Ban homework?
/0 Comments/in Education, Let's Ban Homework!, New Stuff, Parental Engagement, Technology/by Paul Smith - CEORewriting the future: Raising ambition and attainment in Welsh schools
/0 Comments/in Education, New Stuff, Parental Engagement, Technology/by Paul Smith - CEORewriting the future: Raising ambition and attainment in Welsh schools is a 2014 report that “describes the Welsh Government’s programme and its four key themes to tackle the link between poverty and educational underachievement in schools, for use in developing interventions to raise the attainment of learners living in poverty.”
Section 2 (pp. 20-22), titled ‘Family and community engagement’, deals with the already well known link between parental engagement and pupil attainment. The report emphasises how difficult it is to establish and maintain this link in so-called hard to reach areas, but goes on to say how effective such a link can be for strengthening communities and positively impacting educational practices:
Many schools in disadvantaged communities find that engaging parents/carers is one of the biggest challenges they face…Community engagement has a positive influence on learning outcomes. Schools that reach out and actively engage the community in the life of the school and the school in the life of the community have a positive impact on educational outcomes
In England, under the new Ofsted inspection framework, schools are graded on their ability to devise and implement effective parental engagement strategies. In order to obtain an outstanding judgement in terms of Leadership and Management, there must be evidence that:
The school has highly successful strategies for engaging with parents and carers, to the very obvious benefit of pupils, including those who might traditionally find working with the school difficult.
The criteria for success in this category is the same in England and Wales; family/community engagement is crucial for schools that want to achieve ‘outstanding’ rating from the inspectorate, and Schoop is an ideal tool for helping to meet this challenge.
Download the app and enter 123 when prompted for a Schoop ID to access our demo content channel and see how Schoop can work in your school or community organisation
As always, don’t forget to follow us on Twitter @schoopsocial and facebook.com/schoopit
How Schoop helps schools engage with deprived families (Pupil Premium / Pupil Deprivation Grant)
/0 Comments/in Education, Parental Engagement, Schoop presents to 10 Downing Street, Technology/by Paul Smith - CEO“Research indicates that effective family and community engagement can have a positive impact on outcomes for all, but especially for learners from more deprived backgrounds. Schools should identify interventions that are effective in supporting parental and community engagement from the earliest opportunity. In particular, those in Communities First (CF) areas should look for opportunities to work with the CF Clusters. Schools’ strategies for the PDG should actively support the Learning Communities theme of the Communities First Programme and ensure that there is coherence and join-up with Families First and Flying Start provision to support families in their communities.
Parents and carers have an important role in supporting their child’s education, not just in the early years but throughout their education. Schools and regional consortia should be considering what activities schools can undertake in ensuring this message is communicated and in drawing parents into the learning process.”
Pupil Deprivation Grant – Short Guidance for Practitioners
Schoop reaches the “hard to reach”, and increases take up of PDG and Pupil Premium.
I’ve consulted many leaders of education, and every one of them has backed up Schoop’s ethos that sustained parental engagement can lead to positive effects on the KPIs schools strive for in attainment, behaviour and attendance of a child. Schoop can reach those that are hard to reach – particularly those with EAL or problems with written English, and with the help of the Pupil Premium for England and the Pupil Deprivation Grant for Wales, Schoop can solve a growing problem of digital inclusion, engagement and involvement like no other.
Watch our two minute video that will get your brain whirring on the subject >>
PROBLEM: The well trained gatekeeper will turn Schoop away
Schoop’s daily challenge to get through the doors of UK schools and demonstrate how we’re engaging parents of tens of thousands of children is about to get a great deal easier, but the person that answers the phone has their own ideas, and they include telling us to stop bothering the school with our crazy ideas!
- We actually want to help reach those that are deprived and those that are hard to reach
- We have a solution that could be paid for by Pupil Premium or the Pupil Deprivation Grant
- We help schools engage ALL parents and carers in the education of their children
- Schoop is multilingual and even speaks to you
- Parents and the wider school community LOVE what we do!
INDEPENDENT RESEARCH: To prove Schoop can help boost KPI results.
The 100s of UK schools we already help engage with parents is set to become 1,000s. We’ve been recognised as a leader of EdTech by TechCity and 10 Downing Street, but also because we’re independently selected as the preferred “school to home” engagement solution for the likes of Relational Schools. Their research project will be using Schoop from May 2015, and the results will offer independent data that hopefully backs up our extensive testimony from educators that Schoop is already making a difference.
HOW: Schoop will solve your parental engagement problem
Click here to register your interest >>
Please watch the two minute video >>
For enquiries or press information, please contact Paul Smith – CEO
Will social networks be banned in schools?
