Reaseheath students win festival recycling challenge at inter-college business competition

4 ways to prepare for college

Hooray! You have finished your GCSEs and now you have the whole summer to enjoy and relax. Take time for yourself, spend time with friends and family and soak up the sun. Make the most of this time before you start on your next adventure to college.

Don’t let it consume you too much but do remember to do a little bit of preparation for college. This will help to settle your nerves nearer the time and ensure you’re in a great position to get stuck in straight away.

Get an organiser/diary

When you get to college, you may notice you are a lot busier with your studies and social life, so ensuring all your plans and important dates are noted down will make sure you never miss a special occasion, or college deadline.

You will have a bit more freedom and independence in comparison to high school and you may have free periods, so when you receive your timetable at the start of your course, try and plan your week around this, making best use of your time.

Equipment

Depending on your course of study, you may require different pieces of equipment, it’s a good idea to check this before you start. You can find the full list of equipment you need for your chosen course on the Kit List 2023 page of our website.

Whichever course you have chosen, pens, paper and folders will also be wise to purchase to make notes in lessons and keep everything nice and organised.

Plan your travel route

If you are not living on campus, you will need to have a think about how you will get to college every day. There are many different effective ways to travel, if you live locally you may drive, walk or bike.

If you live a little further afield, consider bus routes or the train. At Reaseheath, we offer a range of efficient and cost-effective methods of transportation including extensive bus routes and even pick-ups from Crewe station.

Moving away from home

Not everyone will move away from home for college, but for those who are, our campus is fully equipped with everything you’ll need for a home away from home. You will be catered for in our catering facilities, so you will not need to worry about purchasing lots of kitchen utensils or stocking up on lots of food.

However, you should prepare the items you will need for your bedroom and bathroom including;

– Duvet, pillows and bedding

– Clothes and shoes

– Cleaning supplies

– Room decorations

– Towels

 

Now you have a slightly better understanding of what you can do to prepare yourself for college, take this time to enjoy your summer and spend time with friends.

Don’t forget if you are feeling overwhelmed by the transition speak to your friends and family, or others who have started college.

Field To Fork Project

Energy Saving Light changes across Campus

As part of Reaseheath College’s commitment to improving environmental sustainability the Estates team have been making changes to the lighting over several years and in fact are now in the second generation of changing light bulbs and fittings to be more economical in their usage.

In all new build projects and refurbishments, the College now use lower energy LED lights instead of the old style incandescent or halogen high-energy light bulbs.  LED bulbs and fittings have reduced energy running costs and are designed to last 20-50 times longer than traditional incandescent lamps, the potential savings associated with them can be huge.

As a general rule, LED light bulbs use around 10% of the energy of incandescent light bulbs, as indicated by their equivalent wattages.

Additionally, lights are replaced in areas where the College thinks significant savings in electricity usage could be made such as – Equine arena, Construction works shops, Engineering workshops, REAA building, the farm sheds and also the external street and building lights.

Below are examples of how the college has reduced energy consumption by exchanging light bulbs

 

FARM

Location
Robotic Milking Data Centre Lely
Existing 1500W 1260W
New 960W 708W

So the farm has seen a 36% reduction in energy use in the Robotic Milking area and a 43.8% reduction in the Data Lely Centre.

 

EQUINE ARENA LIGHTS

 

EXISTING LIGHTS AVERAGE COSTS 

EXISTING LIGHTS POWER QUANTITY HOURS PER WEEK DAYS PER WEEK WEEKS PER YEAR ANNUAL HOURS ANNUAL KwH
LOW BAY 400W 42 8 5 50 2000 33,600

 

NEW LED LIGHTS AVERAGE COSTS 

NEW LIGHTS POWER QUANTITY HOURS PER DAY DAYS PER WEEK WEEKS PER YEAR ANNUAL HOURS ANNUAL KwH
LED 156W 42 8 5 50 2000 13,104

 

The lighting in the Equine arena energy usage has been reduced by a huge 61%.

Field to Fork

At the end of December 2020 the college’s Arla milk contract changed as part of their “Every calf has a value” initiative.  This change means that every calf life has to be sustained, no healthy calf to be slaughtered or euthanised on the farm within 8 weeks of life to allow all calves not entering the food chain to be reared as beef cattle.  The college farm was ahead of the game as in 2019 the farm had already started to look at more sustainable calf rearing and had moved to breed the top 25% of the dairy herd to sexed semen which resulted in more females being produced and the rest were bred to Aberdeen Angus semen so 75% of the herd gave birth to Aberdeen Angus crosses.  This meant that the farm were getting beef calves from a dairy animal leading to a more sustainable use of the cattle, removing waste and a more ethical way of raising calves.

Reaseheath College were already comfortable with the newer sustainable Arla 2020 change by time it came about, so in April 2021 the college was ready to switch breeding from Aberdeen Angus to Wagyu.  The college teamed up with Warrendale Wagyu ( Warrendale-wagyu.co.uk ) and we now have a contract to sell our Wagyu beef animals to them at a premium who then sell to the big supermarket leaders such as Waitrose and have very successful beef boxes which can be purchased online direct through the Warrendale website, 24 restaurants in the UK purchase their Wagyu beef from Warrendale.

The college has used our Angus animals at college for meat use, the farm have raised the Angus animal and once it has reached the optimum size, it is sent to Jackson’s Abbatoir to be quartered and brought back to the college food department to be butchered by our butchery students and made to order for the canteen to use for student and staff meals, or to be sold via the Online Store as part of a promotion for staff such as the Valentine’s Steak offer.

There are plans in place to expand the field to fork initiative into the rearing of pigs and lamb at college.  This will involve the purchase of a small selection of pigs, preferably rare breed pigs rather than the large white pigs.  We have a new flock of sheep on the farm and are rapidly approaching lambing season and hopefully later in the year we will be able to send some of our lambs off to be prepared for food for the canteen and online shop.  The ultimate aim is for Reaseheath College to have premium cuts of meat to be sold with the college field to fork branding via an onsite shop, online store or café to members of the public and staff, the meat products could be sold alongside home grown salad and vegetable produce harvested from the innovative Vertical farm and glasshouse.

The Nantwich Show
Wednesday 27 July 2022

The whole family can enjoy this unique springtime experience. Children will always remember seeing lambs being born! Doors open 10am – 4pm.

Get Set for September
31st August

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Summer Applicant Visits

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Further Education

The 2020 Reaseheath Junior Cake-Off