How the London Borough of Brent Uses eLearning for School Governors

The London Borough of Brent was actually the first LEA to offer Modern Governor to its governors. We asked Brent’s Derek Balaam to share his experiences so far.

Why did you decide to offer Modern Governor to your governors?

E-learning is encouraged by our council, not least because more people have internet access nowadays. Modern Governor gives our governors flexibility as well as giving us, the LEA, a different method of training delivery.

We feel that if a governor can’t attend a face to face training course then e-learning is a good alternative. If a classroom version of a course is not being held for a while the governor can do the e-learning in the interim. Modern Governor allows governors to dip in and out as their schedule permits and as it suits them.

They can also do the e-learning training as and when the issues arise, making it relevant and ‘just-in-time’.

What feedback have you had from your governors about Modern Governor?

We’ve had very positive feedback from our governors who have all found the e-learning worthwhile. A couple have had access issues but they were more to do with individual’s pc’s and were soon dealt with via the Learning Pool helpdesk.

“I have just completed one of these modules. It was great! This is a tremendous way of keeping informed. Thank you for providing this resource.”
Brian Cowan, Local Authority Governor, Brent

“I found it easy to navigate through the course material, it was useful and informative. I’ve just completed the first module and am looking forward to future courses appearing on the Brent site.” Sarah Edwards, Governor, Brent

How do you integrate the e-learning with the other training you offer your governors?

We ensure that all our training publicity material promotes the full range of learning and development we offer to governors equally, that’s our face to face training, e-learning and new distance learning activity. We don’t yet signpost learners from the classroom courses to the e-learning or vice versa, but we plan to do this in the future.

How do you encourage governors to use the e-learning?

We send out a learning and development brochure to all governors each term and the e-learning is featured. We also send an email to all governors every 4 weeks about the training offered.

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