Brooksby Melton College
FE Course Handbook 2014/15
A guide to your course
Course Title: Level 2 Land based studies (Agriculture & Horticulture)
Name______
Contents
Welcome Statement
On behalf of all the Academic and Business support staff we would like to welcome you to Brooksby Melton College.
Our aim is to provide you with an excellent service and to make your studies with us as rewarding and enjoyable as possible. If you feel there is anything we should change to enhance your learning experience, we would welcome your suggestions.
We expect you to attend all relevant classes and enter into the spirit of College life so that you develop yourself and help develop others whilst here. You can do this by making sure you participate fully in all learning activities and join in with everything the College has to offer.
The college is a strong believer in equality of treatment and opportunity and thus expects all staff and students to treat each otherwith respect, consideration, and dignity (as you would expect them to treat you). In this context, we would welcome any comments which help us to maintain our equality policy.
Our 3Core values are:
· We believe that our students and customers should enjoy, benefit and be successful from the time they spend with us.
· We believe that all staff should contribute to improving the experience of our students and customers.
· We believe the College should be an open and respectful place to work and study that promotes and rewards achievement
Each of these values we look to embrace each year with ALL staff and students alike which we hope will support you and your studies.
Finally I would like to take this opportunity to wish you every success in your programme of study.
Your Course team contact details
The Programme Team Manager for your area is: Clare Ibbotson
The Course tutor for your course is: James fryer
Brooksby Melton College Switchboard: 01664 850850
STAFF NAME / CONTACT DETAILSJames Fryer (course tutor) / Email:
Telephone: 01664 855496
Internal Extension: 221
Matthew Horne / Email:
Telephone: 01664 850850
Internal Extension:
Dominic Bowyer / Email
Telephone 01664 850850
Internal Extension:
David Jenkins / Email:
Telephone: 01664 855496
Internal Extension: 199
Emma Scarborough / Email:
Telephone: 01664 850850
Internal Extension: 234
Clare Ibbotson (PTM) / Email:
Telephone: 01664 850850
Internal Extension: 227
Respect campaign
Respect for All
The College is committed to providing opportunities for all, and respects that each person is different with regard to ethnic origin, gender, disability, mental health, sexual orientation, age, religion and belief and economic and social need.
The College wishes to help learners and staff understand and celebrate diversity by creating a culture of inclusivity, where all are valued. It will do this through a campaign known as: “Respect for All”.
As part of the Respect for All campaign, the college will:
· deliver a structured group tutorial programme that promotes respect, diversity and inclusion,
· embed respect for all within the college curriculum and showcase student projects that promote Respect for All,
· carry out other cross-college campaigns that will support the Respect for All agenda.
Further information can be found on Moodle.
Term dates & Course timetable
At the start of your course you will be given a timetable that shows the sessions you have each week, who teaches them and where they are. This may change through the year as modules or units are completed and your course tutor will issue your with any changes. The dates of the terms for your course are:
Autumn Term2014 / Monday 15th September à Friday 12 December
Half Term/Reading Break: Monday 20 to Friday 24 October
Spring Term
2015 /
Monday 5 January à Friday 27 March
Half Term/Reading Break: Monday 16 to Friday 20 FebruarySummer Term
2015 / Monday 13 April à Friday 22 June
(May Day: Monday 4 May)
(Spring Bank Holiday: Monday 25 May to Friday 29 May)
Your Course Design & Delivery
To make sure you are ‘work ready’ or equipped to go on to further study we have built your course up from a series of elements. The following section shows you how your course is made up. Your Course Tutor will spend time in induction week going through this with you.
Main qualification
Blue- Agriculture
Green- Joint
Red- Horticulture
Module / Unit No. / Module Title / Value1 / Undertake Work Related Experience in the landbased Industries / 10
2 / Environmental and Land based Business / 10
4 / Introduction to farm animal production / 10
5 / Introduction to landbased machinery operations / 10
8 / Participate in providing estate maintenance / 10
6 / Introduction to Animal & Plant Husbandry / 10
6 / Conservation and Improvement of British Habitats / 10
5 / Establish and Maintain Plants Outdoors / 10
1 / Understand the Basic Principles of Plant Science / 5
2 / Understand the Basic Principles of Soil Science / 5
Short and additional qualifications
Short qualificationTractor licence.
Functional Skills Design & Delivery
Being able to communicate and carry out basic numeracy is a vital skill that we all need if we are going to be able to work or complete further study. Your course has built into it timetabled sessions giving you an opportunity to develop these essential skills. These sessions will be staffed by a specialist tutor who will work with you to develop the skills you need to be able to achieve the functional skills qualifications that are part of your programme.
Assignment & Assessment schedule
You will be provided with information on and a plan of how your programme will be assessed. This will be given to you at the start of your course and show you how assessment will take place. It will include information on hand in dates and is planned so as to spread the assessment load out throughout your course.
You will be given feedback on each piece of assessed work as it is handed back to you. If it is a practical activity then initial verbal feedback followed by written feedback will be given so that you are clear of how you have done.
Your Course tutor will also keep an accurate, up-to-date record of your progress in relation to the course and this will be used in your one to one reviews and to inform parents of how you are progressing with the course.
