In our 'My Work' series, we get to know the people who make Meridian Trust what it is, hearing from colleagues across our schools and central team about their roles, the projects they're leading, and the difference their work makes across the Trust. This time, we spoke with Hayley Baron, Meridian Learning Co-ordinator at Meridian Trust, who shares her role coordinating CPD across the Trust.
Hayley, tell us about your role as our Meridian Learning Co-ordinator?
I coordinate the Trust’s CPD (Continuous Professional Development) offering, Meridian Learning. It launched in 2022/23 and has grown hugely in scope and size since then. We started with a few on-demand modules and live webinars, and now have a catalogue of over 200 courses on our Meridian Learning Platform.
My role involves anything to do with Meridian Learning, from supporting the creation of online courses, to live training and the Trust’s coaching offer. This academic year, Meridian Learning has been integral in mandatory training and compliance across the Trust.
How does your work connect to the Trust values?
Valuing people is really the key trust value that drives Meridian Learning. The CPD offer is there to enable Trust staff to feel appreciated, supported and developed. I think Meridian Learning also contributes to helping develop a high-quality learning environment by continuously developing staff in their skills and knowledge.
Can you tell us about a stand-out moment for you at work?
We’ve now run five cohorts training staff to become Trust Coaches. I’ve supported at each training session and helped match Trust staff with coaches.
When we received our first feedback from staff that have accessed the coaching offer, it was a huge moment to see the impact of the investment of that training. The staff reported how much the coaching had helped them, developed them and had an impact on them personally and professionally. It confirmed how fantastic the coaches are, but also how amazing it is that the Trust is able to make such a fantastic opportunity available to all staff.
Please tell us about one thing you’re excited to work on at the moment.
This academic year, I have been largely working alongside our IT team on the new Meridian Learning platform. This has been a huge project in gathering the Trust’s training and CPD into one place, as well as providing place for staff training records. This has been an exciting project because it is completely Trust created, and therefore entirely tailored to us, linking to other Trust-wide IT systems. Because of this there are so many possibilities, further developments and opportunities to make the platform a fantastic tool.
There have been challenges as there always are in launching new systems. You can never know the issues really until users are using it! But the progress already made around accessibility of courses and tracking engagement and completion is great.
The platform will hopefully come to be recognised as the place staff can find and complete a range of courses and training.
What’s coming up for you in the future that you’re excited to work on?
One area I hope to work more on is the Trust networks. As we grow bigger, networks are more and more important. I particularly want to focus on staff in slightly more isolated roles or where there are no obvious networks currently in place for them.
I will also be working on a project to digitise the Performance Development Review process and move it online.
It’s rewarding to work on projects that can make a difference to everyone who works at the Trust