collaborative and kind way with the College. The positive feedback has been overwhelming and that is amazing to hear - every member of the College is working very hard to still deliver high quality education we pride ourselves on even in these disruptive times. Now, more than ever, do we need to communicate and collaborate in a kind and understanding way - this is the only way of getting through these times - as a community. So thank you for being part of that community, for your perseverance and for focusing on your learning in such an inspiring way.
Secondly, while we try and communicate, sometimes written communication can be unclear and can create confusion. Recently, students told me that there is a bit of confusion around attendance requirements for specific subjects. I wanted to clear up any confusion and say the following - for all subjects that require 80% or 100% attendance:
- if part of this subject is currently delivered virtually (e.g. theory part of a practical subject or a clinic workshop) - attendance to this is NOT compulsory (also remember that these are also recorded and can be viewed at any time)
- all subjects delivered in the intensive blocks (as per previous post this includes practical and clinic subjects) will have compulsory attendance (any non-attendance will need to be processed through the special circumstances applications, as per normal process)
As you can imagine, intensive blocks will only deliver/develop practical skills that are required as part of your subject's learning objectives - these we can not deliver virtually for safety and standards purposes. As such, practical and clinic intensives will carry compulsory attendance as it is assumed that you have developed theoretical grounding for the practical skills in the virtual classes available now (as applicable for each subject) and we teach you and assess your practical skills upon return (as applicable to the learning outcomes for each subject). Within clinic subjects, we assess the knowledge you accumulated across your degree as well as skills needed to conduct the clinic session - this has not changed from the previous way of delivering these subjects.
My apologies if previous posts have been unclear around the attendance requirements and I hope above eliminates any confusion.
As always - please communicate, this will make us all stronger through this unusual time.
Stay healthy and safe.
Kind regards,
Dr Andrea Bugarcic
Director of Education
(Edited by Deirdre Mathias - original submission Wednesday, 25 March 2020, 11:46 PM)