The National Institute of Teachers (NIoT) is a non-profit organisation dedicated to boosting the quality of teaching and school leadership in the UK through research and professional development programmes.

NIoT is trusted by the UK government to deliver a range of National Professional Qualifications (NPQs) to teachers at different stages of their career.

These programmes aim to deliver better teaching standards within schools, ultimately improving the education of thousands of students across the UK year after year.

Engaging learners while streamlining processes

The NIoT was seeking a way to roll out e-learning in an engaging and efficient way to thousands of teachers, with one place to go for learners to see their required courses and also access related material where relevant.

The team was also keen to streamline and automate processes around onboarding, course enrolment and more, hugely reducing the manual effort for busy learning administrators.

Using LMS365 to deliver professional development

The NIoT has close ties to the Harris Federation, a not-for-profit academy trust that runs a network of over 50 secondary schools throughout the UK.

Aware of Content Formula’s work in successfully implementing LMS365 at the Harris Federation and the School-Led Network to support their own NPQ programme, NIoT approached Content Formula to look into how they could use LMS365 in a similar way.

A solution for thousands of learners that’s also loved by admins

The NIoT team were impressed how the Harris Federation had successfully used LMS365 to enable remote professional development learning for teachers, while also providing a highly intuitive experience for learning administrators who find it easy to add course details and learning content.

Following discussions with the Content Formula team, NIoT agreed to acquire over 10,000 licenses to use LMS365 to help deliver their own NPQ programme, supporting an excellent learning experience for busy teaching staff.

Driving efficiency through automation and self-service

NIoT use Dynamics 365 as the basis for their digital workplace. Leveraging LMS365’s seamless integration with the Microsoft stack and Microsoft Entra ID, the NIoT team has also successfully streamlined the NPQ onboarding and learning registration process.

The new system uses automation and a self-service approach where possible. Teachers register using Dynamics via an intuitive interface and find themselves automatically enrolled into the right courses within LMS365, removing the need for hours and hours of manual admin effort.

Combined with the ease of use of LMS365, the new system has been welcomed by learning admins with open arms.

Integration with Moodle

NIoT also uses Moodle, a popular open-source learning platform popular within the education sector, to house some of its courses.

The NIoT team asked us to create a custom integration between LMS365 and Moodle so users can view all their learning in one platform. Having completed the integration, teachers now have a more holistic and convenient view of the required learning related to their qualification.

Improving the quality of education of students

We’re continuing to work with NIoT who have an ongoing LMS365 support package with us.

We’re excited to see how NIoT will continue to use LMS365 to support the professional development of teachers, making a difference to the quality of education for pupils across UK schools.