A safeguarding roundup of 2020 at SSS Learning
If I may, I’d like to reflect and share with you some of the positives we’ve achieved in 2020. Since the start of the first national lockdown, we have issued over 300,000 certificates covering all aspects of safeguarding, trained 7,000 new Designated Safeguarding Leads and enabled 2,000 existing DSLs to refresh their training and meet statutory requirements. KCSIE 2020 training, our first foray into producing a bespoke legislative update course, was particularly successful. Over 20,000 individual participants completed the course, and, from your feedback, we know you also found it a valuable whole-school September INSET resource. Rest assured we will be monitoring legislative changes and continue to keep you up-to-date.
We also fully maintained our busy production schedule, expanding the breadth of our suite to include new courses on safeguarding topics such as domestic abuse, bereavement and loss, mental health and wellbeing, first aid and fire safety. In addition, content for specialist roles was expanded to include additional training for DSLs on special educational needs and a new training course for staff undertaking the role of fire warden.
I can’t reflect back on the positives without recognising the achievement of our development team, dedicated to enhancing the functionality of our system.
Thanks to your great suggestions there are fantastic new additions such as:
New functionalities developed in 2020
- The Document Library/Policy Documents facility- a simple, centralised location to link to all of your bespoke policies and reference documents. These may be stored on your own intranet or other remote document repositories. Through our comprehensive tracking and reporting facility, you have records of when staff access or review each document in your library;
- The ability to filter results and reports by role. Trainees may be grouped by one or more user-defined roles;
- New reports monitoring when staff access the system or perform any activities;
- New reporting to identify when staff should review previously studied courses/recommend the most appropriate courses to be studied next.
But we’re not resting on our laurels. Early in 2021 we plan:
New functionalities coming in 2021
- To add a simpler method of re-sitting unsuccessful assessments, ensuring staff can demonstrate their knowledge of the subject without repetition of the assessment in full;
- To enable access to courses to be optionally controlled by role, as well as by individual user, simplifying admin tasks and reducing opportunities for staff confusion;
- To add the facility for admin users to print a concise single-page Attainment Record Card for individual staff, ideal for including as part of their staff CPD record file.
We will also be adding new content to the training suite to include:
New courses for the safeguarding suite coming in 2021
- A new Designated Mental Health Lead (DMHL) course- designed to support staff undertaking this specialist role in line with HM Government requirements. This course will be supported by a case study bank for general INSET and a parent resource for you to make available to them via your website;
- An extension to our Designated Safeguarding Lead package which focusses on preparing for case conferences / reviews;
- A new course on basic food hygiene.
In January we plan to launch our new YouTube page, packed with helpful videos on how to get the best out of using our system and expert commentary on all things safeguarding. You can also follow me @Sam_SSSLearning and the team @SSSlearning on twitter, LiveChat with us and contact us by emailing support@ssslearning.co.uk.
So, here’s to a safe and productive new year. Once again thanks for all your feedback and suggestions on new courses and system development, please keep them coming as we love to improve our system to suit your needs wherever we can!
Season’s greetings from me and the SSS Learning team, with warmest wishes for the coming year.
SSS Learning Safeguarding Director
