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Campbell's College for distance learning for ICSA professional level, Certificate in Business Practice, Diploma in business practice

CAMPBELL'S COLLEGE Professional Training

ICSA training courses, distance learning for ICSA, ICSA revision courses, Offshore finance courses, ICSA courses

CAMPBELL'S NEWS, NOTICES AND INFORMATION FOR STUDENTS

The news page has move to our blogspot - hopefully this will make it easier to update and students can comment or follow the blog!

http://campbellscollege.blogspot.com/

NEWS Archive: 2005 - 2009

May 2009: Good Luck to all students sitting exams in June.

ICSA IQS news: Our distance learning courses for November exams will be updated after the June exams and will be ready to start in July. New this year - an evening course for Corporate Financial Management in Gibraltar.

COFA & DOFA news: For Accounting Fundamentals we have been experimenting with a new online classroom which enables us to deliver live or recorded sessions to our students overseas. Thank you to our pioneer students in Belize and Bermuda who have been participating in this new venture. We hope to make these sessions available for other subjects in the near future.

2008 News

15th October 2008: Congratulations to our prizewinners. ICSA did not publish a list of prizewinners for the November 2007 exams so we can only add you to our hall of fame if you let us know! We are hoping to receive a list of June 08 winners soon. We like to send a gift to all our winners!

23rd June: We are pleased to announce that our London revision classes are moving to a new venue on the South Bank. Access is really easy from Waterloo station and from the underground and bus network. Details are on the revision page along with dates. The venue, 15Hatfields has been designed to full environmental specifications and is the most sustainable venue in London! We are sure you will love it.

Also new - we are offering two revision courses as an audio option - we send you the same notes as used in the London course but with an audio commentary as files on a pen drive. You can then listen to Alan while you work your way through the revision notes. Courses available as Audio for November 2008 are Strategic and Operations Management and Corporate Law. If successful we may introduce more next year.

Belize COFA - Alan flies out to Belize for OBE revision on 5th & 6th July - venue is the Biltmore Hotel as usual.

Gibraltar COFA - OBE revision is on 5th July at Bleak House

8th April

COFA and DOFA February exam results are now available on the ICSA website. Do let us know how you got on and call if you need advice on what to study next. Distance learning courses are ready to start now.

Campbell's College training in Dubai - Following Alan and Vivien's visit to Dubai last month, we are preparing a lecture plan. There will be a series of one day courses spread over six months with the first in mid October (Common Law, Company Law and Meetings). Please email us for more details. We also plan to run once day courses for ICSA Professional level - details will be online soon.

Belize: Welcome to our new students joining the COFA group.

Gibraltar: Evening classes start on 15th April for COFA OBE.

ICSA Professional Level: There are still places on all revision courses. Distance learning - we plan to have all mailings posted by the end of April.

21st February

Our November 2007 pass rate statistics are now available, again well done to all our students. Your hard work has paid off. Campbell's students have achieved a higher than average pass rate! Examiners reports are now available on the ICSA website if you want to have a look at the suggested answers.

7th February 2008

ICSA Qualifying: Results are due out on Monday - ICSA will post them by snail mail and also post them on their website. You will need to log in to your student area in order to access them. Do let us know how you got on! We will be available for advice on subjects to take next or how to approach a resit.

Distance learning for ICSA qualifying: Courses for all subjects are ready to start now. Just fax, post or email your enrolment form to us and we will get the first mailing in the post.

Revision for ICSA: London dates are now set.

Channel Islands revision: Alan will be in Jersey for a Jersey Branch evening lecture on 15th May - he will cover exam technique which will be useful to all students whether or not you are studying with us. There will be a revision course as well but subject is to be decided - let me know what subject is in demand!

COFA DOFA exams: As I write we have not yet seen the exam papers but initial feedback is worrying particularly for the COFA investments paper. We will be in touch with ICSA to find out what has happened and why the exam was so different from that expected.

