The Latest News from Grey Matter Learning...
Five Years - Five Stars
Five years in a row! We are of course delighted that despite the challenges that 2020 threw at us, the team pulled together and we have achieved Centre of Excellence again.
The only Skills for Care Centre of Excellence with app and free courses!
The GML app is live!
We are delighted to announce the launch of the Grey Matter Learning app! Just point your camera at the QR code or visit your app store.
Our brand spanking new app has just launched:
- Access all of our 60+ courses
- Empower staff with learning on the go
- Follow our events page
- Access the Help Centre
Use the links above to download it today!
Online Learning saves Managers Time
We are delighted to be part of an article published by Digital Social Care about one of our most valued customers, Dimensions.
Sarah Baiden, their Qualifications and Assessment Manager, highlights the following key features of using Grey Matter Learning in order to train 7,000 staff:
- All courses mapped to Skills for Care mandatory guidance
- Most courses are CPD certified
- Online learning is more efficient, with everything in one place
- Allows for flexible completion of Standards, whilst balancing work commitments
- Click focusses on gaps in knowledge, so no need to repeat learning
What a week!
What a week! We just wanted to say a huge thank you to all of our customers and share a little bit of feedback that we received last week about our Dementia course:
“This is the most informative online course I have done. It was excellent.”
The other reason we wanted to say thank you was because last week was super busy with our learner community completing over 10,000 courses in ONE week for the first time!
Lastly, to all our future customers who have commented “the pricing seems a bit too good to be true”, no need to worry as there is no catch. Our pricing does exactly what it says on the tin with no hidden extras!
One, Two, Three awards!
Grey Matter Learning is delighted to add the following awards to its virtual trophy cabinet, which are testament to the hard work and dedication of our team:
2021’s Most Outstanding eLearning Provider of the Year for Social Care Services - UK
Based on a range of comprehensive analysis and research, Grey Matter Learning was handpicked by CEO Monthly magazine in early January as having shown great stability and strength throughout the past business year.
To quote CEO Monthly: “We want to successfully highlight and showcase individuals and companies, thereby providing a platform in which to promote their work and services.”
Social Care eLearning Service of the Year (Innovation & Excellence Awards 2021)
During the process towards this Innovation & Excellence Award, the Corporate LiveWire network invited over 90,000 businesses, magazine contributors and their subscribers to nominate companies and individuals based on such key criteria as service, innovation, experience and sustainability.
As part of this announcement, Corporate LiveWire confirmed that Grey Matter Learning had also gained a place in the Innovation & Excellence Awards Guide 2021, which will be distributed to businesses and professionals across its network.
Leading Providers of Social Care eLearning - Berkshire
Announced by the SME Southern Enterprise Programme in early December, this award was given in recognition of our endeavours to bettering business within our sector, and the very best of British business.
In the words of SME News: “The awards are given solely on merit and are awarded to commend those most deserving for their ingenuity and hard work, distinguishing them from their competitors and proving them worthy of recognition.”
As part of our continued efforts to constantly create and innovate, we’re thrilled to be honoured with these respective awards. Onwards and upwards!
The Progress Group acquires multiple award winning learntech provider, Grey Matter Learning
National education and training specialists, The Progress Group, have recently acquired the multiple award-winning learntech provider, Grey Matter Learning. The provider, who is dedicated to the health and social care industry, is a leading eLearning provider, having recently been named “2021’s Most Outstanding eLearning Provider of the Year for Social Care Services in the United Kingdom” by CEO Monthly Magazine and “Leading Provider of Social Care eLearning 2020” by the Southern Enterprise Awards.
Grey Matter Learning is the latest addition to The Progress Group, which already includes five education and training providers. Collectively, the group works with individuals aged 8 – 60 across their national alternative education provision, careers education, advice and guidance, and adult skills training. Their skills training spans several sectors including renewable energy, construction, health and social care and warehousing and storage.
The addition of Grey Matter Learning will not only further enhance the existing delivery of the Group, but also help to further drive the company’s digital learning capabilities.
Talking of the acquisition, Group CEO Jayne Worthington said;
“We are delighted to welcome Grey Matter Learning and its team to The Progress Group. Grey Matter Learning is very well established as a provider of eLearning across the UK, and I am really looking forward to not only growing this business nationally, but also deploying some of its best practice and eLearning expertise across our Group. This will significantly enhance our existing eLearning provision, ultimately helping us to help more people.
