Case Study:
Green Park School
Green Park School has been providing education for primary-aged pupils in Newport Pagnell for 30 years. Built on a core ethos around respect, aspiration, empathy and equality, Green Park believe in living out these values so their children recognise them as they progress through life.
In order to ensure that staff are continually updated with the latest guidance and policy changes, they felt a School Membership package from The National College was the perfect all-encompassing solution to their CPD needs.
Liz Nightingale has been the headteacher at Green Park for the last seven years, but she has worked with the school for two decades in total. She was impressed with the breadth of content that is offered on the TNC platform.
“I can’t praise The National College enough for what it’s given us over the last six months, it’s been a godsend,” She explained.
“The breadth of what’s on there has just meant that it’s been really effective and there’s something for everybody – that’s at all stages of the organisation.
“With us going into lockdown, it ended up being a really vital CPD resource for my staff while they were off and while they were working at home.
“For the leadership team there have been things that we’ve been able to dip into, for example around the new SRE requirements, Keeping Children Safe in Education and those sorts of things.”
Crucially, Mrs Nightingale and the rest of the senior leadership team wanted to see a direct translation of development from CPD to the classroom.
The staff at Green Park School have been delighted with the results so far: all have been able to implement what they’ve learned on The National College’s video update service in lessons, which has helped pupils significantly.
“Particularly on the special needs side, they were really prepared for when the children came back,” Mrs Nightingale revealed.
“We did a lot of the webinars on PSHE, but also for the recovery curriculum and that side of things too, so we’ve seen staff being able to calm children down very quickly.
“TAs and teachers will go on and explore from the roots of the children that they know they’re working with, so that they can upskill themselves – meaning that it’s been quite a personalised approach as well.
“There’s been a real impact from what they’ve done.”
Moving forward, the school are excited to delve into new topic areas, as well as building upon the wealth of knowledge that they’ve already amassed from undertaking our award-winning training.
When quizzed on the school’s future plans, Mrs Nightingale explained: “We’re really going to be exploring more around the subject leadership side of things. We were partway through doing our curriculum and then lockdown happened.
“So, we’re trying to get ourselves back into that with the subject leadership deep dives and having those sequences of learning. That’s our next step of development."