The Bar Model Co.
#3a5a40
Signature
#588157
Support
#a3b18a
Accent
#edede9
Ground
#202e21
Dark ground
#192c27
Type
The Bar Model Company is a teacher training company built around maths teaching. The site carries a learning platform, a shop, a journal, a teacher login and a booking system for the training they deliver in schools — a substantial site with a good deal behind it, and a lot of video doing the work on the surface.
Where they began
A training company whose product is teaching quality, needing a site that could sell, teach, and book school visits without those three jobs getting in each other's way.
What was hard
Teacher training has to demonstrate rather than assert. Teachers are a discerning audience and they can tell within moments whether the people talking to them have actually stood in a classroom, which puts a great deal of weight on showing the method rather than describing it.
The site also had several distinct jobs. Selling resources, delivering courses, publishing a journal, giving teachers a place to log in, and taking bookings for in-school training. Each one is straightforward alone; the difficulty is keeping them coherent together.
What we built
Video carries the site. For a company teaching a method, showing the method working is more persuasive than any amount of copy, and it is why the site has the presence it does.
The learning platform runs on WordPress here — a different decision from the one taken on our other maths education build, where the platform sits outside WordPress entirely. It suits where this company is now, and it is the part most likely to change as the training side grows.
The shop, the journal and the teacher login sit alongside it, with a booking system for the in-school training that is the company's core work. Teachers arriving for one of those routinely find the others, which is the point of keeping them on one site rather than three.
The key parts
6 features we would like to highlight
Video that does the teaching
For a company training teachers in a method, showing it working beats describing it. The video is why the site has presence rather than just information.
A learning platform for the courses
Course delivery built into the site, so training continues between school visits rather than stopping when the trainer leaves the building.
A shop for classroom resources
Materials sold directly, giving the company income that is not tied to the days it can physically be in a school.
Booking for in-school training
Schools arrange training sessions through the site rather than through an email thread that takes a week to resolve.
A teacher login
Teachers get their own way in, so the relationship continues after the course rather than ending with it.
A journal
Where the thinking behind the method gets written down — which for a training company is both the marketing and the substance.
What changed
The method is shown, not claimed
Video throughout, aimed at an audience who can tell immediately whether the people teaching have done the job themselves.
Five jobs, one site
Selling, teaching, publishing, logging in and booking, held together so a teacher arriving for one finds the others.
Income beyond the school visit
Courses and resources that earn outside the days the company is physically in a classroom.
In their words
The Bar Model Co.
