Making the Most of Our Support

If you need any information, help or support you can always call in to Customer Services in the reception areas. They are a friendly bunch of people and know how difficult things can be sometimes.

If you cannot find your way to your class or around the College or you would like to know more about the College generally, it’s facilities and services, Customer Services will be happy to help you.

The Respect Team

The ethos within West Cheshire College is one of mutual respect.  As part of the framework for support, we encourage you to talk to anyone who  you feel comfortable with.  The Respect Team are available if you are being harassed, bullied, including cyber bulling (via computer or mobile phone), abused or neglected and you want to talk to someone from outside your course to listen, advise and/or signpost you to any next step you need to take.  Members of the Respect Team are available on every College campus.  They are trained in the safeguarding of individuals and mentoring.
The team can be identified by the badges on their lanyards (a silver circle displaying the letter ‘R’) and their images are on posters which can be found around the campuses. You can contact the Team directly using the telephone numbers on the posters, or you can email besafe@west-cheshire.ac.uk, text 07887557892 or ‘phone 01244 670508.

Counselling Service: Contact 07887 557892

We all have problems at sometime. If you have a particular problem and need some help by talking it over with someone, a professional and confidential counselling service is available.

Childcare: 01244 670305 (Ellesmere Port) 01244 670503

The College provides high-quality childcare through ABC Nurseries at the Ellesmere Port and Chester Campuses. The nursery at Ellesmere Port provides childcare from six months to five years while at Chester childcare cover is from two years to five year olds.

Our qualified staff will help your child develop into a happy and confident individual. When planning the curriculum we focus on the Early Years Foundation stage framework for all ages ensuring appropriate experiences for the age and stage of development of each child.

Learning Support and Skills for Life (Literacy, Numeracy and Language)

The Learning Support Team is here to help students with a variety of individual learning needs. Last year, over 850 students were supported with their studies and of these over 90% successfully achieve their qualification.

We can provide support for:

• Dyslexia/Specific Learning Difficulties
• Hearing Loss (Deaf, deafened and hard of hearing)
• Visual Impairment
• Physical Disability
• Learning Difficulty
• Mental health issues
• Autistic Spectrum Disorder
• Irlen Sensitivity
• ADHD
• Language (ESOL)
• Behavioural Issues

There is a team of qualified staff who will assess your individual needs and work with you on your individual support plan, which will be reviewed regularly.

All information provided will be treated as confidential.

Advice is also available about the Disabled Students Allowance for Higher Education applications and Special Exam Arrangements.

You can get this support by:

• Calling into the Learning Support Office at the Chester Campus – G60
• By telephoning directly on 01244 670506 or 01244 670536
• By asking your Personal Tutor
• By e-mailing: als@west-cheshire.ac.uk

Maths, English and IT

Every full-time student will be using Maths, English and IT as part of their course. At West Cheshire College we think that Maths, English and IT skills are really important because they are used in almost every job you can think of. So, we try hard to help you develop your skills and include them in most of our Learner Passports.

There are drop-in workshops scheduled in each Learning Centre, so please ask your tutor for details or call in to the Learning Centre for more information.
You can get this support by

• calling into Learning Centres and asking Learning Centre staff
• calling in at the Skills for Life office at the Chester Campus – G63
• by telephoning directly on 01244 670530
• by e-mailing: als@west-cheshire.ac.uk

Student Advice on Disability Matters – DIAL House 01244 345655

The College has good partnerships with a range of organisations who can help our students. One of these is DIAL House who give free confidential advice to students, their carers and families on all matters relating to disability.