“Similar to us, Grey Matter has a mission to improve lives through learning, and place people at the heart of their provision. This ethos and approach were the perfect fit for our Group, which has a clear purpose, to change lives through the power of education. When we first met the team at Grey Matter Learning, I instantly knew that they would be a brilliant fit for our Group, and that they would really bring another element of expertise to our existing provision.”
Sarah Knapp, Grey Matter Learning Managing Director and founder said;
“Everyone at Grey Matter Learning is hugely excited by the opportunities that working with The Progress Group will bring for the team, our clients and partners. Whilst we remain firmly committed to the social care sector, we have already been working on successful projects in other sectors. From an L&D background, it has always been my passion to create interesting and fun eLearning that holds the attention of the learner whilst inspiring desired results. It can be pretty challenging when dealing with such difficult subjects, particularly during such tough times.
Since launching our upgraded system, Click, a year ago, we have had incredible feedback and won 2 major awards. People simply love our content. I often wonder how many eLearning providers can confidently say that their learners are excited by the courses and are having fun competing with colleagues because they are enjoying their learning experiences. Just this week one of our local authority L&D Managers said: “The Click content was so rich and engaging that I changed my work plans in order to complete the course”. It is so heartwarming to know we are making a difference and I believe this new partnership can only bring greater innovation and more lives improved through learning.”
Grey Matter Learning, which was formed in 2006, works with multiple local authorities, many of whom for 14 years as well as social care providers. This includes AgeUK, Dimensions, Autism Together, Bluebird Care, Mencap, Camphill Village Trust, Milestones Trust and the Guinness Partnership. Their eLearning platform, Click, has been shown to significantly boost a company’s productivity, providing £30 worth of increased productivity for every £1 invested in online training. It’s this impressive impact which has seen the company flourish over the last 14 years.
To find out more visit The Progress Group website.
This year's Christmas Charity...
This year as we done for the last 14 years, we will continue with our tradition of donating a portion of our December revenue (instead of spending it on Christmas Cards) to a local social care service.
We are delighted to announce Priors Court School in West Berkshire is this years chosen charity...
Watch this space for more details...
You said - We did...
Thanks for the feedback from all the amazing organisations we support, we really appreciate your feedback - please keep it coming!
This week sees the release of a number of updates that you requested, including:
- Active / inactive filter on the Training Matrix
- New location for the "Help Centre" icon
- Bulk updates for course due dates
There are other updates on the Roadmap, but if there is something in particular that would really help you, please let us know.
Funding for Infection Prevention and Control
The Government has extended the funding available via the Infection Prevention and Control fund. More info can be found here.
The Infection Control Fund, set up in May, has now been extended until March 2021, with an extra £546 million to help the care sector. Many of our customers have successfully claimed from the fund to support learning in:
- Infection Prevention and Control
- PPE (COVID-19) Essentials
- Coronavirus (COVID-19) Essentials
- Food Safety
- Moving and Handling
- Oral Healthcare
All of which play a vital role in Infection Prevention and Control. If you have not seen our free courses, which include the PPE and Coronavirus courses - just click here.
Training Matrix
We're delighted to release our brand new Training Matrix. Its key features mean that managers can:
- See full colour coding, even when exported to Excel
- Set course due dates for learners
- Get an instant display of compliance %age
- View activity count per course
- Check learners progress and when next course is due, all in one place
- Filter course status reports for individual learners or multiple learners
- Set employment start dates to effectively track induction and refreshers
To find out more and watch the short video, just click here
Workforce Development Fund 2020-21
Great news! You can now apply for funding again to get your leadership and management training back on track.
We have now supported over 2,000 learners to complete Lead to Succeed and Well Led. Since lockdown, we have successfully converted our face-to-face training to webinars - here’s just some of the feedback:
“The most valuable element for me has been the self-reflection about what I have currently been doing and how I can improve my leadership qualities.”
“I have been able to deal with minor conflict within the team more effectively. This has created a better atmosphere for the team members and the people we support”
Check out our current programmes now - places are going like hot cakes!
If your team would benefit from such training, then you can directly commission your own programme - contact us now to get your dates in before March 2021.
Here’s our Introduction to Grey Matter Learning video - feel free to share.
Our response to COVID-19....
