KEY TAKEAWAYS
- Nearpod supports ‘in the moment’ teaching with insights into student understanding that guide learning and improve student outcomes
- Customisable, ready-to-use lessons support teaching with content and activities to fit the needs of your students
- Creative and collaborative interactive activities increase learner engagement and support progress
“Student engagement is soaring, and they are making excellent progress.”
The Epping Forest Schools Partnership trust is a Multi-Academy trust of fifteen primary schools and one special school, based in the Epping Forest District. Formed from a consortium of schools that had worked together for more than 20 years, the trust is committed to collaborative working to ensure the best possible outcomes for every child and school community.
In September 2024, the trust began the roll-out of a new programme of one-to-one Chromebooks for all of their Key Stage 2 pupils. This started initially in six of the schools and will be extended into six more from September 2025. As part of the launch, the trust wanted to focus on four key tools to be used on the Chromebooks to support teaching and learning, and selected Google Classroom, Canva, Read&Write and Nearpod from Renaissance.
Nearpod combines high-quality content, formative assessment, real-time feedback, student engagement and data-driven insights—all in one platform.
Matthew Harrison, Head of Technology at the trust explains more: “I’d been aware of Nearpod for many years and through our relationship with the Leo Academy trust – who use Nearpod in their schools – I could see how effective it could be as part of the implementation of our vision to put a Chromebook in the hands of every child at Key Stage 2.”
Straightforward to implement
The programme roll-out began with Year 3 and will continue over the coming years until it covers all of Key Stage 2. Matthew explains: “We are implementing this strategy from Year 3 as we want to see these children have greater accelerated outcomes by the end of Year 6. We’re playing the long game and ensuring that we have a long enough window to really benefit the children.
“We didn’t want to overburden the schools when it came to the roll out. We’re a Google trust and use Google as our key structure, so wanted tools to support teaching and learning that would complement this.
“Nearpod has been a really successful tool in our implementation. The platform has got so many great features and we’re seeing teachers utilising different ones, depending on their needs. For example, the Time to Climb activity is really popular and the virtual reality experiences are great too.”
Time to Climb is an interactive game that transforms learning into an exciting race to the top. Ideal for quick checks on understanding, concept reviews, or formative assessment, it captures attention and keeps children engaged. Along the way, teachers gain real-time immediate insights into understanding and progress, combining active participation with meaningful educational impact.
Matthew continues: “Nearpod is becoming the norm in these classrooms. The teachers have gone from using something like Google Slides or Smart Notebook to using Nearpod and they have been happy to adapt what they had previously been doing into this new way of doing things. They see the vision for what we’re hoping to achieve.”
Nearpod gives teachers the opportunity to use material that they’ve already got, easily importing existing Google Slides, PDFs or PowerPoints to create new presentations.
Supporting teaching strategies across the trust
With over 22,000 ready-to-teach, customisable lessons, videos and activities there’s a wealth of content as well as tools to deepen engagement including polls, open-ended questions, virtual field trips and science simulations.
Gia Nathan, Year 3 teacher at the trust’s Epping Upland C.E. School, shares how she’s been using Nearpod with her class: “I use Nearpod to teach dynamic and interactive lessons for History, Geography and Science each week. I have also created Nearpod lessons for English grammar.
“I like the fact that students can go at their own pace, and the virtual field trips give a shared experience and equity to all learners.
“I really enjoy using Nearpod and think it has improved the quality of education in my classroom. Student engagement is soaring, and they are making excellent progress!”
Ruth Peacock, Year 3 teacher and Year 3/4 phase leader at St John’s C.E School, Buckhurst Hill tells us how Nearpod is used in her setting: “We use Nearpod across the foundation subjects and grammar lessons as it has brilliant opportunities for activities at different points across the learning. It’s a great tool for assessment for learning (AFL) as you can show the class’s different answers.
“Children are engaged, there are lots of options for different activities to integrate into the lesson and it’s a great way to assess understanding and use this for mini-plenary opportunities.
“The student-paced mode means that children are able to work at their own pace and can access the content in their own way. The children have greater ownership of their learning as they are able to instantly see how they are getting on and want to share their successes with the rest of their peers.”
The impact
The trust has already seen the positive impact that Nearpod can bring. Matthew explains: “The response has been overwhelmingly positive. I’ve asked teachers, ‘Do you want Nearpod long term?’ and the staff fight for it. So it’s not just my voice saying it’s good, it’s coming from the people at the front of the classroom who see its benefit.”
Nearpod is encouraging a collaborative culture in the trust. Matthew explains: “Nearpod has been great for collaboration because teachers want to share resources, and they want to share lessons. We’ve got a Google chat going where, for example, for VE Day they were sharing the relevant resources in Nearpod. This has also been a great venue to share questions, tips and advice so staff are learning and sharing with colleagues.”
Gia explains how she’s sharing her lessons across the trust’s schools: “For Children’s Mental Health Week, I created Nearpod lessons based on the film ‘Inside Out’. This was used by others across my school, but I also set up subject folders in our district library and added my lessons there so that other schools across our trust have access to them too.”
In conclusion
With the benefits that Nearpod has already brought, the trust want to continue growing and learning. Through their connection with the Leo Academy Trust, they can pool and share knowledge and build training for staff.
Matthew explains: “Cheryl from Leo Academy trust has done a lot of training for us – not just on Nearpod but on the one-to-one learning – so we want to continue that and also work with Renaissance to streamline how we use Nearpod in the classroom.”
Ruth sums up the benefits that she has seen at St John’s: “My Year 3 team has loved using Nearpod in a variety of different ways across the curriculum.
It has increased engagement, promoted a sense of autonomy and created a sense of excitement in the classroom.”