1 September 2020

At Weston College – of one of the fastest growing colleges in the UK – we are not at the start of our digital journey, but we are not at the end of it either. To be honest, I don’t feel that there is ever ‘a technological end’ – only evolution. What I do know is the importance of vision, ethos and leadership buy in.

Without a clear vision, it is so easy to buy the next bit of software, because this is what everyone else is doing and before you know it, you have cobbled together a digital monster with departments purchasing in silos, implementing systems that cannot communicate with each other. This fragmented approach will cause students to disengage and leads to more problems for staff than they initially started with.

Weston College, (a Microsoft showcase college), launched its Technology in Learning Strategy in 2015. The strategy was designed to holistically embed accessibility to enable inclusion, reduce barriers to learning, foster digital communities, respond to emerging technologies in industry and embed modern ways of working.

This was centred on improving productivity and digital capability for students, staff and our employers, including fostering digital wellbeing. The strategy was guided by recommendations at the time, including the Further Education Learning Technology Action Group (FELTAG) and Jisc, on how UK FE colleges should engage (and can become world leaders) in digital learning.

The college regularly reviews the approach against national strategies, research and initiatives, including the recent DfE EdTech strategy: Wales’ Digital 2030 strategic framework and Jisc’s Education 4.0. With this in mind, I cannot overstress the importance of working within national strategies and agendas.

Colleges must use expert advice and guidance/best practice offered by Jisc, AoC, Education Training Foundation, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon AWS, GCHQ, Young Minds, Big White Wall, Kooth and others leading digital optimisation, wellbeing and security.

Our clear vision for inclusion

As the principal, I felt it was imperative that we had a clear vision for digital education to support our ethos of ‘Creating Brighter Futures’. In other words, it was important to include everything that the college stood for within the overarching technology strategy.

With Weston being one of three National SEND Centres of Excellence (with over 1,000 SEND learners, 511 of whom were designated High Needs), supported by my brilliant team of inclusive practitioners (Queen’s Anniversary Prize 2017), I have always believed that if the teaching and learning strategies were right for these students (and other vulnerable groups such as NEETs; disadvantaged backgrounds; Looked After Children etc), that our unique, personal learning approach would benefit all of our students.

With success rates above the national average in all areas, including work-based learners, (traineeships, apprenticeships/degree apprenticeships) as well as the 10,235 offender learners we educate in 19 prisons across the south-west/south-east of England, this has certainly proved to be the case.

Ready for lockdown

Therefore, when COVID-19 hit, as a result of the college having a clear strategy, eg significant investment in digital infrastructure (£2.5m since 2015), an expansive CPD programme (eg Microsoft Certified Educator; digital advocate peer mentoring), and leadership buy-in through the appointment of a director of digital education to the college’s senior leadership team, we were able to flick the switch prior to closure. We moved all of our provision/ support services for day-one readiness to create #MyVirtualCollege so that no-one got left behind!

Building a sense of a virtual college community was crucial. Over 4,043 virtual teaching/support sessions were delivered in the first week, and all existing timetabling/support sessions working remotely were in place from day one.

The strategy was designed to make the learner still feel part of the college learning experience through highly accessible digital connectivity to their course and their wider college community.

Learners work/learn together within a shared digital conversational space connected to their tutor with peer support encouraged. Learners can quickly access wider college services, including welfare, specialist SEND support, careers, mental health support, learning mentors and more, just as they did prior to lockdown.

Holistic plan for health and wellbeing

Students and staff have digitally engaged with body and mind, such as fitness/mindfulness, and have created strategies to reduce self-isolation eg #TuesdayTeaonTeams, #MentoringMonday, #NetflixNatters and virtual support groups (#LGBTQ+, for example).

Substantive remote networking has also taken place for employers with virtual business support eg hosting #WednesdayWorkingLunch, with topics covered such as Crisis Leadership and Rebuilding for the New Normal, in order to promote networking and create successful roadmaps for economic recovery.

The strategy has seen impressive results during lockdown, with 88% overall remote lesson attendance (with A-level/apprentices at 97%). The remaining 12% (eg SEND, vulnerable, looked-after children), being supported/attending via a differentiated 1:1 style individual approach and overcoming personal barriers to engagement linked in to wider support teams.

