Costello Technology College

#frog10

@dtester@costellotech

Parental Engagement

Parent Portal a year on….

Background Information• 3rd Phase Specialist Technology College• 1000 students• Culture of innovation• An improving school with many good

features (OfSTED 2008)• Strong vision and leadership• Culture of innovation and

transformational change• Well developed E-Strategy• Large investment in ICT infrastructure• Supportive CPD programme for staff• College won ICT Register Secondary

Showcase Award 2010 for our parent portal

Our journey

• Get parents involved• Stakeholder engagement to secure vision and

shape Key Performance Indicators• Review current working practices• Staff training• Set up users• Internal Beta test• Planned roll out• Engagement activities

Approach to successful implementation

• What is it you actually want to achieve?– Provide parents with access to data alone or provide a

platform for other interactions?– What will true parental engagement look like in your

school in 2-3 years time• Align with SDP/SEF• What will the impact be on standards of teaching

and learning• School cannot go it alone – stakeholder

engagement is crucial

Shaping the vision

• Set up in October 2008 to unpick parents perceptions of what they want to be able to do

• Advertised to all parents• 15 parents selected to work on project• Developmental Meetings

Parent Focus Group

What data they would like to access:• Homework• Access school info (policies/diary)• Student Progress (targets/current attainment)• Extra curricular activities• Behaviour (+/-)• Attendance• Timetables• Teacher feedback on assignments• Access learning resources

What parents said

• Transparent parent teacher communications• Booking appointments for parents evening• Adult Learning activities• Booking of school facilities• Update reasons for absence/personal details• Online payments• Registration for school events• Surveys• Discussion forums• Parents advertising skills that could be used by college• Signposting of extended schools/services• Current topics, lesson resources (Support/extension)

Other uses parents would like to see

• MIS Data Integrity– Parental responsibility flags, QA

• Procedures & Protocols for recording attendance data

• Categories for behaviour log (+/-)• Reporting Policy• Staff training (writing behaviour log

comments)

Review Current Practices

• Access to attendance / behaviour / assessment data• Discussion forums (Parent/School/Governors)• Enhanced school communication (Change of details /

unexplained absences)• Access to college letters/printed communications• Access to central college diary• Parent surveys / improvement projects• Community learning projects• Access to all Learning Resources• Access to Student Showcase• Access to parts of student voice portal

Core Functionality of Costello Parent Portal

• Rolled out to all Year groups from October half term

• Letters generated for every parent• Parent launch events for each year group• Challenge with getting information out to non-

attenders• 63% of parents who collected letters have

logged on• On reflection should have rolled out to Y7 only

Update on roll out

Supporting the PTA

Social Networking

Getting parents involved

Supporting Consultation

Departmental Information

Supporting inclusion

Other Web Services

I Am Learning

AssessmentData

• What do you want to report on? • To whom?• How often?• What impact will reporting have on learning?• Will it be understood by parents / inform how

they can support their child?• Don’t just report data because you can!!• Many stakeholders involved in getting it set up

– consultation / developing a shared vision

Guidance for SIMs schools

• Review your current reporting arrangements to establish route forward

• Review set-up– Number of aspects – rationalise!– Date stamping of aspects - encourage– Establish aspects to import – discuss!

• Do current protocols translate to online reporting?

Assessment Manager

• Use templates to manage active aspects• Run a scheduled import when you have

updated data to present• Initial set up is tedious – do it right, do it once!• Intensive internal QA process to check data

presentation• GIGO – Shore up protocols with staff

Effective Data Management

Configuring Assessment

Export Templates to FROG

Configuring Aspects in the Toolkit

Building the page to present the data

Future Developments

• Online meetings (Flashmeeting/AdobeConnect)• Online support courses – Numeracy/literacy• Parents adding value to learning activities

through use of forums• Collating feedback on reports• All homelearning set via FROG (Lesson

Planning/Quick issue)• Parent support materials attached to lessons

Online engagement with parents

Dominic TesterAssistant Headteacher

Costello Technology Colleged.tester@costello.hants.sch.uk

www.twitter.com/dtester

AnyQuestions?

http://costello-frog.blogspot.com/

www.youtube.com/costellotechcollege

http://www.futurelab.org.uk/resources/publications-reports-articles/handbooks/Handbook1659

Useful Sources• http://costello-frog.blogpost.com• http://www.ict-register.net/docs/lp/costello-case-study.pdf • http://www.nextgenerationlearning.org.uk/ohnothingmuch/Executive-Summary/• http://schools.becta.org.uk/index.php?section=oe&catcode=ss_es_fam_02• http://www.specialistschools.org.uk/article.aspa?PageId=1320• http://www.ict-register.net/pe.php• Engaging Parents in Raising Achievement: Do Parents Know They Matter?• Exploiting ICT to improve parental engagement, moving towards online reporting: An introdu

ction for schools• Exploiting ICT to improve parental engagement, moving towards online reporting: Framework

guide• http://www.yudu.com – fantastic online publishing for your school from only £99 per year!• http://www.eventelephant.com/ - Great way of managing schools events, whether they be

free or paid activities• http://www.iamlearning.co.uk – excellent games based learning/revision for students