01 Mar New Child Protection Procedures for Schools eLearning courses

The Department of Education and Skills and the Professional Development Service for Schools partnered with The Learning Rooms to design and develop two eLearning courses to deliver training on the new Child Protection Procedures for Primary and Post-Primary Schools 2017 to more than 4000 schools throughout Ireland.

The courses highlight the need for creating a culture of child protection among all school personnel as an important element of safeguarding the welfare of the children in a school’s care. They outline the procedures to follow where a teacher or other member of school personnel become aware of a child protection issue and offer strategies for dealing with disclosures.

The first course is for teachers and all other school personnel. It is designed to be facilitated by the school principal and follows an animated documentary style with a number of guided discussion topics for the school personnel to engage with during the face-to-face session.

The second course, designed for the Designated Liason Person in the school, typically the principal, is a more interactive eLearning experience, containing animation, questioning and knowledge checks. It forms part of a blended learning experience that is supported by face-to-face seminars.

Commenting on the launch of the two eLearning courses, Ryan McInnes, eLearning Director at The Learning Rooms said: “This was out first project with the PDST Health & Wellbeing team and we were delighted to work on the delivery of these two important projects. The delivery format was particularly interesting where we designed and developed the digital learning resources to be used in the face-to-face classroom, as well as the blended learning approach.”

The courses are available on pdst.ie.

Watch the promotional video for this project

About PDST

The Professional Development Service for Teachers (PDST) is Ireland’s largest single support service offering professional learning opportunities to teachers and school leaders in a range of pedagogical, curricular and educational areas.