Partnership Colleges
Dorton College
Hybrid Education Explained
We create partnerships with mainstream providers, as well as Sixth Forms and Specialist providers, and our students can choose from a wide range of courses they may like to study. Once they’ve chosen their preferred course, we arrange access and support with a one-to-one vision impairment (VI) specialist Learning Support Assistant (LSA) to access their chosen course.
Tutors at the partnership provider send us the students’ work in advance, and Dorton staff members resource the work into the format each individual student requires, such as Grade 1 or 2 Braille, large print, coloured print or background, or raised diagrams.
These resources are completed before the session, so that our students fit seamlessly into their classes. Most partnership courses are three days a week, so the remaining two days are spent at the Dorton VI specialist hub, where students will have weekly one-to-ones with a Qualified Teacher of Children and Young People with Vision Impairment (QTVI). Sessions include English and maths QTVI, braille tutoring, weekly one-to-one mobility and habilitation sessions, weekly OT, SaLT, and physiotherapy if needed. In addition to this, students have additional VI specialist sessions such as health and wellbeing, independent living skills, and many more.
Please see our curriculum offer for further details.
This way of hybrid working ensures that our students can access a wide range of mainstream and SEN courses, with access to mainstream facilities while also benefiting from the expertise and support from a VI specialist provider at all times. It’s an approach that works, and they achieve their aspirations and outcomes consistently, year on year.
Quality Assurance
Quality at our partnership colleges is of utmost importance to us. A robust service level agreement is in place with each one, setting out how we will work together to provide the very best VI educational provision for our students. Our quality assurance team carry out regular session observations and learning walks, along with our Governing Board. This ensures that partnership quality of delivery is high and that VI needs are always taken into consideration when planning and delivering courses.
VI training and support
Dorton College also visits each provider at the start of every academic year to deliver VI awareness training. We conduct environmental audits, too, with associated risk assessments of each site to ensure that they’re VI accessible. Our QTVI’s also offer regular drop-in sessions to each site to provide support and ideas for ensuring the partnership curriculums remain VI accessible.
