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UPDATE
IN PRACTICE
FOCUS ON
HELP DESK
We hear you loud and clear
Until recently, parental communication at Sale Grammar School in Cheshire was woeful. Beset by complaints about reports buried in rucksacks and the non-receipt of letters, the school decided to launch a four-part ‘Engaging parents through ICT’ initiative to address the issue. ICT manager Simon Rowlands discusses this initiative in more detail with Julia Dennison, including the cost savings the school now enjoys and its impact on other areas, such as truancy
which found that parents’ relationships and interactions with the child are directly associated with children’s levels of achievement – no matter their socioeconomic circumstance. Any school that is invested in improving the academic performance of its children – which is every school – should take this on board and realise that parental engagement can directly improve results. Not only is it important for a school to engage with parents – it’s vital for that Ofsted inspection, the future of the school and the pupils it educates. While this may prove challenging to your average
G september 2013 \
www.edexec.co.uk
etting parents to buy into their children’s learning has long been recognised as a vital technique in improving attainment. This philosophy was reiterated in a June National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) and Oxford University Press (OUP) study,
maintained school, grammars rarely have a problem engaging parents. The very nature of their academic selectivity lends itself to parents who are proactive about their children’s education – sometimes to the point of too much involvement. This can give rise to other problems: parents who want to be involved but can’t, due to infrastructural problems at the school, can be a force to be reckoned with.
NECESSARY CHANGE Up until recently, Sale Grammar School in Cheshire was having this problem. While the school understood the importance of keeping parents in the loop, complaints about lost reports and letters were stacking up. “It was quite typical of a lot of schools that give the children everything, remote access, external access and all these wonderful things, but the poor parents
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