Case Study:
Castle Newnham School

Castle Newnham School place a huge focus on ensuring that they deliver high-quality and informative CPD to their staff.

Jonathan Mills, Assistant Vice Principal, joined us to discuss how Castle Newnham School has utilised their School Membership with The National College so far.

Accessible CPD for all staff

Explaining more about Castle Newnham School, Jonathan said: “We are a large school, with over 700 students at secondary level and a similar number at primary level.”

“We do whatever we can to be inclusive, with a lot of alternative options for pupils too.”

"We wanted a platform that would allow people to take their own direction with CPD." Jonathan explained.

"We needed it to be accessible for all staff, when it's convenient for them."

"The flexibility that the platform provides is a big benefit for us, as it means that people can access it when they are able to."

"Also, we wanted to be able to provide people with a range of opportunities, so that all members of our school workforce could access bespoke CPD." he added.

Collaborative CPD

When asked what importance Castle Newnham School places on continued professional development, Jonathan stated: "CPD is extremely important to us. We look at it in a collaborative sense, and it fits in with our ethos of developing our staff."

"We place a high priority on staff CPD." he said.

Jonathan continued: "It's the variety of areas that are covered in The National College’s CPD which is important to us."

"The whole school workforce can access their own CPD and that's great."

He explained: "The safeguarding CPD was particularly useful. It meant that we could review who has completed the mandatory training and ensure that it's ticked off."

"Using The National College to do that made complete sense to us."

Staff feedback

Since joining The National College, Jonathan is proud of how the workforce has approached the wealth of training available.

He said: “Staff feedback has been positive.”

“I haven’t done a review of the platform with staff yet, but it’s something I’d like to do soon.” he continued.

He stated: “I know that some colleagues really appreciate that they can choose what CPD they’d like to complete.”

“It’s not restrictive and there is a wide range of opportunities on there.” he said.

He commented: “The fact that everything is available to all staff is good.”

“The next step for us is that our middle leaders take responsibility for their particular groups of staff.” he concluded.