Since March, we've been working to support our community during this COVID-19 crisis. We are humbled by the positive response that we received on our free Coronavirus eLearning course. To help the community further during this outbreak, we’re offering:
- Free access to Click, our online learning system with 50+ courses and assessments
- Free Lead to Succeed taster sessions
- Free COVID-19 eLearning which has been used around the world
- Free Stress & Resilience course
- Free Oral Health Care course
- Free Fast Track Induction resources
- Free PPE (COVID-19) Essentials
- Free Supervision Skills for Managers
- Free Epilepsy Awareness
- Free Preparing for an Outstanding CQC Inspection
With the recruitment and retention of care workers already a huge issue, this situation has only brought its additional challenges. However, it’s more important than ever to remember that care providers need good quality care workers at this time so cannot afford to cut corners.
As Kate Terroni, Chief Inspector of Adult Social Care, CQC recently remarked:
“We recognise that at this time providers will be prioritising providing care to people and that this may mean that training will be delayed. However, providers should make every effort to ensure that staff are competent, confident and skilled in providing safe care to the people using their service.”
Find out how thousands of care workers have been assessed as competent on Click.
We hope you and your families stay safe and well. If there’s anything else we can do to support you in the meantime, then do let us know.
May the fourth be with you....
We know it is not quite May 4th just yet, but we are delighted to achieve Skills for Care Centre of Excellence for the fourth year in a row and I wanted to take this opportunity to thank my team for all of their hard work in making this happen.
We have been delivering learning and assessment of competence to the social sector for almost 14 years now. However, reading through some of the feedback from the amazing organisations we support for the re-accreditation process, reminded us of why we do what we do.
Centre of Excellence is Skills for Care’s highest level of endorsement for both our online and face-to-face programmes and we are very proud to have achieved it again this year. The work has already started for next year’s re-accreditation process!
Our response to COVID-19....
We're working to support our community during this COVID-19 crisis. We are humbled by the positive response that we received on our free Coronavirus eLearning course. Since 2006, our mission has been to Improve Lives Through Learning and to help the community further during this outbreak, we’re now offering:
- Free access to Click, our online learning system with 50+ courses and assessments, for new accounts until 1st May 2020.
- Free Lead to Succeed webinars until 29th May 2020.
- Free COVID-19 eLearning which has been used around the world.
- Free Stress & Resilience course
With the recruitment and retention of care workers already a huge issue, this situation has only brought its additional challenges. However, it’s more important than ever to remember that care providers need good quality care workers at this time so cannot afford to cut corners.
As Kate Terroni, Chief Inspector of Adult Social Care, CQC recently remarked:
“We recognise that at this time providers will be prioritising providing care to people and that this may mean that training will be delayed. However, providers should make every effort to ensure that staff are competent, confident and skilled in providing safe care to the people using their service.”
Find out how thousands of care workers have been assessed as competent on Click.
We hope you and your families stay safe and well. If there’s anything else we can do to support you in the meantime, then do let us know.
Keep calm and wash your hands....
Now that the UK government has confirmed that we have moved from the ‘contain’ to the ‘delay’ phase regarding the Coronavirus outbreak, we want all of our valued customers to know that we have reviewed and implemented our Emergency Planning Procedure.
We anticipate that Click will operate as normal and our team will be working safely from home. In terms of our Face-to-Face Learning, we have already postponed some of our modules and we will reschedule any postponed modules. We are also looking at providing opportunities to complete courses using virtual classroom learning via webinar. We continue to monitor the position and will keep everyone informed.
Our Infection Prevention and Control online course covers best practice and the PPE course is a great follow up course. Essentially, the guidance is to follow all standard infection prevention and control processes and keep up to date with announcements from the government alongside NHS guidance.
We have just released two brand new courses - "Oral Health Care" and "Preparing for an Outstanding CQC Inspection". If you want to get started on either of these, contact Support. Otherwise they will be added to Click by managers.
Top Tip: With internet service providers potentially under strain over the coming weeks, you can improve your bandwidth at home by switching off all unnecessary wireless devices in the house in order to maximise bandwidth, particularly if you are needing to attend a webinar online. If video isn’t absolutely essential to any call, then you can always switch to audio to lessen the bandwidth required.
In the meantime, stay safe and well in the great work that you’re doing.
Ready... Click... Go!
Grey Matter Learning is proud to release a fabulous upgrade to its online learning system. Now known as “Click”, you can benefit from a whole host of improvements and new features.
Find out more here: Click or talk to us now for more information.
Grey Matter Learning has been blogging about our experience with delivering the Skills for Care "Lead to Succeed" and "Well-Led" programmes, sharing some of the ideas from managers and senior managers who have completed these courses.
Find out more here: Blog Page
