CHAPTER 30:

THE PANDEMIC PART 4

Lockdown 2.0 started in early November ‘20 until the middle of December ‘20 when a new tiered structure came into being. Effectively it was a full lockdown once again for us in London, although the Ipswich school could still function from 2^nd December as they were Tier 2 not 3.

In fact, what we organised was a hybrid system. We opened for 3 days each week working on theory, exams and on mannequin heads only because we weren’t allowed to have real, live people having their hair done.

The other 2 days of the week were spent on Instagram Live, but all that changed again in late December ’20 when the whole country went into Tier 4 and full lockdown. It was back to online education and live interviews for the Team and back to early morning walks for me, this time in the freezing cold!

This final lockdown was particularly tough for all of us. It was cold, dark and generally miserable. Throw Brexit misery into the mix and there was simply no good news. Luckily the Team were kept busy and by now we had launched a Zoom Common Room and Friday Assemblies. Zoom Common Room was open to absolutely anyone who found us! They would message Edward for a link and were invited to drop in for a virtual cup of tea and a chat every Wednesday morning for an hour. It was a brilliant idea and for some the only outside contact they had each week. Zoom Assembly was for Alan d students only and was a great way to keep in touch with our students. By this time, Kevin had split all the students into groups of small numbers, and they were meeting online too.

Finally, on March 8^th 2021 we were allowed to re-open and deliver socially-distanced education once again. We reinstated the 3 day attendance in the Schools with 2 days online education,  continued to great effect, until the beginning of April ‘21 when we returned restriction free. Shortly after returning, masks became optional and we started to feel a sense of normality returning. One change we have stuck to were our new working hours. In order for everybody to feel more confident travelling during the pandemic when we were open, we started opening later and finishing earlier. We did this by cutting out breaks and full lunch hours. This created a more streamlined day taking advantage of emptier public transport, and also allowed more family time. Yes, I said it….. “family time”! You see, the pandemic even changed me a bit.

We got back to our winning ways on the Apprenticeship side with Ipswich gaining their 2^nd 100% distinction, this time in Barbering, and our success rates were still in the late 90s%.

The private side of the business was buoyant with career changers, although we noticed a drop in our Refresher/Confidence builder courses because those qualified stylists who might normally have chosen to upgrade a bit were just getting down to dealing with their backlog of  clients.