Activate Learning Reviews

Please don't send your children here to do A-levels (Farnham College). My child hasn't had a Biology teacher for months so is trying to teach himself and their second Psychology teacher in a year is also suddenly leaving. These poor kids are in their second year and don't stand a chance of being properly educated. It's a disgrace

At first I was lost. I met a lady called Preeti . She explained to me the process in detail. Encouraged me. I’m so happy I met her because she gave me the strength and understanding to continue with my college enrolment process . Thank you Preeti

My first time at Reading College was back between 2017 and 2019 doing a Btec Science course. As I was really impressed with the college at the time, I though I'd return for the 23/24 academic year for a Btec Engineering course following a bad experience I had with another course I did at university. Although the first few weeks of the course went smoothly, it was after October half term where things started to go downhill quite quickly. Here's a summary of the things I experienced. - As a mature student, I paid a good amount of money for the 1 year I'm back at Reading College. However, because I've missed so many lessons that have amounted to missing several weeks, I arranged a meeting with my faculty manager about getting a partial refund for these lessons I've missed. As he had to email the directors, I had to wait quite a few weeks to hear back, but to both of our disappointments, they DIDN'T refund me, and even my faculty manager said that if it was up to him, he would've given me all of the money I requested. As many other people have said, Activate Learning are clearly more worried about making a profit than giving their students the best experience possible. - My next point is about one of my recent lessons, where I had an important meeting about my apprenticeship one morning, which I heard about back in March and would’ve been impossible to change. My timetable had been changed a few days before to an important lesson, so I emailed my lecturer regarding this, and he said that it would be fine for me to miss it, with me under the presumption that I’d be able to catch up. When I emailed him the following day about this, not only did he say that I wouldn’t be able to catch up as it was a teamwork based assignment, but he was also implying that I was at fault for prioritising my apprenticeship meeting that I had in the diary for over 3 months over this important lesson that was rescheduled only a few days prior. On top of this, he copied my tutor, faculty manager and other workshop lecturer into the email in an attempt to find an alternative solution to this problem. Again, this really annoyed me, as this rescheduling was out of my hands, and I felt I was tricked into thinking I'd be able to catch up. - In my last 2 weeks at college, my timetable for my Btec class, including the week commencing the date I write this review, our timetable was rammed with early starts and late finishes (8-6 instead of 9-5) to catch up with missing lessons. This is an attempt to catch up with 6 assignments that we should've been doing for the few months prior, but those lessons were cancelled due to the T-Level coursework taking priority over ours. Overall, I feel like we've been treated like 2nd-class students that now have a mad rush to finish assignments through no fault of our own, whilst the T-Level students are now finished and now on summer holiday. -On top of this, the T-Level students got a LOT more support than the Btec students. One important part of both courses is gaining work experience, of which it's compulsory for the T-Level students and optional for the Btec students. Whilst the T-Level students got help finding it, the Btec students just got a list of company websites to look at and were told to find it ourselves with minimum guidance and help. I know this is part of both of the courses specifications, but I feel like the T-Level lot get preferential treatment just because they're a more academic route. Overall, I feel that this year at Reading College has been an absolute mess and disaster for students who are on the Btec route. I'm only giving a 2-star review as my first time at Reading College was excellent, but even that's being FAR TOO generous for what I've had this last academic year.

laggy, logs you out and you have to redo the entire task. full of bugs, low quality design and terrible for learning would rate 0/10

I was enrolled in a course lasting 1 year with exams in June 23- promised I Could re-sit im November as I was unable to sit a paper - I enrolled this September just to re-sit in NOvember and they've just decided , after enrolling , that they can no longer offer me the opportunity to re-sit - which means I've spent 1 year and 1 month attending, revising, working for absolutely nothing! How can they reverse their decision so arbitrarilty - no-one cares- they didn't even respond to my emails by name - just a generic email with no name !! SO UNPROFESSIONAL -AVOID

Visited Guildford College as a prospective student and was slapped with a £60 parking fine which Activatelearning refused to remove. Needless to say, I won't be enrolling on one of your courses. Students beware, you can't park at their facilities without being handed a parking fine! AVOID!

