Terms & Conditions

ENROLMENT REGULATIONS

Admission

The Skills & Learning Manager reserves the right to assess the learner’s suitability to benefit from the proposed course. Enrolment and payment do not guarantee a place on a course. Skills & Learning reserves the right to insist upon any learner discontinuing attendance on any course or venue.

Places on some of our courses will be in high demand and if you have been offered a place but no longer require it, please advise us immediately, as you may be preventing another learner from taking the place. Where learners do not attend the first session without having given prior notice, Skills & Learning reserve the right to offer the place on the course to another learner and you will not be eligible to a refund if it is outside the 14-day cooling off period (see ‘Cancellation Policy’).

Attendance and achievement monitoring.

Regular attendance at planned course sessions and completion of home study activities are important to your success.

All learners on fully or partially funded courses will be expected to attend every session of their course. Attendance will be monitored and you will be contacted about any absence that you haven’t alerted us to in advance. You will also be contacted if your attendance rates drop below our expected minimum levels.

If you are having difficulties regularly attending your class or engaging with the learning, please talk to us. We have various support arrangements in place that we can discuss with you.

Unspent Criminal Convictions

We require learners to disclose any unspent criminal convictions within 7 days of enrolment. Please refer to our policy page  here.

Learners studying qualification courses at other training providers

The funding bodies will only fund a learner to study a qualification with a single training provider. Where a learner studies the same qualification with another training provider, Skills & Learning reserves the right to reclaim from the learner, the fees equivalent to the loss of funding from the funding bodies.

Eligibility to Attend Courses

All our courses are available to learners aged 19 and over on 31 August. Residency and eligibility rules apply. Any changes to residency and eligibility rules will be published on our website, here.

Changes in Class Arrangement

Courses are arranged on a basis of estimated demand.

The Skills & Learning Manager may change the syllabus, the day and time of any course and may cancel courses where:

• Enrolment or attendance is considered inadequate
• The course tutor is unable to continue teaching and no suitably qualified replacement tutor is available
• The course is financially unviable to continue

Where a session must be postponed, the Service will re-schedule the session and no refund of the learner’s fee will be made. Where the remainder of the course is cancelled, the Service’s liability is limited to a pro-rata refund of the learner’s fee (please also see cancellation policy below).

Stationery, Textbooks and Course Materials

On most courses learners are expected to provide the stationery and materials required for their courses. Please refer to the Course Information Sheet.

Change of Personal Details

You must advise us of any change to your personal details, including your address.

Personal Information

Please see our privacy and cookies policy here for details on how we process your personal information.

Damage to Equipment & Premises

The cost of repair of property known to have been damaged by a learner shall, on demand, be paid to Skills & Learning by the learner responsible for such damage.

Loss or Damage to Personal Property

All property, including clothing, electronic goods, bicycles and motor vehicles, brought to any Skills & Learning premises by a learner shall remain throughout, at the sole risk of the learner.
Neither Dorset Council, BCP Council nor the Skills & Learning Service accepts any responsibility.

HOW MUCH WILL IT COST?

Course Fees

Fees are exempt from VAT. Learners should be aware that course fees, as quoted, are subject to review only in exceptional circumstances. Places on courses are not transferable to any other person. These Terms and Conditions must be read in conjunction with our Learner Handbook, our Fees Policy and Course Entry Policy.

Instalments

For fees over £100 it may be possible to pay 50% of the course fee before the start of the course. 50% of the total course fee must be received by BCP Council before the agreement is valid. This will be followed by two consecutive monthly instalments of 25% following the initial payment of 50%.

For course fees over £650 – please contact Skills & Learning for further information. Please note that the full fee remains payable if you cancel your place on the course outside the 14-day cooling off period.

Please refer to the Finance and Course Fees information or phone 01202 123444 for further information.

Examination and awarding organisation registration fees and administrative charges

Examination and awarding organisation registration fees and administrative charges are included in the cost of the course. Learners are reminded that it is their responsibility to ensure that they are entered for the correct examination by the deadline date set. Learners who do not turn up for exams and/or assessments will be charged an exam cancellation fee.

Late entries

If a learner misses the final examination entry deadline and wishes to make a late entry, the learner will be required to pay a £25 centre administration fee and the awarding organisation late fee.

CANCELLATION POLICY

You may cancel your place on a course within 14 days of receiving confirmation of your enrolment and receive a full refund, unless:

• Full delivery of the course has taken place within this period
• Part of the course has been delivered within this period, in which case you will pay reasonable costs for this proportion of the course

To request a refund please within the 14 day cooling-off period, please complete a cancellation form which you can access here.