This was attainable with daily contact via the college’s inclusive practice/welfare teams to reduce isolation/identify safeguarding concerns in real time.

Building a sustainable blended model

I have highlighted key leadership questions for consideration when designing your ‘virtual’ college in order to build a sustainable blended model when the sector emerges from lockdown.

Our vision was to capture Weston College’s outstanding approach to engaging, inclusive, personalised learning and embed this within effective digital learning pedagogies. Prior to the college closure, this strategy was boosted with a £200k bursary fund injection, to rapidly bridge the digital poverty divide, getting devices out quickly to where needed most and ensuring day-one readiness for all students.

Staff readiness was further bolstered prior to closing, with all staff inducted/supported to access a purpose-built COVID-19 EdTech Hub, which provided a dedicated online community/digital space for staff to learn from.

The hub was supported by the college’s expansive learning technologists, enabling staff to regularly attend bitesize CPD based around emerging themes.

Listening to feedback

If you are creating virtual learning, you need to capture (and act on) staff/learner/employer feedback and see how they want it designed.

From day one of lockdown, the #MyVirtualCollege dropbox was set up, to allow myself and college leaders to access and circulate real-time learner, parental/carer, staff and employer feedback, with the aim of shaping innovation at pace.

I cannot stress the importance of actioning rather than sitting on feedback. For COVID-19, I wanted a ground-up approach to ensure as many staff could contribute ideas/best practice. It meant innovation remained high, with staff feeling motivated and connected to their peers and leaders, who would listen and make change happen.

Through extensive CPD, the college has grown a new generation of highly professional digital tutors trained in synchronous online delivery, digital feedback, assessment and differentiation.

Across the Weston curriculum, you will see a range of quality multimedia content, interactive activities, quizzes, simulations, live lectures, conversation threads, video tutorials and integrated social media throughout, with the aim of maximising engagement levels.

Growing digital advocates

Without doubt, you’ll have your own digital advocates out there; how can you develop a culture for digital teaching and learning using peer mentoring? What does a virtual classroom mean for your college?

Monitoring and attendance tracking tools for timely interventions are utilised throughout the college with virtual quality assurance processes, eg remote internal quality, and employer observations already embedded at Weston.

Inclusion technologies (often under-used or unseen) can be transformational with many free, off-the-shelf tools available to integrate for educators and learners, including accessibility checkers, translation tools and screen readers.

Meeting the needs of employers

At Weston, virtual employer engagement has been a key focus for #COVID19. A new digital training needs analysis has ensured that we can respond at pace to create new online/blended programmes to meet the needs of employers. For example, innovative bespoke training has been created for apprentices and the region’s employees in furlough.

The college’s in-house digital learning development team has also worked collaboratively with employers, learners and awarding bodies to introduce a range of different digital teaching methodologies, approaches and technologies and to bring employer-led teaching/learning ideas to life.

This two-way codesign with employers/stakeholders has ensured that the college remains abreast of new and emerging industry technologies and innovations. A strong ethos of partnership has provided a directory of industry contacts, ready to offer virtual guest speakers to raise the aspirations of learners with real-world examples from industry leaders.

Essential investment

There is no doubt, however, that, as acknowledged in AoC’s early summer survey, reform of funding flexibilities, audit and evidence collection more befitting to a digital world (including online enrolments) also needs to be in sync.

Investment in capacity, capability and CPD is key, including cost/benefit analysis, strategies for risk, financial acumen, lean methodology, strong governance, and an acknowledgment at a leadership level that this is not just a strategy for teaching are all essential.

All departments from HR, MIS, finance, health and safety, quality, exams etc must embrace the new normal to avoid silos, and to prevent the same old meeting culture and lethargy emerging, which can definitely weaken an organisation’s immune system in relation to change.

COVID-19 has ironically become a catalyst for further transformational agendas that include augmented reality (AR) and recognition of a new way of working. If we can achieve true blended delivery, then work-life balance, delivery models and learner satisfaction will themselves help to sustain a very different future.

If we can achieve true blended delivery, then work-life balance, delivery models and learner satisfaction will themselves help to sustain a very different future.

This article is part of an e-book produced by the Association of Colleges and funded by Ufi – Creating a post-Covid19 EdTech Strategy – bringing together all the wisdom and lessons learned from lockdown.