I applied to do math GCSE course through this college as it was mainly distant learning and is achievable with having a small child to care for and no childcare during the week I did the enitial assesment and then was asked to enroll to which I couldn't complete as I didn't have proof if not having my math gcse below grade c so I decided to come back to it later to find I can't access the page being told my details are wrong and also a page stating 404 denied access I emailed activate learning 4 days ago with no response I've rang twice being in a cue from position 12 and getting to position 4 the phone cuts off and now trying to enrol says my details do not exist I think I've had a lucky escape and will look into my local college as this has been a dreadful experience so far.

Activate Learning have been amazing! I am retaking my GCSEs as an adult due to not being able to take them as a teenager due to serious anxiety and lack of self-belief. Activate Learning have enabled me to do a 1 year online course for both Maths and English GCSE and as I approach my exams this and next month I have so much confidence in my ability thanks to the team. With the training and support from all involved with the course I now have the knowledge resurrected too! 20 years after I should have passed with flying colours, I have now been given another opportunity, thanks to Activate Learning! The online course structure is fab, very interactive and gives lots of different ways to further study yourself in between. It also fits really well around full time work, being a wife and mum of 2 young kids.

My experience with Activate Learning has been amazing from start to finish! I took the online Access to Nursing & Midwifery course. The tutors have all been really supportive and helpful throughout, replying to emails quickly and even available over the phone. The webinars for each unit were really helpful and available to watch back if you were busy at the time, making this course really good to work around family and work. Thank you activate learning for my experience and getting me the grades I needed to get into university.

Unprofessional, bullying and racist culture. Avoid. Avoid Avoid

They don’t reply to your email queries especially if they’re important. Worst customer service I’ve ever had.

My son has been to the Oxford college campus for two years and been on two different courses, in that time the entire staff have proven themselves to be totally unreliable, unprofessional, contravened data protection by discussing personal family information with another student, the teachers are lazy and clueless with a seemingly low regard to even turn up on occasions. With certain inside information I know without doubt this organisation runs their colleges and schools as a business first and an education provider second so their priority is the bottom line profit over the students educational needs and requirements. I would to think this was an isolated incident at this location but my daughter had severe bullying issues both physical and emotional at The Bicester School where we removed her from that school twice due to their total inability to deal with the issue satisfactorily and we knew they could not guarantee the safety of our child. A totally shocking organisation that we have had the misfortune to deal with for the last few years, never again will a child of ours step across their threshold

Very poor communication to potential customer and absolutely no sense/culture of responsibility or accountability in this organisation. I tried to apply and enroll on a course by a local college who are part of Activate Learning now. Filled in online application 2 months in advance, received 2 confimation emails stating that Activate Learning will be in touch. Few weeks before the course date got another email requesting to contact Activate Learning to settle the payment for the course. When I called I was told by Activate Learning that my name is not on the list, course is fully booked and there is nothing they can do. Nobody could provide any explanation what had gone wrong, neither they were willing to try to help. I also raised a Complaint on Activate Learning website and few weeks later still have not heard anything. When calling Activate Learning, the recorded greeting message on phone states that Activate Learning is commited to provide outstanding customer experience or something similar along those lines. Nowhere near in my case. I had to contact the college directly and the staff there were willing to look into problem and found a solution.

