Dear All,
The Covid-19 outbreak is likely to have an impact on our programmes and courses after the Easter break.
At the moment, unless we hear differently from Public Health England, we will be teaching out the spring term at the Writers’ Place and at East Sussex College as planned. The spring term ends on the 20th March (though one or two classes will continue to meet in the following week).
If the situation changes over Easter and educational establishments are asked to stop running classes, we will run sessions using the video conferencing platform, Zoom.
If we switch to Zoom, your classes will still run at the same time as usual, but instead of coming into class, you’ll sit down in front of your computer at home, log-in to your course page on our Creative Writing Programme website (as you usually do) and scroll down to the section that gives the outline of your class for that week. There, you will see a link to a Zoom session on the page. When you click on it you will be taken to the video conferencing platform and after a few simple set-up tasks, a new screen will open which will allow you to see and talk to the other members of your group.
Step-by-step instructions will be given to you closer to the time that will explain, clearly, how to set up your Zoom connection on your computer, along with some tips for managing interactions with the rest of your group on the platform.
We appreciate there may be a number of reasons why some of you might not want to attend classes after Easter, whilst some of you, depending on the seriousness of the outbreak, may be less concerned. We realise that at a time like this it will be extremely difficult to respond to everybody’s personal needs, which is why we are considering this alternative. Our decisions, ultimately, on this matter will be guided by the announcements of Public Health England.
Meanwhile, stay safe, look after your loved ones and if you
are feeling unwell, please do not come into class.
All best
Mark