Belize: The next COFA course starts on 12/13 April. Alan will be flying out for the introductory weekend for Offshore Business Environment.

9th January 2008: A very happy new year to all.

There has been a considerable amount of updating to be done in order to cover the Companies Act 2006 - we will teach the law as it stands at June 2008.

A number of students have been emailing to ask when the results of the November exams will be released. At the moment I can only say that the usual date is on a Friday at 5pm, 8 - 10 weeks after the exams. ie sometime in the first half of February.

London Revision dates - will be online soon

Channel Islands revision - let me know what subjects are in demand!

Ireland - Again, if there is a demand for a particular subject, let me know and we can consider arranging a revision class in Dublin.

Student Contributions to this site - if you have any amusing / interesting / cautionary tales to tell about your studies or work and want to share them with our students, email me and I will include them on a new page to be set up on this site.

2007 News

May 9th: To all ICSA distance learning students - you should now have received all four of your mailings. Let me know if anything has gone astray in the post.

Certificate and Diploma in Business Practice students - you should have received your pre seen case study and lecturers guidance notes - we recommend you read through these carefully and follow advice given!

COFA and DOFA distance learning students - Welcome to our new students in Belize. David will be travelling to Belize City in July for the Accounting Fundamentals revision weekend. Venue is the Belize Biltmore hotel as always!

London Revision: Our new venue, Mary Ward House in Tavistock place is a great success. Sunday afternoon cakes went down particularly well!

Jersey: Alan will be giving a seminar at the Jersey Branch Council - 15th May 2007 commencing at 5.15pm. The venue is St Paul's Centre which is in the centre of St Helier. Topic - study and revision technique. Our own revision class for Corporate Secretaryship is at the Charrieres hotel on 16/17 May.

March: Fantastic news - We have world prize winners! Well done to Amy Kelly, Lesley Coulter, Sasha Hill, Pam Steyn and Justine Rumens for winning World prizes for their Nov 2006 exam papers!

February Thank you to everyone who has contacted us to let us know results - Well done to all who have passed and to those who have qualified! We are still waiting for a complete list from ICSA but will look at the statistics and post online as soon as possible.

January - ICSA News - The examinations department have told me that the results from December exams will be posted on Friday 9th February. You can obtain your results if you log in to your student area of the ICSA website - usually after 5pm, or wait for the postman!

January 2007

Welcome to a new year at Campbell's College. I hope you all enjoyed the festive break and are refreshed ready for another year of study! -2007 is our 15th year of providing training for ICSA.

We start the year with a new improved print department and with new projects in the pipeline.

All distance learning courses for the June exams are now updated and ready to go. London revision dates are set and we are excited about the change of venue. Mary Ward House in Tavistock Place is a fine 'Arts and Crafts' style building and has a courtyard garden where students can get some fresh air at lunch time.

Our LLB (London University external Law degree) is proceeding smoothly in Gibraltar and our first cohort will be taking their year one exams this June. We wish them every success. Please contact us if you are interested in joining the course. ICSA News: Do note that the ICSA no longer offer open book examinations for professional level one- so there is now a level playing field for both graduates and non graduates at this level.

Also note that the ICSA will not be testing the Companies Act 2006 in the June 2007 diet.

Offshore qualifications: We are now teaching our third cohort of students in Belize who are all making progress and also celebrating Belize's 25 years of independence. Alan will be in Belize for COFA revision at the end of January.


Alex busy printing	Karyn collating the Belize revision notes

2006 News

December: More good news - Well done to Amy Kelly for winning the ICSA prize for best paper in Strategic and Operations Management in the June exams and to Fiona Thorpe for winning the Management accounting prize!

1st December: ICSA Exams - Business Strategy paper - we have been informed there was an error in the figures - all students should have received a letter from ICSA about this stating 'I can confirm that the Institute and Chief Examiner are now aware of the error and assure you that no student will be penalised for references to this incorrect information. ' ICSA statement.

