Sherdley Primary School Case Study

The Challenge

The online courses also allowed learners to study the content on an individual level, ensuring that all learning was relevant and personalised

When Sherdley Primary School contacted Virtual College, they had just been let down by their existing provider and so required a flexible training solution that could be quickly executed. To make matters even more urgent, they were let down on the day they were set to break up for the Christmas period and required the courses for their INSET day, which was planned for their first day back! Sherdley needed to cover a wide range of topics which linked into the individual appraisal of their staff.

Carol Robertson, Deputy Head teacher, believed that “having 3 or 4 training providers in school would have been impossible, costly and ineffective.”

It was vital that Virtual College were able to provide an online training solution that allowed individual staff members to tackle an area of interest or relevance to their own job role, but that also provided them with an in-depth knowledge of their chosen module area.

About Sherdley Primary School

Located in St Helen’s, Sherdley Primary School is suitable for boys and girls aged 4-11. The school also includes a nursery for boys and girls aged 3-4.

Sherdley is larger than the average sized primary school and has a lower than average proportion of pupils with statements of SEN, although the proportion of pupils with some SEN needs is higher than average. In addition, pupils entitled to ‘pupil premium support’ is in line with the national average. Sherdley Primary School has used Virtual College’s training solutions in the past when they had requirements to use their safeguarding course to train a large volume of staff.

They had also used them on a smaller scale for some more personalised training units, aimed at the development of individual staff members. They contacted Virtual College after another training provider, who they had booked training with for their imminent INSET day, let them down at the last minute.

The school felt that the training was very successful “dare I say possibly more so than what was originally planned would have been.

Carol Robertson, Deputy Head Teacher

The Solution

When Virtual College received the phone call from Sherdley Primary School, they were certain they would be able to provide them with a suitable training solution. Having already worked with over 2,000 schools across the UK, they were able to quickly identify which solution and courses would be best suited to the schools requirements.

Virtual College provided Sherdley Primary with an online training solution which included courses on Food Hygiene, Autism and Safer Working Practices. As all of the training would be completed online, this gave Sherdley the flexibility they needed to guarantee that all training would be ready to take place on their INSET day.

The online courses also allowed learners to study the content on an individual level, ensuring that all learning was relevant and personalised. In addition, the high quality content of the courses enabled the learners to receive an in-depth knowledge of their subject area.

The Results

Due to the flexibility of Virtual College’s online courses, Sherdley Primary received all of the training courses they required for their INSET day.

Sherdley Primary School used Virtual College’s online training solution with great success. Due to the large directory of courses that Virtual College offers, the school were able to choose courses that were specifically geared to the individual needs of their staff, rather than being a ‘one size fits all’ training session, which can often be the case with face to face training.

Each learner was able to work at their own pace, on a course that was completely suited to their job role. Once the course modules had been studied and the online test had been passed learners were able to print off a certificate as proof of their commitment to continuous professional development. What’s more, due to the course being online, learners are able to access the content whenever they require, should they ever need a refresher.

The school felt that the training was very successful “dare I say possibly more so than what was originally planned would have been!” said Carol. The staff at Sherdley Primary have requested similar training opportunities for future INSET days with them stating that on this occasion: they felt like they had done something entirely relevant to their role as well as ‘something that they wanted to do’, instead of feeling like they were completing training for the sake of training.

Sherdley Primary School was impressed with the high quality content of the courses and how Virtual College ensured the courses were ready to such a short deadline. Carol said: “We were able to organise the training quickly, and over the Christmas period, which would have been difficult using other training providers”.

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