The pandemic was a difficult time for all in education, but West London English School successfully negotiated that period and have come out on the other side thriving. 

West London English School, who are based in Ealing, teach English as a foreign language to students of all levels from all over the world. 

Despite having to deal with heavy restrictions to in person and travel guidelines discouraging potential students from travelling to London, they are now performing even better than they were prior to the Covid-19 pandemic. 

In the year 2019 the school had 5,300 student weeks, total weeks studied by students across the year, in comparison to 9,000 in 2022. 

David Ellul, Director of Studies at West London English School, said of their post-pandemic recovery: 

"When the pandemic hit, we offered students the option of either pausing their course or studying online, but we could not guarantee how long that pause was going to be. 

"Although the government does not see us as either education or tourism, we decided to follow the guidelines given to mainstream schools. 

"Some students decided to study online, but most either decided to ask for a refund or pause their course. 

"We did not have an online provision going into Covid, although we had been planning it and we were forced to accelerate those plans to be able to offer our service during a difficult time. 

"We opened back up as soon as schools were allowed to, but the recovery started slowly. 

"If you do not know whether there is going to be another lockdown, then you are unlikely to commit to spending money on a course and travelling to another country, so it was not until travel restrictions were completely lifted that we were able to build towards the numbers we have now." 

"We didn't lose as much of our student population as other schools did, we still suffered a lot as when your numbers get slashed in half it is going to be difficult, but we managed to cope. 

"Ealing Council decided to extend their business rates relief for us and that helped us a lot."

Ellul said that a huge part of why they have been able to perform so well despite the obstacles placed in front of them has been the quality of their teaching and service shining through. 

He said: "London is always going to be a place where people want to come and learn English, so even though Brexit has made it more difficult to travel, the draw of London is still very big. 

"Although marketing is never easy, it is easier to market London as a place to come and Ealing especially as Ealing is a lovely part of London."  

"We are a small school with only one campus and we plan to remain a small school, and we would rather improve our product than double or number of students, so we are not going to get to 20,000 student weeks any time soon, because that is not our goal. 

"We don't want classes that are too big with 20 or so students in them, we prefer them to be 12-14 students as that is a perfect number for us. 

"It might sound cheesy, but I think the staff are the key ingredient to our success. 

"Our teachers and staff are invested in the success of the school and students do pick up on that and then they tell other students to come and study with us. 

"Quite a lot of our students are studying with us because they have a family member or a friend who recommended it to them. 

"When teachers who are dealing with them on a day-to-day basis enjoy what they are doing and come to work because they believe in what they are doing then it does rub off on the students. 

"Sometimes people plan on doing a month and end up doing a year, because they keep wanting to improve further and further, you wouldn't do that if you were not enjoying the atmosphere of the school." 

Ealing Nub News is proud to be partnering with West London English School, to allow Ealing Nub News to continue providing all the latest news, features, and information that matter in the area. 

Karl Hancock, Nub News founder and Chief Executive, said: "We are delighted to be able to work with West London English School and are very excited at what the partnership can do for both sides. 

"They are at the heart of the community that we look to serve through providing a hyper-local online news source for the wonderful borough of Ealing. 

"This partnership will enable us to continue with all that we do in order to offer the best news resource possible."