Over 200,000 users, and complex multi-tenancy site with custom branding for almost 4,000 schools

BeReady work across schools, universities and employers in order to deliver digital learning solutions that enable people to gain qualifications, learn new life skills, further their careers or just be ready for whatever life throws at them. During the Covid-19 crisis, BeReady provided the SupportUKSchools initiative and extended their employability skills content using Totara’s LMS as the delivery vehicle.

The Challenge

BeReady was looking to develop an interactive learning platform for over 1 million users (mainly secondary school teachers and school children aged 11–18). The aim was to equip those leaving school with the soft skills needed for their career, and to provide expertly curated remote curriculum of year 7-10 online lessons, created by teachers for teachers.

The Solution

BeReady selected Accipio as their partner and decided Totara Learn provided a wonderful platform to launch their initiative and continue to innovate. Accipio worked together to design a world-class learning platform which gives schools their own free, branded, LMS to deliver online lessons and manage and support pupils’ remote learning activity, progress and performance.

Key features of the project included:

• full multi-tenancy allowing schools to have their own branded version of the site, manage their own users and assign learning and with due dates. They can also create their own groups (classrooms) and download certificates and grades and track progress;
• automated end-to-end onboarding process allowing school admins to set-up their school and customise the site;
• gamification through recognition (badges and CPD certificates);
• video streaming service and complex hosting solution;
• careers and university plugin integration;
• quick course generator allowing teachers to add learning resources;
• an immersive course format and contemporary design; and
• learning locker where users can upload their CV, homework and applications.

Results

Accipio worked with BeReady to go live and deliver the system within 6 weeks and the site is continually evolving on a monthly basis as part of their agile workflow. The site already has over 200,000 registered users within months of going live, and almost 4,000 schools setup to manage their own users and allocate learning. Some 700 schools are already enrolling their students. Each organisation has a different look and feel and their own branding.

Over 1,000 courses have been created on the site.

Freedom to save

• Zero cost per user for the schools, and low cost per user for BeReady given the platform is using open-source technology and the hosting arrangements grow with the user base
• Devolved management to schools through Totara’s multi-tenancy solution, and automated onboarding

Freedom to learn

• Bulk learning allocation via teachers and school admins with due dates and email reminders for over 200,000 users
• Dynamic learning pathways and dashboards which change based on the user

Freedom to innovate

Totara’s flexible open-source nature has allowed BeReady and Accipio to develop innovative plugins to meet the needs of schools, teachers and students

Freedom of choice

BeReady initially started with another Totara Partner and switched to Accipio early in the process given their experience in managing large complex learning environments for over 500,000 users in a multi-tenancy environment. They were also impressed with their innovative mindset and responsiveness.

“It was clear Accipio had the domain expertise in the education space having implemented the largest Totara instance in the world. Many of those end users are teachers in schools and colleges taking online safeguarding training and will have experienced Totara LMS.

It was the right decision to partner with a leading authority in this field rather than build the capability in house, enabling us to focus on growing our already strong relationships within our school ecosystem and extend our offering. For example, through our partnerships with Bradford College, University of Salford and Coventry University, we are upskilling teaching assistants and other staff to gain Qualified Teacher Status, (QTS) and via our Senior Leaders MBA, developing the education leaders of the future.”