On this wet and dull December morning, we received some very good news from Caroline Geary who studied Business Strategy & Planning with us for the June 2007 exams. She has been awarded the Pallister Prize for the best paper in this subject. Congratulations - we will be sending flowers!

Today sees the start of our print department reconstruction project. We will take advantage of this quiet time before courses start again in January to improve our print room.

25th October:

Congratulations to our first DOFA graduate in Belize! Well done to Emogene Barillas.

ICSA Distance learning: all mailings have now been posted - contact me if you have any mailings missing.

Cert & Dip in Business Practice - suggestions for preparing for the exam case studies are being circulated by email and post.

2nd October: With the publication of the ICSA pass rates for the June exams, I am delighted to see that our students have done better than the national average. Well done!!!

Alan has just returned from Belize where he delivered the opening day of the COFA Trusts course to our enthusiastic group of students. Students will now receive weekly notes and assignments by email until Alan returns for revision in January. Good luck to you all!

COFA and DOFA distance learning courses are now underway - but there is still time to start. We now have courses for all 8 subjects with a choice of learning schemes. So far we have students in The Isle of Man, Jersey, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands and Gibraltar - a truly international bunch!

The new ICSA Certificate and Diploma in Business Practice continues to grow in popularity. The Certificate is an ideal entry level qualification which can be taken as a stand alone business qualification or as a step on the route to full ICSA qualification. It is great to see so many of our ex-students sending their junior staff to us for this course!

ICSA Professional Level: There are still places on all revision courses - these are open to all ICSA students. Even if you are studying elsewhere, you may find a different approach helpful just before the exam.

17th August: Thank you to all students who have contacted us to share your news, both good and bad! Well done to all of you who have been successful. If you failed, you can apply for a script report from ICSA in order to see where you went wrong, but this will cost you about £50. Alan is away this week, so apologies if you are waiting to speak to him. I will do my best to answer all queries!

18th July: Another blisteringly hot day here in Kent. Good luck to all COFA and DOFA students sitting exams this week. ICSA students - many of you have been emailing to ask if I know the date for results. At the moment the answer is NO - it will be 8 - 10 weeks after the exams ie sometime between the 4th and 18th August.

Distance learning courses are now updated and ready to go, even though we STILL have not received the new edition study texts from ICSA's new distributor. I hope they do a better job sending out texts to students! My advice is to register with ICSA early!

31st May: News from the examiners - The RTP conference: This advice is aimed mainly at students sitting the CeBuP and DiBup exams but of course, good exam technique is vital at all levels. I hope this helps.

EXAM ADVICE:

Look through the whole paper first observing how many marks are allocated to questions

Certificate level exams test your knowledge, comprehension and application. Higher level exams will also test your skills of Analysis, Synthesis and Evaluation.

Answer the question - most questions will start 'Compare, Define, Describe, Discuss, Explain, outline' Make sure you do what is asked.

If only two marks are available, you need to make two valid points (not write two pages), preferably as complete sentences, unless one word answers are asked for.

Financial papers - show your working - you may still get marks even if the final answer is wrong

Manage your time properly. Allocate time according to how many marks are available.

Do NOT copy out the question! ( I am sure none of you do, but apparently it does happen!)

Present your answers clearly and label correctly (put the examiner in a good mood!)

Business Communications students - The examiner is looking for knowledge of theory which must be 'communicated' to him well. ie. it should be neat with correct spelling and grammar.

Case study: Make sure you prepare well - You should understand the theory, you should 'know' the organisation in the case study. Answer questions fully without unnecessary information and give examples that are relevant to the case study scenario.

The three main reasons why students fail: Insufficient knowledge and understanding of the syllabus, poor time management, not answering the question set.

Congratulations to our November 2005 Prizewinners. We are all delighted to see that three of our students have been awarded prizes for their 2005 November papers. Well done to:

	Rachel Southwart for the best paper in Business Management
	Craig Owen for the best paper in Marketing
	Amy Kelly for the best paper in Corporate Law

21st April: I do hope you all enjoyed the Easter break! At last it feels like spring here in Kent!

