It is interesting to note how many parallels there are between the students enrolling on our correspondence courses in 1975 with the students we welcome on to our online courses today. These days, we don’t refer to our courses as correspondence courses as the majority of the learning and interactions between students, Tutors and Student Support Managers takes place via our online learning platform. Gone are the days when students had to post their assignments to us and wait for their Tutor to post back the marked paper!

As we catalogue archival materials as part of our 120th Anniversary celebration, it’s interesting to see how the services we offer have evolved and adapted to changes in technology over the years.

But of course that is what embarking on a new stage of your education is all about, whether you’re a child just starting to think about IGCSEs and A Levels or an adult thinking about a career change, or deciding to finally set aside some time to study something you’ve always had an interest in: it’s the beginning of a new future full of opportunities. In the prospectus, we say:

The student who enrols for a correspondence course really wants to learn, in contrast to the child at school who may well hate learning. And the willing student with a correspondence course learns at his or her own pace – not being held back by a slow class nor left behind by an exceptionally quick one. The course can be fitted to personal requirements… It can be made flexible in a way that is not possible with any other form of tuition.

In fact this is all as true today as it was in 1975 (or 1894, for that matter!), and it’s one of the reasons we’re so passionate about providing supportive distance learning courses to students of all ages. We find that our students really start to thrive (both in their studies and beyond) as they develop the valuable life skills that independent learning requires, and we hope to open up a space where learning can be done in a safe, productive, comfortable environment, regardless of where students are based or why they’ve chosen to enrol on a home study course.

Motivation is key here, as several current students have recently pointed out, but the benefits of the flexibility that home study offers are incredible – that flexibility allows talented athletes to pursue Olympic dreams, or mature students with full-time jobs and families to keep learning. So we still believe this, too:

However old or young you are now… whenever you left school… wherever you were educated… whatever the opportunities you missed or neglected first time round – you can win one or more of those golden keys of education, and open doors to future career achievements. Have a look at our Primary, Secondary, IGCSE and A Level courses and see what takes your fancy!

A letter in our 1975 prospectus