Case Study:
Dacre Braithwaite Church of England Primary School Academy
Dacre Braithwaite School is a Church of England Voluntary Aided School for children aged between 4 and 11 years. The academy places high importance on providing tailored professional development opportunities for all roles and responsibilities in the school workforce.
Jo Dobbs, Headteacher, joined us to discuss how the academy has benefitted from gaining access to thousands of webinars, courses and resources, delivered by world-leading experts, on The National College platform.
Increasing parental engagement with The National College
Jo said: “Dacre Braithwaite Church of England Primary School is very small, with 84 children on roll.”
To ensure children stay safe online - not just in school, but at home as well - engaging parents and carers is a vital component for schools in meeting their statutory safeguarding requirements for 2023/24, in line with DfE guidance.
The National College provides a comprehensive range of resources dedicated to strengthening parent-school relationships around internet safety, opening up conversations and building confidence.
Jo said: “The National College’s platform has been really good for us to keep staff up to date and meeting their statutory training requirements, but also for updating our parents and carers with the knowledge that they need to keep their children safe online.”
“We find it particularly useful that the platform isn’t just for teachers. It works for our parents and carers as well,” she added.
There are a number of key considerations when choosing a CPD provider, but for this school, quality comes first.
Jo explained: “For me, the most appealing thing about The National College was the content. I had accessed the parent guides, which I found to be really well written, succinct, told the parents what they needed to know, but without going into jargon and confusing people. And it's a quick read for busy parents.”
Meeting and evidencing all statutory requirements, in one place
Jo said: “It’s early days for us with The National College, but I have invited all of our staff as users and I have added the link for parents in our weekly newsletter.”
Our programme of webinars and courses is regularly updated in line with the latest policy, practice and research and delivered in collaboration with education experts.
This has proven invaluable for Dacre Braithwaite School: “We know the quality of the training is fantastic and we know that it will be really effective. It keeps all of their knowledge up to date.”
“I think that the most useful aspect of the platform is the whole-school statutory training,” she said.
“I like the experts too, they are very engaging,” she nodded.
“I was thrilled when the trust joined The National College. It’s been a really useful resources for us to have at the school and moving forward, I can only say that it keeps getting better and better.”