The Pegasus Academy Trust inspires staff to expand their career aspirations with Schoot

Feb 19, 2025

Key Outcomes

Senior leaders can actively support the career aspirations of staff across the trust
Bank of quality pre-loaded and bespoke training to inspire all staff
Flexible online training options to fit around work or other commitments
More than 96% of staff now engaged in online professional development
Central hub for managing and delivering training consistently across the trust

Background

With six schools spread across nine sites in the London Borough of Croydon, The Pegasus Academy Trust has spent over a decade working with senior leaders and staff to build an education community in the heart of Croydon. The Trust’s focus is to ensure every child in every classroom comes to school excited to learn and succeed.

As part of this, the Trust wanted to give its 350 staff a wider variety of opportunities to develop professionally and explore wider training in areas of education that interest them.

As Jolyon Roberts, the Trust’s Executive Head and CEO explains,

“The professional and personal development of our staff has been at the forefront of our minds this year. We wanted high-quality training and CPD to be available to all our staff, from newly qualified teachers and aspiring senior leaders all the way through to our support staff. Having a record of this training was also important – for both the Trust and its staff.”

The trust started using Schoot in September 2024 to expand the training opportunities available to staff and allow them to access these online around their work and other commitments.

Training that inspires

Schoot is an all-in-one platform which provides on-demand online training courses designed specifically for the education sector. Simple communication tools within the platform allow real-time collaboration too, creating a central hub for sharing and storing information on training and development in schools.

Since the introduction of the platform, the Trust has dedicated one of its INSET days every year to online training. Staff have the option to access courses in school or remotely, which has transformed the way CPD is managed and delivered.

“The beauty of having a rich bank of training and CPD opportunities online is that all our staff are encouraged to search for courses they might like to complete and upskill whenever they want to,” says Jolyon

“Whether a teacher wants to better support pupils with SEND, or a playground supervisor is interested in best practice behaviour management, good quality training is easy to find.”

The platform has given the trust’s senior leaders a unique window into the aspirations of individuals and teams which can help people to shape their future careers.

A pipeline of leadership

With a clear view of the most popular courses, senior staff now have a better understanding of the topics people are interested in. This means they can engage directly with individual staff to help them develop and fulfil their career aspirations.

“The high uptake of the ‘‘Women in Leadership’ training helped us to uncover talented staff who had leadership aspirations we may not otherwise have become aware of,” says Jolyon.

“Knowing this has enabled us to start conversations and open up pathways for our future leaders to develop in their own roles or move into new ones within the trust. It means staff feel valued and supported, which encourages them to continue to move up the career ladder with us.”

Central store for bespoke CPD

A bank of bespoke training has been developed and delivered online across the Trust, including an online cyber-security course created by the Trust themselves to help staff better protect sensitive data and systems.

“The ability to make statutory training and bespoke courses easily accessible has helped us to ensure new policies and procedures are applied consistently in all our schools,” Jolyon adds.

“Staff have also been inspired to create their own courses for the benefit of children across the trust. One of our senior leaders working with early years children created their own course materials from scratch for teaching. It’s given people new career goals and reinvigorated our approach to professional development.”

Increased engagement in CPD

Prior to Schoot, engagement in CPD was low and only around half of attendees opened training materials e-mailed to them to read in advance. The lack of engagement suggested staff either didn’t have time to prepare or the content of training didn’t quite hit the mark but as Jolyon continues,

“… that has all changed now. With more courses available and the flexibility to train online, over 96% of our staff have engaged in Schoot CPD during this school year.

“Our experience has shown that CPD doesn’t need to be top-down. By offering staff choice in how and when they engage with training, they can take control of their professional development and find courses that align with their interests and ambitions. This leads to higher job satisfaction for staff and better outcomes for children.”