Enabling Parental Engagement

This session included users of Learning Platforms from Primary, Secondary and Special Needs Schools.

Further sessions were focussed on the technical aspects, the views from a 6th former – the whole session was rounded off by a Becta presentation.

This was a very timely Think Tank, as it covered many of the areas I’d been discussing with a primary school head teacher on Friday 26th March.

My favourite sessions (and a couple of quotes from the other presenters) are below.

Christine Terrey – Headteacher, Grays School, East Sussex

Christine is the head of a large infant and early years school, and gave a stunning presentation to start the day. She was quick to point out that much of the credit for the school’s success was down to everyone involved in the school. In this school parent = partner.

The main theme of her session was the benefits available to parents. The School Improvement Plan includes parental engagement, and has done for a number of years.

Christine KNOWS the IT and internet access for all her families, and is always asking parents and staff for more feedback. They look at ALL the technology available and see how they can utilise it for everyone’s benefit (iphones and Smartphones included).

The school has clearly identified that their parents need knowledge AND technology, and has provided solutions for both. The school openly invites parents in to work alongside pupils – this is a non-threatening way to introduce IT to the parents.

Parents need some competence, confidence, skills and knowledge – the approaches the school have taken have helped in all these areas. Christine has found terrific parent engagement by offering various levels of IT training in the school.

Podcasting is a teaching and listening tool which is used by parents

The use of text messages is very creative. The school uses SMS for general information sharing, and only uses individual texts to parents for positive messages. The ‘look in the book bag’ broadcast message was recognised by all delegates with children!

The learning platform is a very powerful tool used in the school, and everyone is involved. To quote Christine ‘– our dinner ladies upload material to the learning platform’

Children and staff place films and pictures on the learning platform – these are often accessed by extended family members overseas.

The two final comments from this presentation are worth repeating –

As one delegate put it “.. secondary schools need to follow what primaries are doing”

Christine – How can we use this tool to add more value?