/0 Comments/in Education, New Stuff, Parental Engagement, Technology/by Paul Smith - CEOInteresting question … without a simple answer.
However …
Complaints originating from social media make up “at least half” of calls passed on to front-line officers, a senior officer has told the BBC. See this article on the BBC website.
With that in mind, should the use of social media such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and the like be outlawed as a method of communication from school to home?
I’ve spoken before about the use of social media in education, but the growing concern over the safety of children online, and the ability to respond with malice to posts on social networks makes me more and more inclined to back a possible ban. It’s online hate crime, and is sucking resources from our beleaguered public services, and the world has a duty to respond.
Who is responsible?
Ultimately, the issue is one of responsible use of social networks. But, the proclivity for idiotic rants and malicious replies to innocent posts make social networks a hotbed of controversy, and potentially unsafe for younger users that, we all know, have accounts – even if they are under age.
Police that?
Not possible without additional safeguards that social networks are ill equipped to deal with. For the time being. My daughter was 12 when she created a Facebook account without parental consent. She simply said she was 18 when she signed up.
She had death threats from peers, and hateful comments that made her life a misery within weeks of registration.
Is Schoop a solution?
Obviously I’m going to put Schoop up there as a solution, because our communication is one-way and non-sensitive. There’s not much can go wrong, and Schoop is cyber-bully free. No moderation required, and you can sleep at night.
Should schools and other organisations that have a duty to safeguard children be using social networks to communicate with families?
Personally, I think not.
But what do you think?
Parental Engagement & Schoop
/0 Comments/in Education, Parental Engagement, Technology/by Paul Smith - CEOParental involvement that does not effectively reach all families has the potential to widen gaps between disadvantaged students and their better off peers. (Social Mobility & Child Poverty Commission, 2014)
Research from the last 15 years around Parental Engagement shows conclusively that when parents are engaged with their child’s education, achievement increases. Looking at some of the most high impact papers in this area, it’s clear that there is a strong correlation between engagement in the classroom (between children and teachers) and engagement at home (between children and their parents/carers).
“Parental involvement in the form of ‘at-home good parenting’ has a significant positive effect on children’s achievement.” (Desforges et al, 2003)
Some of the most commonly listed barriers to parental engagement include: parents’ lack of time due to work and other important commitments, lack of confidence in helping with homework, and previous bad experience with school (not to mention language issues in multi-ethnic areas).
“Feedback from school leaders shows that one of the major concerns in running a modern school is trying to get parents to engage more. Because of the changing demographic of modern parenting…traditional approaches to parental involvement have been largely unsuccessful.” (Campbell, 2011)
Similarly, Campbell’s research has shown that teachers also find it hard to engage with parents. Ineffective communication methods between school and home and a loose or often non-existent strategy are often the most significant barriers. Also:
“Some school leaders spoke of the struggle they had in defining what the role of parental engagement is and how to reconcile this within the boundaries of their existing role and the daily demands of the job.” (Campbell, 2011)
Campbell also goes on to state that the home environment and the school environment are almost entirely separate:
“When discussing parental involvement, some school leaders did not recognise the amount of parental involvement in their child’s education that goes on unseen in the home because it is not a traditional definition of parental engagement.” (Campbell, 2011)
Everything from entertainment to administration, business to politics, charity to social networking, has been impacted by technology in a massively significant way, usually for the better. That the education sector seems to have been comparatively slow to catch up to this revolution is a constant nadir for educational professionals and policy-makers; technological innovation, when it happens, is slow to catch on and rarely sticks. Today we have things like moodle and other hub-like programs that are definitely beneficial, but given the rapid advance in technological implementation in other sectors, it does seem to be a small advance.
Schools that have the resources to provide tablets and similar devices are seeing that the technology has huge beneficial learning implications, and there is much research surrounding the efficacy of such devices in early learning; the amount of apps available for parents and teachers to help with numeracy, literacy, and creative skills is large and getting larger. Charities such as the E-Learning foundation are doing marvellous work in providing information and resources in this area.
Which is great for the classroom. But in terms of administration and management, specifically with regards to communication to parents, there is little opportunity for schools to expand beyond traditional methods such as phone calls home, restrictive text message systems, and the letter sitting at the bottom of a child’s bag containing vital information that the school didn’t have the time or money to send via post to every parent.
