Interview with Peter Hayes form IH Manchester – A Successful Business during the Pandemic
Since the first lockdown in March 2020 when the language schools had to close their doors and a lot has changed for the institutions from teaching, training of staff, management of the schools through the recruitment of students to safeguarding employees and students.
The twists and turns, ups and downs are reviewed now, with the year coming to an end. One of the schools shares its reflection on the past months.
IH Manchester is one of the International House group of affiliated schools. The staff, from directors and teachers to reception and school staff members, are all passionate about providing a supporting, friendly and safe environment for students to enjoy their learning experience and achieve their study goals.
Apart from various courses such as General English, Examination Preparation courses, the school has an International Football Academy providing a variety of full-time football education programmes with football coaching.
One of the four directors, Peter Hayes, uncovered the journey of the school during this challenging year. Peter started as an English teacher and has been in the English language teaching industry ever since.
Interview with Peter Hayes
What were the initial steps you have taken at the beginning of the pandemic? And how it is now? How have you managed your recruitment and how has been the impact on the number of students?
From the beginning of the crisis, we realised that good communication with all our agent partners was going to be essential. Loyal agent partners are an excellent source of market intelligence. They can read the mood of their market and are better informed regarding what other educators are providing to best meet that market’s needs. We contacted each of our key agent partners directly to chat through the challenges the crisis presented. These discussions were key to keeping our agents on board, informed as to what we were doing and getting their input which helped us to continuously refine and improve our online offer. We then ran weekly agent partner webinars where we presented and demonstrated our online teaching offers. We did this regularly throughout the months of April, May, June and July. In addition, we also overhauled our digital marketing, SEO and streamlined the online booking process/customer journey.
We were delighted to have 10% more students per week enrolled in our online classes than we did, week on week for the same period during 2019, for our face to face courses. So, we have succeeded in recruiting more students. However, whilst the number of students was higher, the revenue for online classes was less than that generated by face to face students, due to the lower price point.
By using the latest teleconference technology, Zoom, greatly upgrading our internet service and investing in faster pcs, we were able to successfully teach both in school students and online students together at the same time, in the same class.
Peter Hayes
Have you had a change of interest in different programmes from students?
Our general English classes remain popular, but there was increased interest in courses with a defined and specific outcome eg. IELTS exam preparation courses or tailor-made individual lessons for executives eg. legal English, English for engineering, English for production management etc. The students attending our football academy appear to also be a more resilient segment and so bookings for those students, attending our football courses in Manchester has actually increased.
How has IH Manchester dealt with the health and safety of the in-house students?
Being a British Council accredited English language teaching centre, which enrols students under the age of 18 (16 and 17-year-olds), safety and welfare have always been our priority. So, we were guided by English UK and Accreditation UK about the measures that we needed to take to ensure the safety of our students and staff. Our policies and induction processes for both students and staff allow us to maintain our culture of safety and well-being.
How has the situation changed the way the school is run?
The very same team oversee every aspect of the customer journey. Mina, who looks after our students in Reception now also runs a virtual Reception on Zoom. So that she can be equally available to our online students as well as those at school. The online booking process has been refined and streamlined. Far more is done remotely now, before a student begins their course, be that in school or online. In short, the student/agent wastes less time and is also better prepared. One big improvement is the way in which the whole school works much more closely together. Using MS Teams has helped us become a much more cohesive team. Having worked closely together to innovate so much and to have had to do it so quickly means that each department understands the needs, requirements and restrictions of the other to a greater degree. That has been key to how quickly we could react, innovate and implement the many radical changes we have made.
Has IH Manchester adapted itself to delivering a new learning experience for your students? If yes, please can you tell us more about it?
Yes, and it has been incredible to see how much our students have appreciated this. We began training to teach online two weeks before the first UK national lockdown in March. We were watching the situation develop in Italy and so we could see that the same would inevitably come to the UK. Our teachers were offering free online classes to our students as they familiarised themselves with this new methodology. So, by the time we were forced to move all our teaching online, the teachers were ready to do it well, and students, parents and agents were all on board.
We reopened our school on Monday 10 August. We had been preparing to launch hybrid classes throughout the summer. To keep our students and staff safe via social distancing, we limited the number of students in each class to 4. By using the latest teleconference technology, Zoom, greatly upgrading our internet service and investing in faster pcs, we were able to successfully teach both in school students and online students together at the same time, in the same class. There was a great deal of teacher training and sharing of expertise within the IH network.
What has been the response of students?
They loved it! It is to the credit of our teachers who have adapted so quickly and learnt so much about how to teach hybrid classes in such a short space of time. This has been an incredible achievement considering that there is currently no established best practice. They have truly pioneered this methodology. Students studying online report feeling much more part of a school when part of a hybrid class. They feel far more involved and part of the class. They are motivated to see their classmates actually in the classroom. Students in class appreciate the varied nationality mix of their classmates and the enrichment this brings to the lessons. They can participate in break out rooms with them and interact with them as they would have been alongside them in class.
What has worked well for you in terms of engaging students?
Our teachers were always very aware of the need to facilitate a homogenous cohort. To ensure that the online and in-class students managed to interact with each other and build the same friendships and rapport. Teachers set up activities to make this happen, pair online and in school students for tasks and then do simple things like opening the zoom classroom up 10 minutes before class begins to allow students to chat amongst themselves. Also, each student, online and in school, is now issued with an MS Teams account from induction. This allows students and teachers to communicate in a secure environment and exchange documents, materials and links. Finally, IH Manchester teamed up with IH Belfast, Bristol, Galway, Palermo and Portsmouth to offer a regular online social programme for all their students. This allowed us to collectively offer our students a much more varied, rich and entertaining social programme than we could individually. We have had dance lessons, karate lessons, digital publishing tuition, parties, singalongs, quizzes, cookery demonstrations and the weekly favourite “aperitivo”. The aperitivo was designed by IH Palermo as before the crisis teachers and students used to meet in a local bar to socialise and chat in English after class. Whilst these sessions are teacher-led, the tone is friendly and fun with opportunities to talk and make friends with everyone attending the Zoom.
How do you see the near future?
As soon as students are allowed to, I think that they will be really keen to start travelling again. However, many of the advantages of online teaching and learning will continue to be popular. Students have realised that rather than being a poor substitute, when the priority is quality, delivered by an accredited school with its whole infrastructure behind it, online lessons represent an amazingly effective learning experience. Also, so many students can now afford to learn English with an accredited UK school. They don’t need to pay for travel, accommodation and visa application fees. They can also continue to work. As we continue to blend the online and face to face teaching available, students are finding that they can work independently, online, in preparation for a live teacher encounter and that this is a much more efficient and effective way to learn.
