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It's both. Compliance training isn't a one-off for new starters — every member of staff needs current training on record, and most modules are set to renew every 12 months.

In practice: new staff complete their modules when they join, and the whole staff refreshes each module as it comes up for renewal. The Ark Academy tracks each person separately, so you can see who's current, who's due and who's overdue — you're not re-enrolling everyone from scratch each year, only those whose training is coming up for renewal.

The catalogue is organised by programme. SafeSchool™ (compliance and safety) is live. DataProtect™ and CyberSecure™ are the next programmes on the same platform — they are not assignable until a module in that programme is published.

Which set a school assigns depends on its own child-safeguarding statement, health-and-safety risk assessment and data-protection policy. The school decides the set; The Ark Academy makes it straightforward to assign and evidence.

Add a new staff member from the Staff page and assign their modules with a due date — they get an invitation to complete training in the browser, with no account to set up. When someone leaves, archive them from their staff record: their completed certificates stay on file for your audit history, and they drop out of your active “who’s due” counts.

Each completed module produces a dated certificate. The catalogue shows each module’s validity period — annual modules are typically valid for 12 months from completion; some are longer, and some have no expiry.

As a renewal approaches, The Ark Academy sends automatic reminders to the staff member (7 days before the due date, 1 day before, and once overdue). You can send a manual reminder any time from the Dashboard.

Anyone who works with children or handles student data generally needs the relevant training, regardless of hours — this includes SNAs, part-time and job-share staff, and regular substitutes. Which modules apply depends on the role. Occasional short-term cover is a judgement call for the school; The Ark Academy lets you assign to individuals so you can match training to who actually needs it.

Health & Safety Awareness — SafeSchool™. For all school staff, teaching and non-teaching. Approx. 20 minutes. Annually and on induction.

A whole-school awareness module covering the health and safety framework every staff member works within — what the law requires, who is responsible for what, and the everyday processes for spotting hazards and reporting accidents.

What it covers

• The legal framework — the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005, the employer’s general duty, and what “so far as is reasonably practicable” actually means in practice.
• Roles and responsibilities — the Board of Management / ETB as employer, the Designated Person, and the duties that sit with individual staff.
• Your own duties — Section 13: taking reasonable care, co-operating with the school, reporting defects, and not interfering with safety equipment.
• The Safety Statement — what it contains, where to find it, and how staff feed into keeping it current.
• Communication and consultation — the safety representative’s role, the safety committee, and how concerns are raised and considered.
• Risk assessment — the three-step process: identify the hazard, assess the risk, put controls in place — plus what to do when a control needs time or budget.
• Accidents and incidents — internal reporting, near misses, and the thresholds for external notification.

How it works. Short screens with a quick check after each topic — staff must answer to continue, so the module can’t be clicked through. Two workplace scenarios build judgement, and a five-question assessment at the end requires 80% to pass. Staff can retake it. Completion is recorded automatically.

Under the Children First Act 2015 and the Department of Education’s Child Protection Procedures for Primary and Post-Primary Schools, every school must have a Child Safeguarding Statement, appoint a Designated Liaison Person (DLP) and Deputy DLP, and make sure all staff understand the procedures and can recognise the signs of abuse. The updated Child Protection Procedures for Schools 2025 (Circular 0041/2025) apply, and schools are expected to have adopted them by 31 December 2026. Teachers are “mandated persons” under the Act with specific reporting duties.

When a Child Protection Awareness module is in your catalogue, The Ark Academy helps you give every staff member that grounding — and keeps dated evidence that they have done it.

Schools are data controllers under the GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018, handling sensitive student and staff information. There’s no single “annual GDPR course” fixed in law, but schools are expected to make sure staff who handle personal data are trained, and to refresh that — data-protection awareness is standard practice and something the DPC’s guidance expects.

DataProtect™ modules will cover the day-to-day — handling personal data, subject access requests, and retention — once those modules are published in the catalogue.

Under the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005 every school must have a safety statement and manage its risks, and the HSA publishes specific guidelines on managing safety and health in primary and post-primary schools. Staff need to be familiar with fire and evacuation procedures and any risks relevant to their role. SafeSchool™ modules such as Fire Safety, Evacuation & Accounting support the training side of that duty.

SafeSchool™, the wider Ark HQ programme, also covers the day-to-day safety operation — risk assessments, checklists and incidents — alongside the training delivered here.

No — they are separate obligations. Garda vetting (through the National Vetting Bureau) checks a person’s background before they work with children, and is renewed periodically. Compliance training is ongoing education so staff know how to act. You need both: vetting on recruitment, and training kept current. The Ark Academy covers the training and record-keeping side; vetting is handled separately by the school.

Every completed module is recorded with a dated certificate, and the platform keeps an audit log of consequential actions server-side. You can see live completion status by staff member and by module, and export the record when an inspector, your board or your patron asks for evidence. The aim is that “who’s trained, in what, and when” is a two-minute answer rather than a filing exercise.

Add staff individually from Staff, or import the whole list with the CSV template on Staff → Import. See Adding & importing staff above.

From Assignments → New assignment, or from Catalogue → Assign to staff: pick the module, choose who it goes to, and set a due date. See Assigning training & reminders above.

When a module has a due date, staff receive automatic reminders 7 days before, 1 day before, and once the assignment is overdue. You can send a manual reminder from the Dashboard at any time. School admins receive an evening course report the Dublin day before the due date and on the due date itself.

Certificates sit on each staff member’s record and in the completion email (the link works without logging in). The Audit log is in the top navigation, with a CSV export. See Certificates & the audit log above.