“It is possible to harness new technologies for parental communication purposes through the use of school blogs and podcasts, a school website (regularly updated) and online questionnaires and resources in order to reach at a distance those who are unable or unwilling to engage with the school in person. The use of text messaging alerts regarding pupil absence and school closures is a further example of this.” (Campbell, 2011)
The problem with text messaging systems for this purpose is that teachers and administrators can usually only target one phone number per family. Relevant phone numbers must be stored in the database, meaning that if parents haven’t updated their contact details, some text messages won’t get delivered. The same goes for letters in relation to old home addresses.
Even though primary teachers are generally positive about ICT and its ability to support their administrative and management duties, the findings point to low levels of use of ICT for administration and management. (Selwood, 2005)
Schools have websites – some are better than others, but they exist, and some regularly post newsletters and other resources. Schools are able to email parents as an effective means of parental communication. So what’s the problem? Why is engagement so difficult in so many schools, if this technology is being used? There are many reasons, and one of the most important is that many parents simply don’t have time to go looking for the information they need in order to feel engaged with their child’s education.
“ICT can contribute to improved parental engagement by: providing a convenient means for parents to access up-to-date information about their child’s learning; enabling parents to be more engaged with their child’s learning; supporting more flexible working arrangements for staff.” (Goodall, 2011)
Empowering teachers and parents with newer communications technology such as mobile apps can bring enormous benefits. If a parent could receive alerts through their smartphone or tablet, instantaneously, they would feel more engaged with their child’s curriculum and school activities. Along with more comprehensive messages such as newsletters and surveys, the technology would provide a direct link from school to home that would effectively push the research discussed in this article into newer, more effective territories. This is where Schoop comes in.
“In a Becta study only 25 per cent of parents received information about their child’s learning via online tools; 84 per cent of parents reported that their child’s school provided them with little or no resources to help support their child’s learning at home.” (Goodall, 2011)
The Schoop app offers a chance for schools to bypass many of the previously inadequate methods of parental engagement. Using a web-based dashboard, administrators and teachers can send out one-way, non-sensitive alerts and newsletters that parents and carers receive through push notification via the app (which is downloaded for free from the Apple iTunes store, or the Google Play store).
Receiving information in this format eliminates the need for parents to go looking for information – it finds them. Alerts can be sent to all users at once, and there is no character limit. The app is free to download, so there is no limit to the amount of family members that can access the information. The calendar function stores important event dates, and is interactive, so that entries can be added by the user, not just the school.
Researchers have found suggestive evidence of the positive relationship between school-to-family communication and student outcomes. It is possible, however, that negative teacher-parent communication that is focused on increasing parental monitoring of student behavior and school-work could decrease students’ sense of autonomy and engagement. (Kraft & Dougherty, Harvard, 2012)
Our technology totally removes the danger of so-called ‘monitoring’ techniques; students will not feel that they are being singled out for a phone call home because the same information is being sent to all parents who have selected their child’s year and class groups (as well as any other group such as Chess Club, Swimming Team, etc.). This means that, when the phone call home is necessary, its importance is emphasised.
“Parental engagement has a large and positive impact on children’s learning.” (Goodall, 2011)
It’s time to start thinking about how better technology can impact school management and administration, parental engagement, at-home learning, and community cohesiveness. Schoop is a cost-effective, time-saving, and workable solution to many of the problems associated with these issues.
If you would like to schedule a demonstration of the technology, please click here.
For more information about how it works, please watch our ‘Schoop in Two Minutes’ video:
References:
- Review of best practice in parental engagement: Practitioners summary Janet Goodall et al, 2011
- The Impact of Parental Involvement, Parental Support and Family Education on Pupil Achievements and Adjustment: A Literature Review Professor Charles Desforges & Alberto Abouchaar, 2003
- How to involve hard-to-reach parents: encouraging meaningful parental involvement with schools Clare Campbell, 2011
- The Effect of Teacher-Family Communication on Student Engagement: Evidence from a Randomized Field Experiment Matthew A. Kraft & Shaun M. Dougherty, Harvard Graduate School of Education, 2012
- Primary School Teachers’ Use of ICT for Administration and Management Ian Selwood, 2005
- Cracking the code: how schools can improve social mobility Social Mobility & Child Poverty Commission, 2014
’21st Century Digital Leader’ Recommends Schoop in open letter to Schools
/0 Comments/in Education, New Stuff, Parental Engagement, Technology/by Paul Smith - CEOA recommendation from Evenlode Primary School, Penarth
We introduced Schoop last September, and the ease of using Schoop and the ability to use the app on many different devices meant it became our immediate port of call when we needed to get messages home, engage with parents, and promote “at home” learning.
Over the following few months we began to send all documentation through Schoop, e.g. school trip letters, homework, weekly spellings etc. As a staff we were so thrilled with how quick and easy it was to use that it was decided to approach Schoop again and see if they could also build us a website with Schoop fully integrated.
