I took over a digital literacy leadership role at Castle Phoenix Trust’s lead school, Caludon Castle, in 2019, and helped to drive the adoption of iPads as the main teaching delivery tool for staff across the school.
This work was part of our strategy to simplify and centralise our IT systems - a strategy that is beginning to have a major impact on parental engagement across the trust.
Parents at all of our schools want a simple, single place where they can find everything they need to know about their child’s homework, progress and other school information, without the need to use lots of disparate systems, each with their own password.
Our primaries are following the adoption of the Firefly platform by our secondaries by about six months. From September 2019 we appointed two primary liaison teachers who work part of the week at Caludon and at our two primaries - Richard Lee Primary and Hill Farm Primary - the rest of the week. One primary liaison teacher has the remit to develop Firefly at our primaries. The idea is to encourage development of the platform at each school and to share their approaches with each other so that they can learn and develop together. Experience has taught me that you really need to give careful attention to the implementation of technology, if it is to be successful.
Strategy
The Firefly system is for staff, parents, pupils. For teachers it is the hub for everything they need to do their job. For example, if they need to read up on the behavioural policy or teaching and learning expectations, upload homework or check on their performance objectives this is the place. For pupils it is where they access their homework, and parents use it to find out about their child’s homework, look at teacher feedback, and access information on everything from the school calendar, announcements and the latest newsletters.
Our strategy was to focus on the pupils before their parents. We needed to get our children and young people to understand what the portal was, what it looked like and how it worked. If they know that their home learning is on there and they are logging in at home then this will also encourage parents.
We’ve also had to be careful to minimise any obstacles that might put parents off. Making it as ‘frictionless’ as possible is important; it has to be easy to log into, navigate and use. We’re taking things step by step as we learn more about what works, and what doesn’t. Our goal is that when the next academic year starts it will be normal practice for parents.
No technology-based approach is totally infallible so if parents do have problems, I’m there morning, noon and night via email or phone to help. We’ve not had any real problems with the technology – the vast majority of issues are minor, such as forgotten passwords.
Technology factors
One of our key requirements when we adopted this technology was that it must be accessible in a range of ways and be ‘device agnostic’. Parents can use it via a smartphone app as well as a web browser. This is important for us because we can’t guarantee that our parents have the latest IT at home. Some parents do not have smartphones, or they have an older model smartphone.
The fact that our system can be used without parents or pupils having to download software – they access what they need through links to online information - was another big benefit. Downloading is a problem on older devices. It’s another bit of ‘friction’ that can put parents off from engaging with the platform and it can also make it harder for our primary children to access their home learning.
Parent feedback
Our secondary schools are six months ahead of our primaries in the use of the platform and its interesting how the feedback from secondary parents is now being echoed by our primary parents.
When we launched the system there was fear - some parents asked if they could go back to paper - but once they were on, they could see how easy and accessible it is. I think this technology approach is especially useful for primary age children and their families. It’s asking a lot for a six-year-old to manage a sheet of paper until it needs to be handed in. With a portal you can load on the homework with instructions of what the child needs to do and the teacher can also record verbal feedback when the task is done, which cuts their workload. That visibility of feedback is a big ‘in’ for parents; they get to see a piece of homework marked soon after its been submitted, rather than waiting for book inspection time at parents evening.
It’s still too early to tell exactly how parents have received the systems in our primary schools. We are planning a parental engagement survey at the two schools in the spring which will be very similar to the one we did at Caludon Castle.
The fact that parents contact me about passwords and getting onto the system is a good indicator of how embedded it is becoming with our parents. We also find that parents come to us more to ask about homework if it hasn’t been set. It’s because the system has put homework to the forefront. This is a great development because it leads to more productive discussions with parents, and that’s a key way of creating stronger links with parents.
As well as helping us to build parental engagement the technology has also won over teachers. Marking and feedback takes up a lot of their time, but the fact written feedback can be replaced with audio is invaluable. Teachers say that the portal saves them time and gives them greater clarity in their job; it’s always clear what homework they have set, where their children are with it and when it should be in. It really helps them to plan busy schedules.
What to consider
A new e-book offering a trove of tips and advice on building better parental engagement has been published by Firefly. The advice is drawn from Firefly’s experience of providing technology for driving parental engagement and learning continuity to more than 600 schools:
- Ask parents. Set up a quick online survey to ask parents which communication methods they prefer and check the best times to send them messages. Use their feedback to inform your comms strategy.
- Don’t judge. All parents want their child to thrive, but not every parent has fond memories of school life. When problems arise, talk in terms of areas of development, and use the language of suggestion and possibility. Try “Why not…?” rather than “you should”. The former empowers the parent; the latter assumes “teacher knows best” and risks alienating some. School communication is not a one-way, top-down broadcast: it is a two-way, mutual partnership.
- Think about the diverse needs of your parents. Consider the background, working lives, language, and culture of parents. For instance, modern parent portals make it all the easier to schedule flexible timings for parents’ evenings. They also facilitate online video meetings as an alternative, which are often better for both teachers and parents, especially with covid-related restrictions. Language can also be a barrier for some parents. Think about using parent communication platforms which can translate messaging and information with ease.
Firefly’s new e-book, Communicating Effectively with Parents, is now available here.
Alex Handy is strategic lead for digital technology at Castle Phoenix Trust, a MAT consisting of two primaries and secondaries in Coventry and another secondary in North Warwickshire.