Submitting work for summative assessment
The college has put the following guide lines in place to ensure you are given adequate opportunity to achieve your justified grade in all assessed work. For the purposes of the following guidelines summative assessment is defined as those pieces of assessed work and their associated submission dates identified in the assessment or assignment schedule which meet the awarding body achievement towards identified criteria. It is important that whilst you may want to aspire to achieve the highest possible grades, that is not always realistic. The time and effort you put in to any one assessment needs to not put your ability to pass all at risk. Your tutor will need to guide you on this.
· Your tutor will ensure that you understand the assessment requirements, the nature of evidence you will need to produce and the importance of time management and meeting deadlines.
· All work must be submitted by the submission date which is printed on the assignment brief.
· You should agree with the tutor if merit and distinction criteria are to be attempted as part of an assessed piece of work.
· Merit and distinction criteria may be either set as part of an assessment or as a separate piece of assessed work to that set for pass criteria.
· If for any reason you are unable to meet the specified deadline you should:
Complete a Mitigating Circumstances Form which must be forwarded to the tutor at least ONE WEEK before the original date stating the reason(s) why this is the case. If the tutor and Lead IV determine that the reason is valid then a new deadline will be set. An extension will normally only be granted once for any individual assessed piece of work.
· Any unauthorised late submission of work or Mitigating Circumstances Form which is not agreed will result in failure of the unit.
· If you are away from College on sick leave your tutor can, provided they have the agreement of the Lead Verifier, complete the Mitigating Circumstances Form on the your behalf. This can only be done where a valid justified reason for absence from the college has been provided.
· Once you begin work for summative assessment the tutor must not provide specific assessment feedback on the evidence produced by you before it is submitted for assessment, or confirm achievement of specific assessment criteria until the assessment stage.
Some of your work will be sampled by another person (Internal Verifier) who will ensure that standards are being maintained in accordance with the requirements of the awarding body. This may involve someone watching your tutor assess you. Sometimes the awarding body send someone in to the College (External Verifier) and they may want to talk to you or see you being assessed. In both cases your Course tutor will inform you of this.
Appeals against assessment decisions
If you are not happy with how a grading decision is made about an assignment or assessment then you should initially raise this with your tutor to try to have it informally resolved. However if this is not resolved then there is a formal process of appeal in place. A full version of this policy can be found on Moodle.
Plagiarism & malpractice
It is important that in any work you do that is assessed that you don’t break the awarding body guidelines. If you do then this is called ‘Malpractice or Plagiarism’. The following are examples of how this might occur:
· Plagiarism is using another person’s work/research without acknowledging where the information came from. It is very serious and can put your college career at risk. Sometimes you may want to use an author’s exact words – if so it is essential that you use a quotation. Everything between quotation marks should be exactly as it is in the original source.
· Working together with other students to produce work that is then submitted as all your own work. You should not be discouraged from teamwork, as this is an essential skill, but work submitted for assessment must show where this has happened.
· Pretending to be someone else in order to produce the work for another or arranging for someone else to do the work for you in an assessment/examination/test
· Making up of results and/or evidence
· Failing to abide by the instructions or regulations for an assessment or test.
· Misuse of assessment/examination material
For further detail please refer to the full policy on Assessment Malpractice which can be found on Moodle.
Progression / Career opportunities
Progression & career opportunities after your main qualification.1 / Academic routes (Internal)
These could be further FE , Apprenticeships or HE, please give some through and detail to this area
Academic routes (External)
2 / Employment routes
Highlight the type of jobs they might realistically get in to following this course.
3 / Unsure still
Why not meet up with your course tutor if you are unsure of the route within your chosen subject area. If you would like more general options/advice then why not book to see learner’s services.
Supporting you while you study and listening to what you want
Study skills workshops
Within your timetable we have put in a session where you will be able to work on assignments and receive help and support from your tutor in developing your study skills. Being able to work on your own and complete tasks to a timescale is an important skill that we need to help you develop.
Using Referencing for Assignment writing
Whenever you draw on another writer’s ideas, you should give a clear Reference to their original work. That is, you need to say which particular book or article you are working from. You should also give the page number and the date of publication so that your reader can find the same details. The details of the reference can be provided in a full list of references at the end of your assignment.
In an essay you often have to discuss other people’s ideas and when you do so you are expected to use a ‘citation’ that is, a brief reference to where those ideas came from. You could use phrases such as:-
· as Jones argues ……..
· as Smith states…….
· according to Williams……. etc.
Following these statements a reference is required e.g. (Smith 1998), (Jones 2002), or (Williams 2003).
A much more detailed explanation of the Harvard Referencing system can be found on Moodle.
Additional learning support
As part of supporting your success you will have taken an Initial Assessment as part of the recruitment process or in induction. We are able to use the results of that to provide additional help to those that are shown to need it.
Additional learning support may take many forms at the College, the nature of which is decided by the Learning Support Team. These include:
· A Learning Support Assistant (LSA) who works with you one to one outside of normal classes.
· Small group workshops, which enable learners to work with other learners who have a similar literacy and/or numeracy need.
· A Learning Support Assistants (LSA) who will give you in-class support during normal teaching sessions.
· Special support during the examination process which might include additional time, someone to read or write for you.
· Special equipment, including software to help you with learning difficulties and/or disabilities.
Full details of the Additional Learning support policy can be found on Moodle.