I have been an FE college principal for 15 years and have loved nearly every minute of it. The organisation I lead prides itself on being passionate, resilient and agile.  

Over the past few weeks, these qualities have proved to be invaluable. But our thoughts now turn to the future. How will we manage a smooth and positive transition back on to site post lockdown, and how do we need to change to better serve our local communities and business partners during the long period of economic and social recovery?  

Lockdown has thrown up many challenges and threats but also some very clear opportunities. The college leadership team has recently completed a detailed SWOT analysis, which we are using to inform a refresh of our strategic and operational plans. We all accept that, once colleges reopen, we will be facing a new reality and a very different future. 

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How can we secure the outcomes that our current students and apprentices deserve and need for their futures either at work or in higher levels of study? For most of them, acquiring knowledge content online is not a problem. But how can we assess their technical skills - some of which simply cannot be done effectively remotely? Do we need to host a big skills fair? Do we bring them in, if lockdown permits, over late summer? Can we use a model similar to the national skills competitions finals to make the process a celebration of their talent? Or do we plan to continue with remote learning for the majority of our students and spend the first few weeks when we return catching up on skills assessments? However we do these assessments, they must be done well and quickly.  

Health and safety

We are also grappling with the inevitability of how to keep our staff and students safe when they return. How in our nine campuses can we manage social distancing? The fact is, we can’t in all places.

One of our secondary schools is in desperate need of rebuilding and already suffers from overcrowding. Even with the best will in the world, we cannot guarantee that we can adhere to the current principles of social distancing across the whole.  

We are planning to change timetables to reduce the quantum of people being in any one place at the same time. Students are designing visual and online communications to remind our community of the importance of social distancing and we are putting up screens and floor and wall markers where we can. We are also talking to our amazing staff and student “sewing bees” about making face masks for our staff and students - all with our logos on - should people feel safer by wearing them.

The safety of our staff and students includes their mental wellbeing, too. How can we help them all confidently transition back into work and study? We have all become anxious and we will need to help each other to step back into the new normality. 

We are considering daily wellbeing activities such as yoga and are preparing “welcome back packs” for staff in which we plan to put customised face masks, hand sanitisers, video information on social distancing activities and other information that summarises the college’s transition planning.  

We are also building the capacity of our counselling team - a team that continues to provide support remotely at this time - and we are looking at more flexibility in our working arrangements and support. We must support our staff and our students to re-engage with the new normality.

The nature and shape of the business

Perhaps our biggest strategic challenge relates to the nature and shape of our business. Is our learning offer and the way we deliver it fit for the post-Covid world? 

The quick answer is: not in its entirety. We are working closely with our business partners, our local enterprise partnerships and other network organisations to gain as much intelligence as we can to inform our offer. We are acutely aware that the West Midlands is the second-hardest-hit economy in the country.  

How can we play our part to upskill and reskill adults to work in public services? This is particularly important in health and social care, construction, automotive, the logistics supply chain and all things digital. 

This pandemic has proved to us all that digital delivery of learning works well and for some students has shown a more rapid and improved completion of assignments. How do we exploit this current learning and accelerate the use of digital methodology across our cohorts of students and apprentices? What does this mean for the role of a traditional classroom teacher? Do we need to upskill many of our current workforce to become more digitally competent and confident? 

We are actively planning to increase the amount of learning delivered digitally, particularly to our level 3 and above students. We are, however, becoming very aware that this cannot be a panacea. Many of our students, in particular those in lower levels of learning and those building up their self-confidence and social skills, will continue to need a more traditional people-focused offer and delivery style. But there are some very clear opportunities to rethink our physical campus structure, potentially reducing our physical space and our workforce structure in the light of the now-proven impact of remote learning.

Distanced learning 

We are also reflecting on the huge increase in demand for our distance learning offer over the last few weeks. Enrolments have increased by 150 per cent for our existing 35 qualifications. Despite the pandemic, we have opened a Digital Skills Academy in the heart of Coventry city, in close partnership with Coventry University. It is a timely development as many businesses and individuals seek to upskill and improve their digital capabilities ready to respond to automation and new ways of working.

How will we reach out to support both young people and adults who become unemployed as a result of this economic shutdown? How can we and our funders increase flexibilities in learning and in the qualification structure? It needs to happen, and fast. 

There are great signs - for example, West Midlands Combined Authority flexibilities funding - but colleges and other training providers will need to be given even greater flexibilities to respond at pace to create an even broader and more dynamic offer for those becoming unemployed. This, for colleges, is a massive opportunity and one that we are well placed to respond to with impact.

Finally, in our planning we face the challenge once again of the financial impact on our business of Covid-19. We lost more than £1 million of commercial income overnight - and cash was already tight. 

We recognise that despite good support from our banks and our funders that we will need to reduce our costs like so many others. On the brighter side, however, our carbon footprint will benefit as we will no longer hold physical meetings involving travel between campuses - Microsoft Teams is our new reality.  

It’s not all doom and gloom. We have recognised once again the power of school and college partnerships through this period in increasing our passion (for our students and our communities) and reinforcing our resilience and showcasing our agility and ability to respond to uncertainty. 

Marion Plant is the principal and chief executive at North Warwickshire and South Leicestershire College and chief executive of the Midland Academies Trust