To our delight we now have a website that would envy any professional organisation, and the amount of time saved to our teachers has been phenomenal. We confidently put information on in one place and know that that information, be it a school trip letter, urgent notice or even news directly from a school trip etc will appear on our website and on Schoop at the same time.
This makes communication between the home and community more reliable and immediate, giving no member of our school community an excuse to not know what is happening. The added bonus for us was that the people at Schoop recognised our need for simplicity and efficiency, they also took on board the wide variety of computer knowledge within our school. Even our staff with very limited IT expertise can easily upload videos, pictures, documents etc on the website and can easily send messages and engagement features through Schoop.
The difference to our school has been incredible. Staff, parents, pupils really ARE in the loop because of Schoop and the possibilities for the future are even greater. We fully intend to start blogging, accessing our Office 365 accounts and much more all through our website and Schoop. For us Schoop is our one stop shop for all our schools IT needs. The company are fully aware, patient and understanding of the hectic life of a school teacher and their one wish is to make life easier for us. What more could any school ask for? I would be happy to hear from any other school who wish to use Schoop and have any questions. From one IT coordinator to another – make your lives easier and get Schoop.”
Sophie Cunningham
21st Century Digital Leader – Evenlode Primary School – Penarth – Vale of Glamorgan
Evenlode Schoop ID: 7507
Exciting new research project in conjunction with The University of Bath Department of Education
/0 Comments/in Education, New Stuff, Parental Engagement, Technology/by Paul Smith - CEOWe’re very excited to announce that in conjunction with the The University of Bath Department for Education, Schoop has been chosen to feature in a three year study to research the effects of sustained parental engagement, with respect to pupil attainment.
This is an exciting opportunity for any school that would like to take part, and you can register your interest here.
Foreword on Parental Engagement by Dr Janet Goodall
“Parental engagement is a powerful lever for raising achievement in schools. Where parents and teachers work together to improve learning, the gains in achievement are significant.
Schools that successfully engage parents in learning, consistently reinforce the fact that ‘parents matter’. They develop a two way relationship with parents based on mutual trust, respect and a commitment to improving learning outcomes.
Parents who are viewed as ‘hard to reach’ often see the school as ‘hard to reach’. Where schools have made concerted efforts to engage the hard to reach parents, evidence shows that the effect on pupil learning and behaviour is positive. The research shows a consistent relationship between increasing parental engagement (particularly of hard to reach parents) and improved attendance, behaviour and student achievement.
Schools face certain barriers in engaging parents. These include practical issues such as lack of time, language barriers, child care issues and practical skills such as literacy and the ability to understand and negotiate the school system.”
Schoop is proud to have been chosen for this vital research piece; we believe passionately in community integration, parental engagement, and student success. In schools that already use our application, there has been a sharp increase in the quantity and efficacy of school-to-parent communications, and the user-friendly interface of the product allows parents to receive the information they need immediately and clearly.
For more information, on this or any other aspect of Schoop, please contact us.
My week at Schoop, by Caitlyn Organ
/0 Comments/in New Stuff, Parental Engagement/by Paul Smith - CEOWe recently had the pleasure of Caitlyn’s company during her work experience for year 10. She astounded us with her maturity and ability to learn at breakneck speed. Here’s Caitlyn’s overview of her week with Schoop.
At my time at Schoop I have leant many things. I learnt about sales, marketing, customer support and also the important things to consider when setting up and running a business.
However, the thing I have learnt the most is how parental engagement can effect a child’s education, and how Schoop can help schools do this. They showed me how quick and easy it is to let a parent or carer know what is going on in the school and how they can help their child. This week they have also asked me to think about how Schoop could be improved from a pupil’s, parent’s, and teacher’s point of view.
I thought about this a lot – thinking about what I would want to get out of Schoop and we came up with Schoop Club. Schoop club would be a chance for the pupils to post on Schoop as well as the teachers. They would give encouragement and tips to the younger, and also up-and-coming students.
My overall view of the company, the app and what they are trying to do is excellent, I see no excuse why a school, including my own, would not want to use Schoop to better their students. I have had an amazing time and would like to say thank you to the entire Schoop team for giving me an amazing experience and I hope to return in the future.
Well! What can I say?
Schoop Club sounds like a great idea, and we’ll do our best to get it up and running before the start of the new term.
Thank you Caitlyn. I am supremely confident you will excel in your GCSE’s, A Levels and beyond.
You are welcome back any time.
Paul Smith
Founder and CTO