Distance learning news: We are trying to finish posting all mailings this week to ensure you have all four of your mailings in good time for the exams. If you are not sitting exams this June, just put the notes away in a drawer or at the back of a cupboard until you are ready for them. If you have any mailings missing (yes, they often get lost in the post!), just let me know.

Revision news: There are still places available on all London and Jersey revision courses but I have to finalise numbers with the venue fairly soon, so do let me know as soon as possible if you intend to book a place. Many thanks to all of you who have booked already.

News from Campbell's College: Alan Campbell will be away until next Wednesday, teaching in Belize, so apologies if there is a delay in marking work you send to him.

14th February: ICSA exam results- Congratulations to all our students who qualified. It is wonderful to hear of your success - we will be sending you our own certificate in due course along with a special 'Campbell's College' mouse mat to remember us by! If you failed an exam, don't despair. Pick up the phone and call us on 01322 665589 for advise as to what you should do next. Alan will also be writing his comments on the exams and the questions set - online soon.

3rd February: Good luck to all COFA and DOFA students sitting exams next week. Alan is safely back from teaching DOFA revision in Belize City - unfortunately the weather was too poor for him to take his usual scuba diving trip but I expect he will be back later in the year!

23rd January: News from Gibraltar. Today was the Gibraltar certificate presentation and prize giving ceremony. Here is Vivien's message to me about the occasion:

GIBRALTAR NEWS

Dear Jane, I have just come back from a highly successful presentation and student get together. The Minister presented the certificates and the world prize (to Adrian Olivero). Covered by GBC TV and the Chronicle newspaper, they gave it wide coverage. The biggest surprise was that the Minister actually spent his main time thanking Campbell's College for being the organisation that had been involved. and mentioned our high standards!!!!

It was quite thrilling! and filmed throughout by the TV station. Vivien

19th January: This week sees members of the Campbell's team travelling overseas. Alan is teaching DOFA Management revision to our study group in Belize City. Many of this group have been with us for all eight Certificate and Diploma courses, taken over the last four years. We look forward to seeing them and our other Belize graduates at a special graduation ceremony we will hold later in the year. Vivien is teaching in COFA and DOFA revision in Gibraltar and our print manager, Alex, is flying off to Munich with his band next week for a couple of gigs! We wish him good luck!

January 2006: A Happy New Year to all our Students, past, present and future!

Feedback needed: The ICSA have asked us for feedback from students who sat the new Certificate or Diploma in Business Practice exams in November. They would like to know what you thought of the textbook and the exam paper! We will be compiling a list of points to present to them so any thoughts gratefully received! email Alan

More Good News - We have just heard that Lyndsay Bates on The Isle of Man has won the FW McGuiness Prize for the Introduction to English and EU Law paper in the June 05 exams. Congratulations!!! Find out more about our prizewinners

2005 NEWS

November 2005: Congratulations to Adrian Olivero in Gibraltar who has won the ICSA world prize for Financial Accounting. The Gibraltar branch of Campbell's College will be organising a presentation!

27th October: Students sitting the Certificate or Diploma in Business Practice in November - The case studies are now on the ICSA website. I know many of you have had problems accessing the files, but I can email a copy to you if necessary. We will be posting copies along with lecturers comments to all distance learning students sometime in November.

Alan's NEWS FOR SPRING 2005

As the new shoots of Spring appear here in the Northern Hemisphere, I realise that the last time we published news the old leaves were falling off the trees in preparation for winter. Despite lots of reminders and tactful suggestions about "keeping our clients informed" I have been remiss in maintaining the news. Many apologies. I can only offer the tired but true excuse that we have been extraordinarily busy travelling, teaching and marking. They come before news! But with the fresh air of March comes renewed determination. Here is our first news bulletin of 2005!

