Bemrose School Derby

Speaking about his school, Neil said: “We are an inner-city school based in Derby and have around 1,100 children from a wide range of different cultures. As an all-through school our children start with us as young as 3 years-old and may finish when they leave our sixth form at 18 to 19. We are a Trust School and have our own governing board outside of the local authority.

“I am a Head teacher, so I am accountable, as well as being a leader. I make clear decisions about the well-being and safety of all staff and children, so I must be abreast of all current legalities, so all stakeholders are treated in the correct way. “I am not a legal expert, I am an educator, so it’s important that I have a point of contact to help me with judgement calls. Croner-i is online, so very easy to refer to and if you cannot find what you are looking for, you can dial in to get a person to support you. It is efficient in supporting us in making decisions and it is there to help us validate those decisions.

Croner-i helps us adopt and understand the procedures we must have in place and then adapt and tailor them to our needs. This is important to us, as we know that the basis of what we are using is secure.

“Having Croner-i saves us a lot of time and money, as we don’t have to use credits from our external legal provider. This means that we can use our credits for more strategic and targeted projects. Croner-i is also very helpful with delivering value for money by ensuring we go through the right processes when tendering and dealing with external contracts.

This is very important as we must get best value for our stakeholders.

“One of the ways Croner-i has supported us is preparing for the GDPR. As an education provider we use and collect data on young people and their families. We needed to make sure that the policies we have in place are correct and we are compliant with the law, without compromise.

“Our Croner-i service is sector led, so pertinent to what we are trying to ask. If we need information to help with compliancy, or if we are missing anything then we can reference that. As a school we work to ensure we are fully compliant as a matter of course and not just for Ofsted inspections. But the two go hand-in-hand, so it helps massively as it gives us a clear framework to work with.

“Health and safety is another critical area where Croner-i has helped. Should we come to the point where someone is hurt, I can check that we are fully compliant. Accidents are accidents but it helps to ensure we have done everything correctly. If a situation did escalate we know we have got someone here to call on to check we are following due process.

“Safeguarding is also an important part of our role as educators. Croner gives you an easy to use checklist so we know that we’re following the legislation to the letter. So we can use this as a point of reference. We have a structure to check we are saying what we’re doing and it gives assurances that we are doing what is right.

“We find the regular Croner-i Education bulletins very useful, as they help us keep abreast with what is going on. They are for our region, which is great as we know our neighbours, so can go and visit them to get hands on experience rather than having to do it remotely.

“Croner-i is an important reference point and an encyclopedia for legal guidance in schools. I would highly recommend.”