UK Open College Reviews 

Reply from UK Open College

Updated Sep 14, 2024

Thank you for your feedback Leoni and congrats on your completion. We are a little disappointed in only receiving 3 stars but like all students we respect your comments.

We can see there was a slight delay in receiving your work plans when you first enrolled. We can see this was also dealt with swiftly once we were made aware. We can understand your frustration if keen to get started though. Point taken!

We can see no delay in your work being marked though, so that causes us a slight concern. Our service level agreement for the marking and feedback on work is 7 days (5 Working Days). Upon checking your portfolio, it appears every one of the 4 assignments were marked within that timescale. Some were done in 2/3 days. Maybe this is where your impatience crept in ? We appreciate your honesty,

When selecting this method of learning we would urge students to make a comparison to attending college where you can wait weeks for feedback on assignments to be received. We are proud of how quickly we do this for our learners.

Apart from an isolated occasion, tutor responses appear to have been good and within the time we would expect.

We can see that you completed your course in approx 7/8 weeks which is less than half the time for the average completion of this course, so this is a great achievement in itself. Certification was also issued quickly too, which we are pleased to hear.

Overall, Leoni a big thank you from us here at UKOC and thank you for selecting us as your learning provider. We hope you return if ever you decide to continue your education.

Reply from UK Open College

Jul 18, 2024

We are extremely disappointed in this Review Jess but respect your comments as we do all learners that select us as their learning provider.

When you registered for this course back in 2021, we were experiencing COVID restrictions. The option to study this particular course at college was not an option back then due to the restrictions placed on assessors accessing nursery and preschool settings. This may well be the reason you opted to study using the online method as an alternative?

The course you enrolled on was vocational, so as mentioned in your comments you should be working or volunteering in a nursery or pre-school to complete. This is correct! You were aware of this when you started and you provided the paperwork to back this up.

As your course was vocational, this is not typically a course that is done face to face with a tutor. Yes, if you registered for this course locally at college you would be allocated a tutor that you could go in and meet with on occasion to hand in work and answer any questions you may have. Here at UKOC we provide support to our students for this course, via email, telephone and Zoom upon request. All these methods would have been available to you on your study journey.

We can see you experienced issue with your manager allocating time to assist you with the practical side of things. Upon enrolment, your placement setting and manager agreed to assist you with your studies and signed the documentation agreeing to this.

Unfortunately, this is beyond our control but we totally understand your frustrations when trying to complete within the allocated time. We are pleased to hear you were granted further time to complete. It is highly unlikely that extra time would have been granted at your local college. Online learning, does provide flexibility for learners which is a major advantage when things don't quite go to plan.

We too experienced issues during the pandemic as most colleges did, but we managed to work our way through what can only be described as very difficult times. With a little patience and understanding from both sides, we managed to do so very successfully on the whole

We were one of the few colleges able to offer this course during the COVID period and we are very proud of this. We managed to help hundreds of learners during this time when traditional brick and mortar colleges couldn't.

We totally understand that studying online is not for everyone and maybe on this occasion it just didn't meet your expectations. We accept that!

We are delighted you managed to gain your qualification eventually Jess and genuinely wish you every success in the future. Thanks again for selecting UKOC as your learning provider.

Reply from UK Open College

Jul 2, 2024

Thank you for your feedback Lucy. We are delighted you completed your course and gained your qualification. We are a little disappointed in this review but appreciate you taking the time to leave your thoughts.

We wanted to address some of the points, so both your self and future students understand our process fully.

Your latest course came with a 6 month deadline for completion. We can see you were added to the Laser platform on the 23rd Nov 2023. You completed induction on the 5th Dec and also agreed to your workplans to ensure you completed in time. Your completion date was set at 23 May 2024.

We are delighted to see that you completed on the 14th April 2024, so well within the timescale set. A fantastic achievement! Well done and congrats. However, we are concerned that you felt rushed by your tutor considering you completed in good time.

Upon checking your submissions, we can see that your tutor responded and provided feedback to every submission within the advised 7 days we advise. This is what we would expect and meets the service level agreed.

All tutors have 24 hours (1 working day) to also respond to course queries raised by our students. This does not include weekends or public holidays unfortunately. During your time with us you encountered numerous public and bank holiday periods including the xmas and easter holidays. We can see that some responses have taken a little longer than 24 hours, however these tend to have been affected by the holiday periods mentioned. As long as our tutors respond within a reasonable time during these periods then they satisfy our service level agreement. We cannot see that these would have caused any delay to your progress. Be aware, tutors do not respond to emails instantly. They can respond day or night. Some tutors are based outside of the UK for example, so they also deal with any time difference too.

Since you left your review we have had the course resources checked too and can honestly say, we are unable to find any information that is out of date. We would welcome your feedback on this please as this is concerning. If our resources need updating, we can address this almost immediately if you are able to clarify where you feel this is the case.

Overall Lucy, we thank you for selecting us as your learning provider and wish you well in all you do. Good luck and congratulations on your success.

Reply from UK Open College

May 14, 2024

Unfortunately, by leaving an anonymous review we are unable to assist. We have no record of any learner waiting anywhere near 7 months for certification. The vast majority of our learners are certified within 4 - 12 weeks max. If a learner makes us aware of an urgent need, then we can help in most cases. We have no correspondence here from any learner expressing an urgent need for certification towards their QTLS so we will presume you are not or have never been a registered learner with UK Open College. If this is incorrect and you need assistance then contact us urgently on 0121 792 3872 or via email on enquiries@ukopencollege so we can investigate for you.