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Case Study:
St John’s Catholic School & Sixth Form College

St John’s Catholic School & Sixth Form College know the value that a high-quality CPD programme can bring.

After Deputy Headteacher Gavin McIntyre had an initial first-hand experience with The National College, he was impressed with the clear and concise delivery which accompanied a webinar on Centre Assessment Grades.

Eager to explore The National College’s further, Mr McIntyre got in touch and subsequently signed up for our School Membership.

Appreciating the value of CPD

Coupled with that quality delivery, Gavin was pleased to see the breadth of expert practitioners who were also on hand – which gave everyone at St John’s that sense of relatability.

Mr McIntyre said: “At St John’s we place great value on CPD.

“My original introduction was via a webinar which was related to the process for CAGs (Centre Assessment Grades) last year. What I found was that the information was very clear, concise and the webinar was very straightforward to follow.

“We then explored the possibilities which The National College could offer us. It’s that breadth of content which is available, the flexible approach it offered the school going into the pandemic and also the availability of experts in the field and up-to-date information.

“What is also clear from The National College is that you have lots of these experts who are also current classroom practitioners, so when it comes to recommending strategies, you can clearly see that these things have been trialled in the classroom and therefore they’re sharing the best practice in that regard.”

Vast possibilities to explore

Gavin explained just how The National College fitted in with the school’s current CPD setup, with a seamless inclusion of our webinars and courses.

Because of that aforementioned expertise, he alluded to the fact that staff have gone above and beyond in exploring the platform.

“We still wanted staff to follow our school priorities, of which we were able to link in with the webinars from The National College,” he explained.

“Then, we had an element of staff free choice, so that they could explore in further detail, an area of their own interest. Originally, we did ask staff to do 12 hours in total, so we were able to put six hours of our focus school priority webinars and they were then able to build in six hours of their own.

“Lots of staff have actually gone over and above that 12 hours, because they’ve found something that they’re particularly interested in.”

High-end CPD

Our remote CPD platform allows staff to complete training at a time that suits them, and this is something which has really worked out for all involved and affiliated with St John’s.

He stated: “It’s the flexible approach which has paid dividends for us.

“There’s so much content that it’s not going to be repetitive. It’s always high-end material, delivered by professionals.”