Award winning

The Progress Group Named As A Top Place To Work By The Sunday Times Best 100 Places To Work
Award winning  ·  The Progress Group
The Progress Group Named As A Top Place To Work By The Sunday Times Best 100 Places To Work

Liverpool headquartered education and training specialists, The Progress Group, have recently been named in The Sunday Times Best 100 Places To Work for medium sized businesses. The accolade, which is on the back of a national survey and benchmarking analysis, celebrates employers who prioritise making their workplace happy and healthy places to be. Recognised for their competitive employee perks such as extended maternity and paternity pay, life assurance, flexible working, retail discounts and much more, The Progress Group places colleague happiness front and center.

With a Group-wide head count of over 200, The Progress Group is made up of five education and training businesses, each of which share the same purpose and values. This shared purpose creates a strong sense of belonging as every colleague, regardless of age, seniority, or length of service, are all striving to achieve the same thing, to change lives through the power of education and training. The Group-wide values define a set of behaviours embraced by all colleagues and these are embedded into the culture of the business through peer recognition schemes and appraisals.

The strong sense of culture, purpose and recognition was reflected in the annual employee feedback scores, conducted, and analysed by WorkL. The employee engagement survey found that 94% of colleagues enjoyed their job. Confidence in management ranked at 86% against an industry benchmark of 74%, and 88% of colleagues felt that their achievements were celebrated.

The Progress Group CEO Jayne Worthington said:

“I am immensely proud of this achievement. To be benchmarked against some of the leading businesses across the UK and recognised as one of those who is leading the way in workplace satisfaction is incredible, and a true testament to the value we place on our colleague’s happiness.

“The list is made up of companies who promote the likes of a healthy work-life balance, a positive culture and strong professional development opportunities, and that’s us to a tee. We have worked incredibly hard to build an organisation where our people are front and foremost, because I genuinely believe that without them constantly striving to deliver excellence, we will not succeed. Our people are our engine room, and we invest in them so that they can invest in each and every one of our learners or students.

“We’re now setting our sights on making it into the top 10 for our size next year.”

Progress Schools named Most Inspirational Alternative Provision by a School at Educate Awards
Award winning  ·  Awards  ·  Progress Schools
Progress Schools named Most Inspirational Alternative Provision by a School at Educate Awards

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 about The Progress Group, visit their website.

Innovative Alliance have been accredited with the Matrix Quality Standard for information, advice and guidance services following a stellar performance. This is the first time the team have been assessed against the standard.
Adult Education  ·  Award winning  ·  Innovative Alliance  ·  Skills agenda
Innovative Alliance awarded Matrix Quality Standard for information, advice and guidance services
Prepare to Achieve wins Best Health and Social Care EPA Organisation 2020
Award winning  ·  End-Point Assessment  ·  Prepare to Achieve  ·  Skills agenda  ·  The Progress Group
Announcing, the winner of Best Health and Social Care EPA Organisation 2020

Prepare to Achieve, a specialist End-Point Assessment Organisation have been named Best Health and Social Care EPA Organisation 2020 – England by Corporate Vision Magazine. The annual awards recognises, congratulates and celebrates those institutions, organisations and agencies who – leading the way with education and training.

After what has already been a successful year for Prepare to Achieve who have enjoyed significant growth, and invested in the development of a new bespoke digital End-Point Assessment (EPA) platform, this award really is the icing on the cake!

Employers and training providers looking to work with Prepare to Achieve at the final stages of the apprenticeship programme, can be certain that as a business, Prepare to Achieve stand out from the crowd.  As industry leaders, they continue to keep one step ahead of their competition in order to deliver the best quality service for a simple EPA journey for everyone involved. The research team who made the final judgement on the winners of each category, took into consideration the online reputation, customer feedback, client dedication and innovation, all of which Prepare to Achieve illustrate through their company values and passion.

Lee Evans, CEO at Prepare to Achieve was delighted to receive the award, responding;

“As a specialist End-Point Assessment Organisation, we constantly have our eye on the end result and work hard to continually innovate our delivery. This approach helps to ensure that we provide an exceptional service to our apprentices and their employers and unwavering level of customer care.”

“Recognising the hard work of my team is something which I hold dear, but to have an external organisation recognise and award their hard work as well is even better!

The annual Education and Training Awards also recognised a number of education providers, Adult education institutions and Training centres. You can discover more of the award categories and winners on the Corporate Vision Magazine website.

Since being founded, Prepare to Achieve have continued to go from strength-the-strength. This was particularly evidenced during the recent lockdown when the specialist EPAO adapted their delivery quickly and seamlessly in order to continue to support their clients. This flexible approach resulted in over 150 apprentices via 39 employers being supported with throughout March-May alone. They now plan to build on their successes to-date by launching a new EPA platform and Apprentice Alumni in the coming moving, proving exactly why they deserve to be named Best Health and Social Care EPA Organisation.