1. Get yourself another ICSA qualification!

Let’s start with the NEW ICSA qualifications: the Certificate in Business Practice and the Diploma in Business Practice. For the moment we will call them CeBUP and DiBUP. These qualifications will replace the current Foundation and Pre-Professional Subjects starting with the November 2005 examinations. Students currently taking the Foundation and Pre-professional subjects will be automatically switched over to the new scheme when it starts.

CeBUP has four subjects:

Business Communications

Business Environment

Accounting for Business

Business Management.

DiBUP also has four subjects:

Business Strategy and Planning

Business Law in Practice

Marketing

Business Finance

NOW THE MOST INTERESTING DEVELOPMENT IS THAT IF YOU HAVE ALREADY PASSED FOUNDATION AND/OR PRE-PROFESSIONAL LEVEL YOU CAN TAKE ONE OF THE NEW SUBJECTS AND RECEIVE THE CERTIFICATE OR DIPLOMA.

PLEASE PASS THE WORD AROUND TO ALL ICSA STUDENTS, especially those you know who may have DROPPED OUT AFTER FOUNDATION OR PRE-PROFESSIONAL. THEIR ACHIEVEMENTS CAN NOW BE RECOGNISED WITH JUST A BIT MORE WORK!

IF YOU HAVE PASSED FOUNDATION, you can take BUSINESS COMMUNICATIONS IN NOVEMBER AND YOU WILL BE ENTITLED TO THE CERTIFICATE IN BUSINESS PRACTICE.

IF YOU HAVE PASSED PRE-PROFESSIONAL, you can take BUSINESS STRATEGY AND PLANNING IN NOVEMBER AND YOU WILL BE ENTITLED TO THE DIPLOMA IN BUSINESS PRACTICE.

In both cases you will be able to add letters after your name (Cert.ICSA business practice) and (Dip.ICSA business practice) and it does not matter what date you passed the Foundation and Pre-Professional subjects.

We have already started writing the distance learning courses to go with these qualifications and will be ready to go in July of this year.

ICSA INTRODUCES NEW CONTROLS ON TRAINING PROVIDERS

From September 2005 ICSA is establishing global quality standards for ICSA tuition.

All institutions from established universities to new start-ups will be required to apply for Registered Tuition Provider status if they wish to offer ICSA training.

All existing ICSA approval schemes e.g. accredited centre status for the COFA & DOFA, will end and be replaced by the new vetting process.

ICSA will now check on the suitability of training materials, lecturers, training programmes, complaints procedures and the financial viability of the training provider.

ICSA will require training providers to follow Registered Tuition Provider Guidelines. These include rules on induction courses, students’ handbooks and promotional material (for example no college will be allowed to say that it "leads the field in ICSA provision" or "our revision course is the best way to pass your exam" and we must obtain the permission in writing of any prize winner and that must include confirmation that they were our student before publishing their name).

Registered Tuition Provider status has to be renewed annually.

The sanction to enable ICSA to enforce the quality standard will be the withdrawal of all publicity to the institution i.e. from September 2005 the only educational providers appearing on the ICSA website, in the magazine and using ICSA mailing lists, will be those who have applied and been approved by ICSA under the Registered Tuition Providers Scheme.

We wish ICSA well in its attempts to improve quality and we will be one of the first to apply for Registered Tuition Provider status.

THE ICSA EXAMS

Congratulations to the four ICSA prize winners in the June 2004 examinations – the latest to be announced by ICSA. We have received your replies confirming your delight with your achievements.

Jane has published our pass rates for both June 2004 and November 2004. The Registered Tuition Provider Guidelines prohibit comparative advertising but as, to our knowledge we are the only college to publish pass rates both good and sometimes bad, we use the ICSA overall pass rate as the comparator and this is not prohibited. We are above the overall pass rates for June and are still waiting for ICSA to publish pass rates for November.

Meanwhile congratulations to students and lecturers on a superb performance in November 2004. The top three pass rates were amazing: 96% for Corporate Administration and 84% for both Corporate Governance and Corporate Financial Management.

