Just about everyone has a mobile now - schools routinely report that all hands go up when parents are asked at meetings. What it means, for example, is that each morning you can generate a list of children who are away from school, check that they haven’t been covered by a note or message from home, and then press a key to fire off warnings by text or voice.
Ideally, the school’s management information system will automatically supply the attendance information. All the office has to do is make a quick check down the list to make sure that Mrs Johnson, who popped in this morning on the way to the doctor’s with her child, isn’t going to receive an irritating text in the waiting room. (And even if she does, experience says she’ll be quickly placated by a “better safe than sorry” reminder.)
It doesn’t have to stop at attendance either. Once you can easily contact parents, you’ve as good as solved all the problems of pupil-delivered mail.
At that point, though, a note of caution needs to come in. A school that heads off down the route of “Bong! (That’s your mobile) “Clarissa is away today,” has some bridges to cross. For example, pupils may well see it as the hi-jacking of a technology which is essentially theirs. As John Pinkney, vice-principal of Bilton School in Rugby says, describing the introduction of such a system – “Groupcall” - in his own school,
“The mobile phone world is very much an area where students lead the way. When they saw that it could work against them, that a different generation had taken control, some were quite worried.”
For Bilton, part of the answer is to make sure that parents are told when something good’s happened. The school has a system of “Fab Friday” commendations and news of these now goes home by text. Fifteen year old Daniel had one recently.
“I walked in and Mum said she’d had a text message from school. I thought, ‘here we go!’ but she said, “No, you got a Fab Friday’. I was so pleased that my good behaviour had been recognised and that my mum knew straight away.”
Another way of including children is to set up the system so that they can anonymously text or phone in if they’re being bullied, or want to report any sort of worrying behaviour. At Windsor Park C of E Middle in Uttoxeter, Staffordshire, “Text Someone”, a product from “Truancy Call”, is used. It’s essentially for reassurance, explains Deputy Head Paul Slater.
“A lot of our children are bussed in,” he says. “Older children from other schools are travelling with them, and quite a few of ours are wary of being able to ‘grass’ on the older ones. We decided if it only helped a few children it would be worth it.”
The children, needless to say, saw the point straight away. As Paul Slater says, “It’s based on texting and email, and they’re keen to use this stuff. Parents are supportive, too – they realise it’s anti-bullying care for their children.”
Making sure the students were on board was also a priority at The Minster School, a large C of E comprehensive in Southwell, Nottinghamshire, where the system of choice is “School Comms”.
“You have to sell it to them the right way,” says assistant head Richard Pierpoint. “We give a presentation where we tell them what we will not use it for – that we won’t use it to say their homework’s late, or that they’ve had a detention.”
For Richard Pierpoint, “School Comms” met the requirements for a general broad based communition tool. “You need to know what you want to do,” he says. “Had we been a school with major attendance problems we might have chosen something else.”
He encourages staff to use the system to keep in touch with their classes. “Mind you I did make a mistake once,” he says. “I was away from school at short notice one morning so I sent a text to all of my IT group to tell them where to find their work on the system. They complained a bit afterwards because I’d sent it at 7.30am.”
Moving into texting your families?
Points to bear in mind, based on user experience:
- Be clear what you want to do. Is it truancy control? Are you chasing those two or three elusive percentage points in your attendance figures? Are you more interested in general communication with groups of parents? Schools vary, so do the systems. Research is vital.
- Find the suppliers. There are more than those mentioned here. Use the web, and the Becta MIS pages.
- Ask suppliers for school contacts. Spend time talking to them. Visit if you can.
- Any effective system will make it easier for you to run a strict policy of quick first day contact.
- There’s a change of roles in the office. The system has to be managed sensitively, with well-judged human intervention.
- Parents will phone in, and expect to find a knowledgeable and sympathetic ear.
- Parents need to opt in – it’s a privacy issue. Getting them all to sign up and keep you up to date with phone numbers can take time and patience.
- Don’t forget that not all parents are English speakers. Is the system you’re considering set up for whatever languages you need?
- Be aware that some people change mobile numbers frequently. “Christmas can be a nightmare” says one deputy head.
- Suppliers will claim financial savings. Maybe – but the real advantages are to do with better communication and better attendance.
- It isn’t just text of course. The system should offer parents a choice, including mobile or landline voice contact.
- Parents who can’t, or won’t, join the system can readily be contacted by traditional means, because there won’t be many of them.
- It doesn’t have to be “cold” or “mechanical”. You can use the system for minor cases (“Sorry, school, she’s got a cold”) and so spend more time on the non-routine examples of absence or behaviour -- or high achievement.
- Emphasise the positives: reassurance for parents – “I’ll know if my child doesn’t get to school.” Reassurance for children – “I can let someone know if I’m bullied.” Encouragement for children – “Your daughter did well in her maths test.” Reliability of delivery. No more, “I never saw the letter about parents’ evening!”
Resources
