Harnessing Parent Power

According to a Becta survey, 89% of parents believe that technology could help them become more involved in their child’s education. This is backed by DCSF research which shows that parents are now asking for detailed and frequent updates about their child’s progress – the termly or half-termly reports are simply not enough anymore.

Here, Peter Kensington, assistant head teacher at South Dartmoor Community College, discusses harnessing parent power using technology.

By September, every secondary school in the country is expected by Becta to be reporting to parents online. At South Dartmoor Community College, we set out on our journey of harnessing parent power online a couple of years ago and have learnt some valuable lessons along the way.

We are a mixed comprehensive and it is our aim to ensure that every pupil has the opportunity to succeed. For us, that means using every available tool to move pupil performance in the right direction. We believe that opening better communication channels with parents would enhance this process.

According to a Becta survey, 89% of parents believe that technology could help them become more involved in their child’s education. This is backed by DCSF research which shows that parents are now asking for detailed and frequent updates about their child’s progress – the termly or half-termly reports are simply not enough anymore.

At the same time, we need to recognise that we live in an age where expectations are changing. People have busy lives and are accustomed to accessing up-to-date information quickly online and this expectation is creeping into their demands for schools too. And this demand will only gather pace as a younger, more technologically savvy generation start to have children themselves.

A parental web portal is an ideal way of providing parents with the information they want in a way that does not increase the administration burden on schools unduly.

Technological Considerations
In 2007, when we started looking for a system to communicate with parents online, it was essential that it would fulfil some key criteria. We wanted a solution that would take the information already held within our management information system (MIS) and be able to transfer it directly onto a parents’ portal. We did not want to be adding to our workload by having to rekey in existing data.

Site security was critical as we needed to ensure that information on children would not get into the wrong hands. The ability to relay information in real time was another requirement as this is crucial for attendance information, as finding out your child missed a class a day or two after the event is not ideal. We also wanted to ensure that the chosen platform would be flexible enough to embrace future changes so we needed a system we could chop and change to some degree.

We already used SIMS from Capita Children’s Services as our MIS so it seemed a natural step to use their SIMS Learning Gateway technology for our portal. This would mean that data only had to be entered once into the MIS and then could be easily made available to parents.

The Implementation
We always envisioned that our Learning Gateway would not be an initiative solely for parents. We did not want a single track of information passing between the school and parents but a triangle of knowledge shared on a collaborative basis between teachers, parents and pupils. The objective was to develop understanding between all groups and collectively work to improve pupil attendance, behaviour and attainment.

We started with our rollout to teachers. They were a captive audience of 120 people, used to being trained, and therefore the easiest people to get the message across to. It was important for them to buy into the significance of developing parental engagement and to see the other benefits the Learning Gateway would bring.

The system allows teachers to write reports and update achievement information online so they have the flexibility to work from home if they wish. We have a number of teachers who prefer to leave at 4pm and then pick up their work after they have sorted out their domestic commitments. The Learning Gateway allows them to do that.

We then moved on to the pupils. We have 1700 pupils so this was a large increase in users, but again they were a captive audience. We trained them during ICT lessons and they quickly had a good understanding of the system. These pupils could then play a key role in training parents, as well as using the Learning Gateway to access comprehensive information about themselves.

The third and most important group was the parents. The number of parents we were trying to reach was around 3,500. This was not an audience we had direct access to so we had to work hard to inform parents of the availability of new information and how to access it.

Our parents are of very mixed ability both generally and in terms of understanding technology. We have a rural catchment area so some parents can walk into school while others live a considerable distance away and it may be more difficult for them to attend training sessions. These all pose considerable obstacles to getting the message of a Learning Gateway across so we took the approach that the training must be delivered on a continuous basis. This way we could inform parents as and when it was appropriate to them, rather than delivering the training when it suited us. Every time parents come into school for parents evening, consultations days or options evenings we take the opportunity to run training courses.

The Benefits
From a parent’s perspective, with the introduction of the Learning Gateway, they now have immediate access to a large amount of information, announcements, events, online discussions and different surveys. They can also look at information they are entitled to see about their offspring such as their timetable, attendance at school and assessment including progress and targets. From September, they will also have access to information on their achievement and behaviour.

In the past, a parent would have to make an effort to speak to the school to get this sort of feedback. Being able to access it directly gives the parents of teenage children – who are often not very forthcoming about their school life – the opportunity to start conversations with their children about the school day.

Parents will also be able to appreciate the work that has been set for their child, and help them prepare for the next day at school.  It’s also beneficial for teachers to be able to share targets with parents that have been set for pupils, thereby making all interested parties fully aware of what needs to be achieved. In effect, we are trying to make school life as transparent as possible. This can then lead to greater understanding between teachers, pupils and parents and this is where we feel the system adds real value.

Frequency of access to the portal still varies widely, with some parents logging in daily. For example, one father drops his daughter off to get the bus to school every morning and so logs on to check that she has arrived safely. Others log in once a month to keep up to date with what’s going on at school. We also experience a peak in access at the beginning of the autumn term when new pupils’ parents explore the new school remotely.

The Results
We run a wide variety of parental engagement and pupil support programmes in the school so it would be difficult to pinpoint exactly how much the improvements we have seen are down to the Learning Gateway. However, I am aware of a number of pupils that have undoubtedly improved their performance thanks to closer parental involvement. Our results are also showing considerable progress, especially in terms of five A* to C grades, value added and raising the performance of our middle ability children. Without a doubt the Learning Gateway is helping us move those children who are just off an acceptable performance into the right bracket.

Our next step is to open up access to behaviour and achievement information to give parents the final, overall picture of their child’s progress at school. The more we can keep parents informed the better.

Lessons Learnt

• Ensure you supply enough administrative support to the project so that it can continue to run smoothly even when other priorities arise within the school.
• Get the launch right. Roll out to a small group to give you time to iron out any problems before going to a wider audience.
• Ensure training is offered at every opportunity – not just at the start – so it is available when it is convenient to parents.
• Embedding the technology and new practices takes time. Be adaptable to the fact that parents will join and progress in their use at different speeds.
• Promote it. Include as many reasons as possible for parents to go to the Learning Gateway, be it to participate in surveys, find out about the school play or access a timetable.
• Be brave enough to withhold some information until you are ready. We have staggered the roll out of information at our school to make sure we do it correctly.

Peter Kensington, assistant head teacher at South Dartmoor Community College.