Cancellations outside of the 14 day cooling-off period will not result in a refund unless due to exceptional circumstances, such as medical or injury related situations and are entirely at our discretion and will entail a £25 administration fee. To request a refund as a result of exceptional circumstance, please complete a cancellation form which you can access here.

Nothing contained within these Terms & Conditions affects your statutory rights.

An appropriate proportion of fees may be refunded in the following circumstances:

• A refund of exam/registration fees where these have not yet been paid by Skills & Learning to the awarding organisation.
• A class is closed due to low attendance and/or where the number of learners does not justify continuation of the class.
• A learner is unable to continue for medical reasons; a medical certificate or letter from a doctor must be supplied within three weeks of the last class attended to support the request for a refund.
• A full refund of fees will be made if a course is cancelled due to a service failure.

Please note:  Examination fees are non-refundable after the 14 day cooling-off period has expired.

Sometimes we must change the day, time or venue for a course. We will notify you of this. Under the following circumstances you will have 7 days from the date of our notification to request a refund (either pro-rata if the course has started, or in full if it has not started) if you are unable to attend the course due to our change of arrangements:

• If the day of a course must change due to unforeseen circumstances.
• If the time of a course must change due to unforeseen circumstances (and the change is greater than 60 minutes).
• If the venue of a course must change due to unforeseen circumstances (and the replacement venue is more than 2 miles away from the original venue).
• If we decide it is in the interests of the safety of learners and/or staff, or under guidance from Public Health England and/or other Government departments, to move delivery of a course online then no refunds will be made as a result of this.

Advanced Learner Loan Cancellation only

The Student Loans Company (SLC) will only pay the fees based on the duration of your attendance. If you decide to withdraw from the course, the SLC will stop payments to Skills & Learning and you will be liable for the remaining balance of the course fee. If you have applied for an Advanced Learner Loan you will also be liable for the full course fee if the loan application remains incomplete or is later declined by the SLC.

Learners should not turn up for any session without enrolling.

IMPACT OF LEARNING

Where you undertake a course, which is fully or partially funded by public funding, you will be required to provide information on the impact of the learning. This will be collected from you in your classes, online and/or by telephone. You cannot opt out of this responsibility.

EARLY BIRD DISCOUNT AND OTHER TIME LIMITED PROMOTIONS

We are offering this early bird discount to enable a wider range of learners to consider learning opportunities and to encourage early and full enrolment on health and wellbeing courses for 2024-25, helping them to be financially viable to run, enabling learners and staff to plan accordingly and reducing the likelihood of cancellation due to low enrolments. We may also offer other promotions and discounts throughout the year. The terms and conditions apply to both Early Bird discounts and other promotions.

Our service is supported by public funding, and we are obliged to ensure appropriate and good value use of these public funds.

• This offer applies to “Learning for Life, Health & Wellbeing” courses – course codes begin with a letter ‘P’ and ‘Learning for Leisure’ courses – course codes begin with letters ZN.
• Applies to enrolments made on or before 31st July 2024. Other in year promotions will be time limited.
• Each course enrolled onto must cost at least £80 to be eligible for the 10% discount i.e. two courses costing £40 each do not qualify for the discount.
• There is no limit to the number of courses that can be enrolled upon.
• All courses must be paid for in full at the point of enrolment. The discount cannot be used in conjunction when paying in instalments.
• The discount applies to Full Fee and Concessionary Fees (CF) where the above conditions are met.
• If you transfer to a course where the Early Bird Discount offer or other offer is not applicable, the discount will be removed, and you will be liable to pay the fee that would otherwise be payable.
• Skills & Learning reserves the right to withdraw the scheme at any point.
• The discount cannot be used on other courses / cannot be combined with any other offer. There is no cash alternative.
• This offer can only be used on courses directly delivered by Skills & Learning.
• We reserve the right to withdraw this offer at any time if we are oversubscribed.
• The offer dates will be strictly adhered to and we cannot be held responsible for technical, IT or banking failures that prevent enrolment by the given date.
• If courses are cancelled by Skills & Learning before their start date, enrolled learners will be refunded the value paid or offered a place on an equal value course.
• Please pay particular attention to the learner course place cancellation policy within the general terms and conditions. Refunds of course fees will not be given outside of the cooling off period of 14 days following enrolment.
• All other usual terms and conditions apply.

Please retain this information for reference purposes. 

Please be aware that by enrolling on a course, learners are accepting all these Terms & Conditions. 

This information is correct at time of publishing May 2024.

Read more of our policies below