Community

Community means so much to us, on so many levels. Read on, to discover how our learners are at the heart of our partnerships.

At The Oaks Specialist College, ‘Community’ is multi-faceted. Firstly, there’s our own community within college – a supportive and open environment with the learners’ voices at the centre of everything. Then there’s our relationship with our local community, filled with fantastic, meaningful partnerships. But it doesn’t stop there, we are also part of many professional communities and networks, ensuring we play an active part in our field and are continually learning from others. And, of course, there’s our close ties with the business community. Through these, we are building lasting partnerships and developing amazing opportunities for our learners.

Learner Voice

Learner Voice is our student council here at The Oaks. Members are voted in by their peers and there is representation across all of our Pathways.

The group meet twice every term to discuss their ideas and concerns, and to plan future events. They also share feedback from previous meetings and events.

This is a wonderful opportunity for learners to influence decision-making at the college. Many of them have taken this one step further by representing The Oaks at the annual Natspec Student Parliament.

At this event, The Oaks learners wanted to raise a discussion on the use of bus passes before the statutory time of 9.30. Our learners feel disadvantaged by the rule and were able to discuss this, live, with other colleges nationally. It became quite an evocative subject and we realised that the problem was country wide. Our learners wrote to MPs Grant Shapps and Tom Tugenhat. With Natspec’s help, our learners have pushed for a written parliamentary question about the matter. This is ongoing and we are waiting for a response.

Local partnerships

F.E.A.S.T

F.E.A.S.T is a food-based project, just round the corner from the college. It is run by a group of passionate people with a mission to tackle food inequality.

Learners from The Oaks have been supporting the initiative for many weeks, particularly by volunteering their practical help at the Wednesday food bank, community café and toddler group.

We have recently extended our support by working with F.E.A.S.T to set-up a community larder, within the college, on Fridays. Subsequently, this has given our learners some wonderful opportunities to broaden their communication skills and for our catering and hospitality group to serve free tea, coffee and cake to members of our community.

Business partnerships

At The Oaks, we have many partnerships with the business community. They support us greatly with work-related learning and with their transition too work programmes. Where possible, we also work with them to enhance our enterprise projects.

BNY Mellon

Our pop-up shop, ‘Love That!’, returned to the Royal Victoria Place shopping centre in Tunbridge Wells, for a second successive year.

This year, to build on the successes of our first venture, we were supported by volunteers from the American bank, BNY Mellon. Employees from their London office spent time at the college, and via video calls, as part of their community volunteer programme. As a result, our learners have developed new products and further enhanced the marketing of the shop.

Our learners, again, produced some amazing products to sell, and the experience has developed their creative and entrepreneurial skills.

Networks and supporters

The Oaks is part of numerous professional networks and bodies, collaborating with and learning from others.

Among those we work with is Microsoft. The Oaks has been recognised for the incredible impact we’ve had in using technology to increase autonomy and independence for local young adults with learning difficulties. We were awarded Microsoft Showcase College for 2022 – 2023 and this has been awarded, once again, for the current academic year.

Microsoft award this prestigious status to, “an elite group of colleges that exemplify the best teaching and learning in the world today.”

We are also very grateful to have had the support of numerous charity foundations over the years. Most recently we have been the thankful recipients of a minibus from the Variety Club, donated in honour of their late patron, Len Goodman.