UK Government Announces Changes to Restrictions

As many of you will have heard, an announcement made by the UK Government advised that the whole of England moves to Tier 5 preventative measures with immediate effect from Tuesday 5th January 2021.

Due to this change, EC English schools in London, Brighton, Bristol, Cambridge and Manchester will move to online classes only, effective from 5th January. This is a temporary measure, which will be reviewed again in 4 weeks. But for now, online classes are scheduled to remain in place until mid-February (6 weeks).

Our school staff continue to be available as normal to support our students, and students can still benefit from:

✓ support with their accommodation and/or welfare needs
✓ advise on local guidelines
✓ support with any visa issues
✓ full online social programme, including free workshops
✓ regular mentoring and counselling
✓ on-going interaction with classmates (inside and outside of class time)
✓ access to one-to-one facilitation with members of the team at their school

Rest assured that our students will continue to benefit from the same excellent quality experience they are accustomed to, as:

✓ students will remain in their same class groups, with their current classmates
✓ lessons will be delivered by their usual teachers
✓ there will be the same amount of teacher contact time, and the same number of lessons/contact hours as booked
✓ there will be no changes made to the timetable
✓ lesson content will remain unchanged
✓ progress and assessment testing will continue to be available

UK borders remain open with the same travel guidelines in place. These include:

• the safe travel list of countries that do not require visitors to quarantine upon arrival; and
• for visitors outside the safe travel list, there is the possibility to shorten quarantine periods should you test negative for COVID-19 5 days after arrival

We continue to recommend that students check local travel guidelines prior to their departure.

We understand that in light of the latest government announcement, international perceptions of life in the UK now may vary.

We feel it is worth re-iterating that much of the UK has been operating within these conditions for many months now, with work, study, and day-to-day life continuing with little impact to the overall student experience. The only major change with this most recent update is the temporary mandate to move our teaching online, and we are confident – as before – that there will be no meaningful diminishment of the student learning, cultural and life experience with us.

Please do not hesitate to contact us or your Sales Representative should you have any questions.