Presentation on the developments of our parent poral at Costello Technology College to the National Learning Platform conference (FROG) 2010 - 15 June Palace Hotel, Manchester

1. Costello Technology College

2. @dtester @costellotech #frog10

3. Parental Engagement Parent Portal a year on….

4. 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

5. Our journey

6. Approach to successful implementation 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

7. 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

8. 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

9. 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

10. 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

11. Review Current Practices 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)

12. Core Functionality of Costello Parent Portal 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

13. 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

14. Supporting the PTA

15. Social Networking

16. Getting parents involved

17. Supporting Consultation

18. Departmental Information

19. Supporting inclusion

20. Other Web Services

21. I Am Learning

22. Assessment Data

27. Guidance for SIMs schools 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

28. Assessment Manager 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?

29. Effective Data Management 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

30. Configuring Assessment

31. Export Templates to FROG

32. Configuring Aspects in the Toolkit

33. Building the page to present the data

34. Future Developments

35. Online engagement with parents 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

36. Dominic Tester Assistant Headteacher Costello Technology College d.tester@costello.hants.sch.uk www.twitter.com/dtester Any Questions?

37. www.youtube.com/costellotechcollege http://costello-frog.blogspot.com/

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

39. 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 introduction 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