Maintaining Training in Schools

Managing Training in Schools has been extremely challenging in the last few years with the pandemic. With many members of staff needing to isolate along with maintaining your duty of care for the children, training has become minimal in many education settings.

We’re sharing the experience of two different primary schools and how they have maintained training for their HSE & Ofsted compliance.

Below we look at how Angela, School Business Manager and Edith, School Administrator, manage their training in schools.

How to train my staff in school & be proactive?

Being proactive in school is not as easy as it sounds and we understand this. However, it is possible as school business manager, Angela has shown us. She prioritises the following;

  • Ensuring she has sufficient first aiders to achieve their minimum cover at all times. Angela’s NYCC primary school has around 200 pupils and has outlined their minimum cover as;
  • Considering which trained members of staff may be unexpectedly off work because of illness or school trips. In reality, Angela ensures more staff have each qualification than laid out above.
  • New staff are checked for accredited Ofqual certificates. If they are replacing a trained member of staff, then this new employee must be trained in the same discipline. This helps Angela keep her training provision simple and easy to maintain so it doesn’t take up her valuable time as a school business manager.
  • Training School Staff on their allocated training days onsite. This is usually only an option for those able to plan ahead, as we often have multiple requests for these days. Angela arranged her training day for Monday 25th April 2022, back in January 2022.

How to train my staff in school & catch up with our compliance?

Some schools simply can not be as proactive as Angela, but this doesn’t mean they don’t train staff. Occasionally, this means the school runs at low levels of cover and training can become vital to complete even when it is inconvenient for the staffing logistics. Edith, Primary School Administrator, completes staff training by;

  • Booking individual members of staff onto open courses in order to get them training last minute, when low levels of compliance are present.
  • Training large groups onsite over a few twilights to include multiple staff without the training affecting the normal school day. This gives Edith cover for next 3 years in one hit, providing no one leaves.
  • Running the school short staffed while training takes place. Unfortunately, over time, training becomes essential to avoid the risk of incidents, and Edith then has no other option but to send candidates on training courses.

Methods of Training in Schools

Our education clients use a range of training methods to suit their business.

  • Proactive clients use open & virtual courses to ensure swift training when the need arises along with onsite training for their school training days to avoid disruption throughout term time.
  • Schools catching up on their training similar to Edith above often need open courses for small groups and onsite twilight sessions for larger groups.

Take a look at our training methods & their benefits on the right…

benefits of training methods, open, virtual, onsite & e-Learning

Maintaining Refresher Training

As our clients, we notify everyone two months before any refresher training is due. Those that can plan ahead use this notification to book straight away so they know their compliance will still be in place.

Those who cannot plan ahead often have a gap in their compliance for a short time. We always try to ensure plenty of availability for those who need short notice courses, however some courses only have a brief window for refresher courses to take place & you can miss out. Unfortuantely,this means undertaking initial training again, costing more & taking longer, so planning is best where possible.