Let's Celebrate Local!

By Katherine Mallia, who is a teacher and the owner/manager of Todo el Mundo Languages for Everyone or French & Spanish for kids and adults.

How are you feeling about your business?

Proud, amazed and inspired!

How are you feeling about business in general? 

Times are uncertain and the future is unpredictable yet exciting... 

Tell us how you now apply this phrase to your business and/or life ‘buy local supply local’. 

We will continue our provision for local children and adults with a learning and social lifeline during lockdown and after lockdown. 

Spending the business’ advertising budget with local advertisers and sourcing as many of our resources as possible from local suppliers. 

Sourcing food for the family from local independent suppliers and independent take aways. 

What has changed for you positively as a result of lockdown? 

Less time driving (although I miss listening to music in my car), more time with my children and having what is now nearly a six-month trial of running an online language school!  

What makes a good local business?

Flexibility, adaptability, creating community and going above and beyond to meet the needs of local customers. 

Can you name a local business which you support around food & drink? 

We always support La Perla Tapas with outings for our students and recently ordering their delicious take away dishes to enjoy at home in the garden and over Zoom with the team!  

Also the Independent Spirit has helped us to ‘keep our spirits up’ at home with their amazing selection of local craft ales including gluten free ones from Bristol brewers.  

https://la-perla.co.uk

https://independentspiritofbath.co.uk 

Can you name a local independent business which you support around health, wellbeing or fitness? 

Tiger Martial Arts have continued to deliver online classes for local children and young people keeping much needed contact with other children and positive role models in my sons life every week during lockdown 

https://tigermartialarts.club

Can you shout out to any local customers you'd like to celebrate? 

St Saviours Junior School in Larkhall have continued to fund our language club students that are eligible for Pupil Premium even though we have gone online.   They have also been working with us to continue to deliver our KS2 French provision with our Youtube video courses being included in their home learning provision - https://www.stsavioursbath.co.uk

The Pope family - we have been teaching at Kingswood Prep since their eldest was in pre-school and the youngest was a baby in a buggy.  They enrolled all three of their children in different online Spanish classes for pre-school and KS1 in the summer term, have replied to every single one of our many emails and have hardly missed a class since March! The joyful smiles and laughter (and occasional sibling rivalry) from their 3 bright and bubbly children have lit up our weeks!  You can see the middle daughter having fun on our summer school promotions video clip with the mouse and sunglasses.  

In fact all of our students an their families have been totally amazing to work with during the lockdown and taking the classes online, no-one signed up for online learning but have adapted quickly and given us lots of useful feedback to improve our delivery over the past few months. 

Can you shout out to any local suppliers you wish to celebrate? 

Avelinos Deli on Cleveland Place for edible joys and positive conversation.

Ian at The Bath & Wiltshire Parent Magazine who has continued to promote our services to families via his website and social media   - https://thebathandwiltshireparent.co.uk

The Bath Veg Box Project fished me out of some tricky mealtime situations with their next-day (sometimes same day) delivery and collection service of delicious and ripe fresh produce  - https://www.facebook.com/bathvegboxproject/

Can you name someone who has had your back during lockdown? 

This is a really tough one, hard to single out just one as my entire team have risen to the challenge and worked tirelessly and relentlessly from their homes to continue with our groups classes and private tuition.   Elena continued her teaching even when she returned to Spain at the start of lockdown to be with her elderly parents. 

But if I have to choose one for ‘having my back’ it will be my only full-time team member Andrea Broch.  She has continued delivering her 5 weekly group Spanish classes for adults and 3 weekly group classes for kids as well as private tuition, creating an amazing online grammar course (she loves grammar) and starting an intermediate Spanish reading club for a group of retired ladies at the start of lockdown - the reading club is about to begin it’s 4th text at the end of this month!   

I don’t this she is really aware of the difference she has made to mine and her students lives during the lockdown and I will be taking her for some patatas bravas at La Perla very soon to say gracias!  

Can you name one person in your life who has really helped you during this time? 

Again a tough one to answer as I am fortunate to have a large family and super circle of friends but if I have to choose just one, it would be my good friend Ash, he has been home-schooling his son and younger siblings while completing his dissertation for a degree in environmental science (and I was feeling like I had a lot on my plate!).   

We have enjoyed many long chats on the phone about the joys of working from home and homeschooling, but even more importantly for both our sanities - our shared hobbies of music production and cooking.  In fact he is currently launching a bespoke chocolate truffles business - Coco Savant with funding from Bath Spa University and the team are going to be getting some of his delicious choccies for their end of term treats! 

What are your business plans for Q4? 

We really want to get back into the classroom again in September however as a ‘nomadic’ school we will have to wait and see if this is going to fit in with the schools, nurseries and other venues we teach from.   We would love to rent a pop-up shop in Bath for Q4 to give us maximum accessibility, control and freedom with how we deliver our in-person services post lock-down and enable us to offer online attendance and class recordings for our students who may still be required to shield in the autumn.  It will also give us a base to re-group as a team and draw up an exciting new business plan for the next five years! 

Any special offers you'd like to mention?

We always have so much going on - why not take a look to see what works for you? For example you may like some of our sessions during the school holidays. 

https://www.todoelmundo.co.uk/online-classes

Parting thought?

The whole team have loved every minute of our online teaching (not so much the lesson planing and technical hitches). We have built amazing relationships with our students young and old, met their families and pets on screen and cannot wait to have a gran fiesta in the new year to celebrate the resilience shown by all and the feeling of familia that has really grown during lockdown. 

For more information visit https://www.todoelmundo.co.uk