Module 1
What the Staff Hub is (and why we built it)
~5 min
The one-liner: the Staff Hub is your home for everything you use at JLK — your timesheet, the policies, the staff handbook, the team Discord, and the JLK Academy, which is the learning side of the hub.
Most of the hub is day-to-day: clock your hours, look something up, ask a director. The Academy is the part that grows you — it is our internal home for how JLK practitioners keep developing after qualification, and it is where the rest of this course focuses.
The philosophy: most nursery training measures how many courses you've done. That's the wrong question. What we wanted to measure was what changed in your practice. So the Academy is built around observed practice — not just paper certificates.
💛 The single principle
Every major course ends with a real task you do in your room, with a colleague watching, who then countersigns it. That signed observation lands on your training record and becomes real Ofsted-grade evidence of practice change. Not "did the course" — "showed it in the room."
What it isn't: another compliance box, another tick-list, another thing done for HR. What it IS: the visible answer when someone asks "how does JLK actually develop its team?"
By the numbers
The 6 academy areas: Core Compliance · Early Years Excellence · SEND & Inclusion · Parent Experience · Leadership · Business. Everyone has access to Compliance, EYFS, SEND, and Parent Experience. Room-leader and above roles unlock Leadership and Business.
The 6-level career pathway: Foundation → Bronze → Silver → Gold → Platinum → Master Trainer. Each level has specific courses + practice tasks + countersign requirements between it and the next. Structured, visible, earned.
💭 Reflection prompt: When you think about the training you've had in past roles, what stayed with you and shifted your practice? What faded within weeks? That contrast is what the Academy is built to fix.
Module 2
How to navigate the portal
~5 min
The portal has a handful of pages you'll use every week. Learn the names of these 4 and you'll never feel lost.
👋 Welcome
The front door. Sign in with your JLK-XXXX-XXXX code. Once signed in on your device, you stay signed in.
🏛 Academy hub
Shows all 6 academy areas + your career pathway + shortcuts to the soft-infrastructure pages (culture library, pocket cards, ask-a-director, refer-a-friend).
🎓 Training
The course list. Search + filter by academy area, time available, statutory status. Includes the "Continue where you left off" card so you resume without hunting.
🎖 My CPD
Your personal CPD dashboard. What you've completed, what's due to renew, your CPD hours year-to-date, your career pathway progress, your streak.
Inside a course
Every course follows the same shape:
- Progress bar at the top — tracks your tick-marks through the course
- Modules as expandable cards — click to open, work through, tick each task as you go
- Knowledge check quiz at the end — 5-7 questions, need 80% to pass. Unlimited retries.
- Mark Complete card appears at 100% — enter your name, click submit, the record lands on the training register
- Practice task (major courses only) — a yellow card appears at the bottom after mark-complete. Do the task in your real day, get it countersigned.
💡 Small features you'll use every day
💾 Saves as you go — every tick, every quiz answer, every draft is saved automatically. Close the browser, come back tomorrow, pick up exactly where you were.
🙋 Confused button — bottom-right of every course page. If a section doesn't make sense, tap it and tell us (anonymously). We use those signals to rewrite the confusing bits.
↑ Back to top — a small blue circle appears bottom-right when you scroll down. One tap and you're back at the top of the page — great for long courses or the training list.
⚙ Utility menu (bottom-left) — one click opens a small menu with:
- 🌐 Translate this page — instructions for your browser's built-in translator
- 📱 Install as app — how to pin JLK Academy to your phone home screen
- 🚪 Sign out — signs you out on this device. Useful on shared devices or when you're done for the day. Your progress is safe — everything is saved server-side and comes back next time you sign in.
🔎 Can’t find something, or not sure of the answer? Use Find an answer: the box at the top of the Staff Hub, 🔎 Search in the menu bar, or the tile on the nursery tablet. Ask in your own words (“how often do I check sleeping children?”) and it answers from our policies, the handbook, the portal and our website, with a link to where it says so.
Module 3
The rhythms — what to expect week-to-week
~5 min
The Academy isn't just courses. There are 4 rhythms that keep it feeling alive — most of them come to you (email or Discord), you don't have to hunt.
🌱 Every Friday · 4pm — your weekly recognition digest
If you completed a course this week, had a practice task countersigned, scored 100% on a quiz, or submitted a 4-week reflection, an email lands: "Your week at JLK — the small wins that added up." If you had a quiet week, no email. Silence is fine — most weeks won't have wins, and that's normal.
☕ 1st of each month · 8am — monthly 15-min 1:1 with your manager
You'll get an email with 3 conversation prompts (rotating themes: Energy check · Practice growth · Team & relationships · Direction & growth). Your manager gets the same nudge. Book 15 min together this week. The chat is private — nothing gets recorded. The point is that once a month, someone with time asks how you're doing.
👥 1st of each month · 7am — peer observation pairing
You're auto-paired with a colleague at your site + given a focus (rotating through: Transitions · JLK Voice · Play & curiosity · Handovers · Behaviour moments · Room setup). Agree a 20-min slot to shadow each other, debrief together, then log your private reflection at peer-observations.html.
💭 4 weeks after every course — impact reflection nudge
28 days after you complete a course, an email lands asking one question: "How has this shown up in your practice?" Two minutes to write. Lands on your CPD record as evidence of practice change. This is Ofsted's actual question, answered by design.
Two lifelines to know about
🗣 Ask a director (anonymous)
Something you can't say through your line manager? Something you want the founders to know? ask-a-director.html. Fully anonymous — no staff code captured. Read personally by the JLK founders.
🤝 Refer a qualified friend — £300 bonus
Know someone qualified who'd love JLK? refer-a-friend.html. £300 bonus after they pass their 3-month probation. No cap — refer as many as you like.
💭 Reflection prompt: Of the 4 rhythms above, which one are you most looking forward to? Which one do you want to make sure you don't miss when it lands? (Hint: setting a calendar note for the 1st of the month helps.)
Knowledge check
End-of-course quiz · 5 questions
Pass 80%
Pick the best answer for each question. You need 4 out of 5 to pass. Unlimited attempts.
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The core principle of the JLK Academy is:
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The 6 academy areas at JLK are:
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When does the weekly recognition digest arrive?
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The monthly 15-min 1:1 with your manager is:
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If there's something you want the JLK founders to know but you can't say it through your line manager, you should: