Case Study:
Sir Frederick Gibberd College
Opening its doors for the first time in September 2019, Sir Frederick Gibberd College follow a mantra of “Successful Individuals, Future Aspirations and Good Habits.”
After looking at different ways in which they could provide high-quality CPD training to their staff, they chose The National College’s award-winning video update service.
Headteacher Dee Conlon has been impressed with the flexibility and comprehensive training on offer, and we spoke to her to learn more about the benefits Sir Frederick Gibberd have yielded.
Could you tell me about the background of your school and your position within the school?
We’re a brand-new school who only opened in September. Pretty much everything comes back round to me and my deputy and, although we’re a small school, we still have to do everything a large school would have to do.
Why did you choose The National College?
We were looking for CPD which we could deliver to our staff without having to prepare it ourselves, because we just don’t have the manpower to do that.
Going into lockdown, it became more apparent that we’d have to deliver CPD. I then came across The National College website and thought that we could use it, with people having the opportunity to do CPD from home.
How have you found the service from the National College?
I’ve contacted The National College a couple times and the service has been really good.
How much of a benefit have The National College’s resources been to you and your school?
It allows staff to take ownership of their own development. As the admin, I recommend certain webinars and CPD sessions and staff can then go and choose what they want to do.
We said to staff that once a week they’ve got to undertake the CPD and we’ve actually clocked up quite a few hours.
How beneficial has our 100% remote learning platform been during the COVID-19 pandemic?
Now everyone is changing the way they work, we’re having virtual meetings and so on, so this will fit in really nicely with what we want to do next year with staff too.
How much of a benefit has the ability to undertake courses and training on an online platform, in your own time, been?
For us, it just made sense to have something that staff could use virtually and have the freedom to choose themselves, depending on their needs, rather than me saying that they’ve got to this and that.
What has been your staff’s reaction and feedback to using our platform and enhancing their own personal development?
We’ve actually already started organising things for September INSET through The National College, so staff don’t have to come into school for all of the INSET days.
Our TA was finding it really difficult to find training courses for what she needed, because we work with children who have such specific needs. She needed a certain type of training and we were finding it really difficult to source this, so upon discovering The National College, she was really happy.