News About C&G Creative Studies Courses

I must share some important news from City and Guilds regarding their 7716 textile courses – it is really important that anyone studying on these courses reads about the changes taking place.

We can confirm that this group of Creative Studies Courses is now coming to an end with a final possible registration date of mid May 2017 and the final completion date mid May 2020 – this includes a 2 week window for us to process paperwork. We are told there will be strictly no extensions beyond these dates for any reason whatsoever. We have already written to all of our affected students to give them more specific and personalised information about their own individual timescales. If you have not heard from us and think you should have done, please do drop us a line at info@sofst.org. There is no need to worry unduly, as there will be plenty of time in which to complete a course before the final certification deadline in 2020, with the important proviso that students ensure they have re-registered before the mid May deadline if they need more time than their existing registration allows. Diploma and Level 3 course registration is 3 years, Level 2 are 2 years and Level 1 just 1 year.

On a much brighter note, we have now nearly completed work on an extended and brand new range of courses to replace those that will be removed. They are still accredited by City & Guilds and will cover all of the current subjects plus Knitting, Hand Embroidery and Feltmaking at skill levels 1-4, catering for beginners through to master practitioners. We expect to change over to the new suite of courses May/June 2017. They have a fresh, vibrant new look and contain ‘how to’ videos for the first time, which we know will be much appreciated. They are exclusive to SST and, of course accredited by City & Guilds, but will not be available from any other provider.

The only remaining textile qualification City & Guilds have retained is a 7161 generic Textiles certificate, which we will continue to make available while it is still offered by C&G, however we suspect that this will also disappear in a short while and is, in any case, not available at anything above a level 3 Certificate, so anyone considering the Diploma and wishing it to match their existing certificate 7716 may wish to consider a rapid enrolment, as this is the last chance to do so.

We hope this has clarified most of the main points on this change in C&G 7716 courses, but if you have specific queries, please do drop us a line at info@sofst.org and we will do our best to help.