Image of Unity City Academy

Case Study:
Unity City Academy

Secondary - Improvement & Inspections School Improvement Secondary - Staff & Recruitment Leading CPD

Unity City Academy is committed to providing a supportive and mutually respectful environment for its pupils. The academy places high importance on tailored professional development opportunities for all staff.

Leanne Stockton, Executive Assistant to the Principal, joined us to share how the academy has benefitted from our multi-award-winning professional development platform.

Choosing The National College

Discussing the school’s journey with The National College so far, Leanne said: “One of the main reasons that we decided to use The National College is that it allows us to track all the CPD that staff complete. We found that a really important feature.”

Our platform enables members to create watchlists for any user group, including different staff roles, departments, subjects, years groups or new starters, and implement professional development that meets individual and collective needs.

Leanne said: “I think that the platform is really beneficial because you can choose the webinars and courses that you want to do. It gives staff ownership of their own learning journey.”

She explained: “I manage all of the watchlists and user groups. I find the whole platform really user-friendly. It’s great that you can download reports too; it’s easy to do.”

“Everything is one place, which we find very useful.”

She added, “You can go to the CPD dashboard and view the percentage of staff who have completed the webinars and courses.”

“We find that it’s well organised and supports us to view who has completed the training and who still needs to take part.”

An easier way to meet statutory training requirements

Our expert-led courses cover all of your school’s training needs, including safeguarding, data protection, Prevent duty, health and safety and fire safety, helping you meet Ofsted expectations, and achieve compliance with DfE statutory guidance and wider legal requirements.

Leanne said: “My job is to ensure that all of our statutory safeguarding training is assigned to the staff, and the health and safety content too.”

“The courses on manual handling, administering medicine, trips and falls and using display screen equipment have been fantastic.”

She continued: “Overall, we have had great feedback from our staff on the webinars and courses.”

“Our curriculum leaders browse the content on the platform that is relevant to them, and they have found it to be high quality and informative,” Leanne commented.

“The experts are very easy to listen to and you can tell that they know what they’re talking about.”

“Recently, I was looking at the online safety training which is available for parents and carers. I think that will be the next step for us.”

Leanne confirmed: “Increasing parental engagement is something that we are very committed to.”