One of the key themes of the Association of Colleges' Colleges of the Future Commission is colleges being at the centre of the skills ecosystem within their local communities. Colleges are hubs not only for students – 16 to 18, apprentices, HE and adults from a wide range of backgrounds on a wide range of courses – but they also have well-established relationships with their local stakeholders, opening their doors to the community through commercial, volunteering and youth social action projects.

But what happens when your local community is a village of fewer than 2,000 inhabitants? In the case of Plumpton College, nestled at the foot of the South Downs in East Sussex, one of the things you do is you work with the parish church on site and organise a joint college and community carol service. Plumpton has a Grade I-listed church on its site built nearly a thousand years ago in what was then the centre of the village.

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Christmas carols at college

Now it sits surrounded by the land-based college buildings. On the evening of 11 December it was packed to the rafters; indeed, there was standing room only, as college staff and students joined children from the local primary school, their parents, grandparents and church members in a traditional carol service with readings telling the Christmas story. The college and church choirs joined the community with enthusiastic renditions of Christmas favourites.

The primary school children rocked the 12th-century church with Jingle Bells. A student, who had started at college aged 14 as part of his home education programme and is now on a level 3 course, read a lesson and the vicar had even co-opted a local Harry Potter actor and friend to do two of the readings.

This joint production event has been gathering momentum over the past few years. It is combined with a Christmas fayre of local and college products in the college buildings. This year more than 150 people enjoying the carols, mince pies and mulled wine laid on by the college. On a cold, dark night in mid-December the Plumpton Carol Service threw a little light and cheer. The whole community got involved and had a great time.

The carol service is part of the college’s wider "Acts of Kindness" month. An advent calendar in the student common room promotes positive action opportunities on each day of December; the Christmas tree in the student common room, for example, has gift tags where students have left positive affirmations for their friends, and the student union is collecting winter woollies and pet food for the local homeless shelter

For me this is what colleges are about; at the heart and giving back to their own communities, whatever the size.

Catherine Sezen is a senior policy manager at the Association of Colleges