Online Reporting atNotre Dame High School

SheffieldNaace

Moving Towards Online Reporting Think TankThursday 20th November 2008

Introduction to Notre Dame High School

• Comprehensive Catholic 11-18 school, 1350 students

• High Performing Triple Specialist School; • Technology College since 1995• Hold the ICT Mark • Yorkshire & Humberside ICT register focus

school and host of Hallam CLC• Becta SRF/ ICT Mark consultant school• Ofsted ‘Outstanding’ School in 2005 and 2008

Parental access survey

• A survey of parental internet access found 90% were on broadband 98% on internet (2006)

• Much better than we expected for a comprehensive city school with varied socio-economic intake

• Don’t make assumptions about the digital divide – don’t penalise those with access when considering those that don’t

Virtual School

• We offer all our school stakeholders access to the ‘virtual school’ through our external website

• Staff have web access to email (on-site exchange server running Outlook 2007), learning platform (Gleam Tech open source tool to publish intranet folders to the web and Moodle for full VLE tools), ‘my documents’ and the MIS Serco Facility)

• Students have access to email, ‘my documents’ and learning platform

• Parents have access to a dedicated parents’ page and their child’s pages on the MIS

Strategy behind the vision

• Journey started more than 5 years ago with a move to collect and share more meaningful data on pupils with appointment of Head of e-Management and then a full time data manager

• Work revolved around electronic mark books and computerised reporting to parents (printed on paper)

• This entailed a strategy to ensure the MIS was at the heart of school management used by all staff hourly

• Web access was needed to support teachers working from home first, and after the success of this parental access became an option

What we offer Parents

• Dedicated parents pages on the school website with general information and instructions on accessing student specific information

• Generic letters saved in archive folders on parents pages on website

• Access to their child’s profile on the MIS via a secure log-in

• Everything we publish online available on paper for those without access

Facility ‘E-Portal’ parents view

• Real Time Information– Attendance– Behaviour– Timetable– Teaching groups/ Teachers– Target Analysis – traffic light assessment grades against target– Digital Copy of letters sent home

• Online Assessment Data– Digitally store assessment data and ‘publish’ to student profile.– Allows us to share assessment data with parents in appropriate and

meaningful way.– Parents can be offered the chance to opt out of paper – future development– Everything we publish online available on paper for those who do not have

access

Screen shot of parental view front page

Student Name

Setting up Parental Access• Generate username and passwords for parents to log

into secure parental portal • Posted out to home contact address held on MIS• Letter contained;– How to log-in – Listed information parents could expect to see – Contact details – one for technical queries and

another for content queries• Handbook/ detailed instructions on parents pages on

the internet. To aid parental interpretation and understanding of the data. To explain how it can be used to support their child’s learning

• Reminder on reports and letters going home how to access and how to get hold of log-in details

Staff Workload

• Presented to staff focusing on the benefits to their work-life balance as well as school improvement.

• Rigorous training – even with an intuitive MIS we still had to ensure that we reached everyone to maintain confidence in the system

• Pastoral staff especially important – position to engage potentially ‘hard to reach’ parents

• Staff asked to promote parental access when engaging with parents

• Very quick realisation by staff that having data available to parents prompted much more informed communication

Investment

• Full support from Senior Management – ensure full uptake by staff using the MIS for all school data.

• Invest in staff dedicated to the practical side of the vision– Information Manager with expertise to run and develop

the system– Technical/ Network Manager with resources and

expertise to support the system• Involve them in all stages of development – they are the

ones who have to work with the system on a daily basis• Choose an MIS supplier who also has a package of training

and consultancy for implementation and ongoing support

Moving forward further• Recently moved our MS Excel based assessment

traffic- light target tracking system into MIS. This will be visible to parents once few technical glitches ironed out and all targets finalised

• Increased formal assessment collation from annually to 6 times a year

• In the future subject markbooks moving into MIS• Data entered into markbook will automatically

populate 6x a year assessment grade – no need for teacher to re-enter

• Parents to be offered the opportunity to ‘opt out’ of paper reports

A positive experience for all

• Parents appreciate being able to pick up information at a time that is more manageable for them.

• Parents welcome being aware of what the school may regard as low-level problems and staff welcome parental intervention at an earlier stage before issues escalate

• Having the same data available to both parents and staff has prompted more relevant and meaningful discussion

• New reports - data driven, have more impact on parents, with no extra work for teaching staff

A positive experience for all

• Not led to inappropriate communication. Parents are not contacting school, ‘bothering’ staff in hugely inflated numbers as a result or expecting a reply instantly

• Promoting email correspondence as a point of contact with the school has allowed staff to work more flexibly

• Students approve - even sixth formers have commented that they like their parents being more involved and informed

Support Available

• Use the ICT Register http://www.ict-register.net • Parental Engagement area on the website• Links to Becta site• Links to EPRA toolkit • Opportunity to ‘ask schools’ – can put you in touch

with schools’ in your area already doing online reporting . Use their experiences to help your own journey

Support Available

• Use the Becta Self Review Framework to navigate the way ahead (online audit tool of a school e-maturity with personalised sign posting to drive school development)

• Attend your free half day regional SSAT/ Becta briefing on Parental Engagement engagingparents@ssatrust.org.uk - email for list and booking

• Find a Becta SRF/ ICT Mark consultant school and ask them for some advice – strategic or practical

Notre Dame High School

• Access our external school website to see our ‘virtual school’ in action

• Email address if you have any further questions or would like some support for your school

www.notredame-high.co.uk rpontzen@notredame-high.co.uk