Corporate Administration: For those of you taking Corporate Administration this time, take a good look at the suggested answers on the ICSA site for November 2004. For those of you who think ICSA have published the June 2005 exam by mistake and are keeping quiet, look again. It is a pilot paper drawn up by the new examiner. There will be no suggested answers for November 2004.

Corporate Governance: We had to smile on reading question 2 in the November 2004 examination. We liked the phrase "the board adopts good governance where reasonable for the size of the company". So size does matter after all ! The question described a gold mining company with headquarters in the UK, operations in Africa and Russia, listed on AIM and moving to a full listing in three’s time. The board was worried about the business risks it faced and you had to provide a report on "the way forward". In the model answer we see clearly the approach the examiners wanted. There was no reference to gold, Africa, Russia or mining. In fact the only references to the details in the question were the company name at the top of the report and legal counsel helping with "exploration licences". As the company secretary you were there to provide a standard report on how risk was identified, classified and evaluated followed by the Combined Code and Turnbull provisions.

As the examiners stated:

"To pass, the answer needed to address the process required and not come up with a creative list of possible risks."

To improve on a pass the examiners wrote "Good answers addressed the process and, in many cases, also gave examples of specific risks faced by the company quoted in the question".

So:

A general answer on risk would get a pass.

A specific answer aligning the problems of mining companies with those of the Russian oil companies under Vladamir Putin will get you a fail.

A general description of risk plus the specific problems of say mineral smuggling in Sierra Leone will get you a good pass.

Style and approach are crucial in corporate governance.

THE COFA/DOFA EXAMS IN FEBRUARY 2005

Results are not yet published but there is no doubt you did not like the DOFA investments paper. Let us wait until results are published. You will be surprised how often when you think you have done badly, you pass ( not always though… if you don/t write anything you should not be surprised if you fail).

In Belize the second COFA cohort will be studying with Jim for their last subject- Introduction to Accounting and the first DOFA group will be taking Financial Reporting. Good luck and I know Jim is looking forward to flying out to see you all and Belize again.

Welcome to our students in the Channel Islands who are coming on board as an alternative to evening classes. It was so nice to run a revision course for you all in Jersey especially as the plane took Jen to Guernsey but you still managed to complete the programme!

Welcome again to our students from St Kitts. You are rising up the offshore financial league!!

Turning to the Mediterranean, Cyprus and Gibraltar continue to excel at everything you do. Gibraltar is leading the way again: the government is committed to seeing everyone in the offshore centre qualified, the employers are benefiting from the advantages of having COFA/DOFA graduates and the sector itself is expanding. Congratulations to Vivien and her team on the rock!!

Remember that this July is the last set of examinations under the current syllabus. There will be changes for the February 2006 examination. In 2006 the COFA subjects will be:

Offshore Business Environment

Accounting Fundamentals

Trust & Company Principles

Investment.

The 2006 subjects for DOFA are;

Offshore Trust & Company Administration

Portfolio Management

Business Management

Governance & Reporting.

And finally,

Congratulations to Jane whose interest in Egyptology has lead to studies at the University of London and who can now decipher elementary hieroglyphics. (Actually I think that comes about through years of practice in deciphering your handwriting on the application forms).

Congratulations to Alex whose band has had its first gig in London’s Soho- the second follows at the end of this month. The choice of the name "Stalker" is after the Russian film by Tarkovsky about a man who leads people safely through strange prohibited zones until they reach the room which will grant them one wish.

Congratulations to Vivien who has successfully launched an in-house lecture series in Gibraltar. The first students have qualified and their certificates have been prepared.

Congratulations to all of you who have married, given birth, become fathers, been promoted, finally qualified and generally achieved when you thought it was beyond you. You tell one of us and then we pass it on. It makes this little business a wonderful little business ( or should I use the management jargon "We are an information rich SME!!")

CAMPBELL'S COLLEGE LTD, 47 Rollo Road, Hextable, Swanley, Kent. BR8 7RD. Tel/Fax: +44 (0)1322 665589.