Bringing out our BEST

I am incredibly proud of the staff and students of Bridgwater & Taunton College for how they have adapted over the last couple of weeks. When the Prime Minister notified the country that schools and colleges would be closed, we had just two days to prepare our staff to continue to educate almost 8000 learners by alternative, remote means – 3600 on full-time programmes, 1000 undertaking Higher Education, and 3600 Apprentices – for an indefinite time.

So, what did we do to make this a success? Firstly, our amazing IT department spun up 10 times more server capacity for our remote desktop, which has seen a 600% increase in usage since the restrictions began and staff moved to work from home. Alongside this fabulous work, they also re-examined our critical functions - Management Information and Finance - and created VPNs for each department so that they could continue to work effectively on their specialist software. And not only did we move internal software systems such as HR and the VLE to purely web-based platforms, but we also moved many courses and support services through to Office 365 and Microsoft Teams. And all this in just two days – who would have imagined that collaboration, chat and video meetings would so quickly have become the norm?

Moving on to other areas, our long-established and highly successful Distance Learning Team - who are used to high volumes in an online world - has seen a 200% increase in activity in just one week! They are now all working at full pelt from home, maintaining their Ofsted 'outstanding' service from the comfort of their living rooms.  And our teachers, trainers and lecturers are - remarkably – already up and running online, conducting classes, setting work, solving problems and most importantly progressing their students as if they were still in College. Not an easy task, but they have risen superbly to the challenge, with one lecturer telling me: "This week, on Monday and Tuesday, I held 20-minute tutorials with each cell in turn. It was great to see smiling faces and engaged students as well as sorting out concerns and issues. We will do the same each week until we return to College."

Key to this has been communication; our incredible marketing team has maintained our digital and social media channels, enabling us to keep our communities updated, our students supported and highlighting all the fantastic things that are happening in lockdown. Internal communications and weekly video updates from our CEO have kept all staff updated on how agile and responsive BTC has been.

Winston Churchill said, "never waste a good crisis", and while none of us would want this or could have seen it coming, the way the FE sector in general and BTC, in particular, have reacted and adapted is genuinely remarkable. I have seen amazing things from Estates Team and IT, through to Safeguarding and Counselling teams, everyone is focused on continuing to support and progress our wonderful students. 

We will be back on campus without doubt, but things will never again be quite the same – this crisis has given us all an opportunity to react, reflect and re-set, and I am confident that after a period of adaptation we will emerge even better and stronger than before.

Stay safe, stay at home and always keep learning.

Warmest best wishes

Matt