Unfortunately, I cannot recommend this college at all based on my child’s experience. Communication has been extremely poor, with students left without timetables or clear guidance, not replying to emails, leaving them to figure things out on their own. The lack of organization is concerning. My child has also mentioned that most teachers are very difficult to understand due to language barriers (accents), which impacts their ability to follow lessons. I’ve listened to recordings myself and found it difficult to understand myself as well. Additionally, teacher meetings are often cancelled at the last minute, with no explanation or new dates provided. Another concern is how the school approaches inclusivity. While I fully support the idea of creating an inclusive environment, certain practices feel...distracting. For instance, children walking around pretending to be cats and dogs during school hours barking and screaming at other students seems inappropriate and disruptive. If other students say something about it they will get told off for not being inclusive. My child was also pressured to wear a specific LGBTQ+ lanyard for a student pass, which they were uncomfortable with. If they did not agree wearing this lanyard they were not given their new student pass... Inclusivity should be about respecting everyone’s preferences, not forcing students into situations that make them uneasy. Lastly, the cafeteria raises serious hygiene concerns. While I appreciate the opportunity given to individuals with disabilities to participate, there seems to be a lack of supervision, which has led to unsanitary practices like improper handling of food. This is a significant health and safety issue that needs to be addressed immediately. Do not send your child here. I hope they take these issues seriously and makes the necessary improvements, but I doubt they will.

Its a pain just to register for a course. I'm going to look elsewhere as this college looks like its mis-managed from the start.

Studied level two esports and where do I even begin, For a start the teachers were consistently ill or there were changes in plans, not to mention there was not enough of the course itself, for example Tuesday was 9 am to 16:40 pm, and only an hour of it was esports, you’d think for a course about esports they’d give me more of what you’ve came for, but no…2024 and I had just completed my GCSE’s and sent my application for level 3 esports, I waited and waited…received nothing, no email or anything, so I email BOTH tutors, got absolutely nothing from either of them, and on September 4th, the day college is meant to start, they decide to email me, “sorry you didn’t get into the course” Which is just outrageous, how can anyone think it’d acceptable to drop that just as college begins, I’ve got barely any time to apply for anything now because I’ve been waiting for this. So anyone thinking of signing up to this college, word of advice, don’t. Go somewhere you’ll actually get what you came for

It was like if my presence was disturbing the school environment... At first, after enrolling to my desired course, they forgot to file me in....(WELL, MAYBE THEY DID NOT FORGET , THEY HAD CROWDED CLASSES AND DECIDED GET RID OF ME AMONG OTHERS) Secondly, they decided to make a spare online group of poor forgotten students and we started an online course Thirdly, our teacher named Caz who gave us online lessons, showed an attitude to discriminating foreign students all the time. She started a private conversation once with one of us students, eventually without paying attention to whom could be yet Online and it turned out that I was still online myself a listen to all she meant to say about me. ( Unfortunately I couldn't record that conversation! Finally, even if I attended and did not miss a day of lesson, I renounced to take the exam ... That wasn't a school at all!

I passed my exam on the 15th of December but still haven’t received my certificate. I have called multiple times and send multiple emails no response .Horrible service.

It’s like walking through the gates of hell when you arrive at the Oxford campus, I write this as an ex-tutor not as a student As others in the thread have said , Directors are Bullies , that ooze arrogance they really do not care about education they care about money , the only time they are visible is on days such as open events then they scuffle off back into the holes the crawled out of ! Male directors are very misogynistic that just gas light you they lack any leadership skills , communication skills , they have zero compassion and most of all they lack any kind of integrity. One member of staff who is now director had a relationship with a student, instead of being sacked they were moved and promoted. HR are so poor that they allow teachers to work there with out DBS’s some hadn’t had them for 3 years - this is a major concern , they wait until they have lots to apply for , I didn’t have one for 7 months , I had to chase it up myself they didn’t seem to care, DBS’s are a legal requirement to work in any educational organisation. It isn’t until you leave the hell hole that you realise how poor the company is , when you see the way other establishments are run then you truly understand the true extent of toxicity As I tutor I tried to do my best for students but I was so over worked with an extremely high workload that my mental health suffered , management didn’t care , when I complained about my workload and the amount of work I had to do outside of the work place my manager said “ Your a teacher get on with it “ this is the same manager that refused to mark work outside of his working day and demanded extra payments. Just writing this and thinking about activate learning gives me PTSD , Please take my advice don’t enrol on any courses under activate you’ll ruin your chance of education…… YOUR JUST A £-sign

I have applied for course and they said that will send me an email for enrolment but three weeks later I am still waiting for it. When I messaged them, they said we have sent you, but they definitely not. That is absolutely unacceptable because I have just lost my time.