Learning Gateway Conference: KeyNote

Learning Gateway Conference

Portals and gatewaysfor all……

Simon Shaw

Head of Institutional ManagementBecta

of parents want more from their child’s school website*

What is a Portal?

A Gateway to what?

of parents want more from their child’s school website*

What is a Portal?A Gateway to what?

• a grand and imposing entrance (often extended metaphorically); "the portals of the cathedral"; "the portals of heaven"; "the portals of success"

• portal site: a site that the owner positions as an entrance to other sites on the internet; "a portal typically has search engines and free email and chat rooms etc.“

wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

of parents want more from their child’s school website*

What is a Portal?A Gateway to what?Gateway (web page)From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

• Gateway is a phrase used by webmasters and search engine optimisers to describe a webpage designed to attract visitors and search engines to a particular website. A typical gateway page is small, simple and highly optimized. Its primary goal is to attract visitors searching for relevant key words or phrases, and provide hyperlinks to pages within the website.

What is happening to our young people? They disrespect their elders, they disobey their parents. They ignore the law. They riot in the streets, inflamed with wild notions. Their morals are decaying. What is to become of them?

Plato, 4th century BC

What has driven past portals?

December 9, 1997

BackOffice Server 4.0 includes :Windows NT Server 4.0IIS 4.0SQL Server 6.5SMS 1.2Exchange Server 5.5Proxy Server 2.0Index Server 2.0Transaction Server 2.0Site Server 3.0FrontPage 98Visual InterDev 1.0

Portals past

Site Server 3.0

The primary areas of functionality included:

•Indexing and Search •Content Management •Product Management •Order Processing •Site Personalization •Ad Server

Portals past

of parents want more from their child’s school website*

What is a Portal?A Gateway to what?

Learning Gateways should be:

• Eye catching• Engaging• Draw the user in through interaction• Make use of multi-media rich interfaces• Deliver a learning experience

of parents want more from their child’s school website*

What is a Portal?A Gateway to what?

Playschool

of parents want more from their child’s school website*

What is a Portal?A Gateway to what?

MonkseatonStudents Teachers Parents

Monkseaton Parents’ Site

of parents want more from their child’s school website*

• a grand and imposing entrance (often extended metaphorically); "the portals of the cathedral"; "the portals of heaven"; "the portals of success"

• portal site: a site that the owner positions as an entrance to other sites on the internet; "a portal typically has search engines and free email and chat rooms etc.“

wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

What is a Portal?A Gateway to what?

of parents want more from their child’s school website*

What is a Portal?A Gateway to what?

Portals and gateways are fascinating and captivating – WHY?

Because they take us to:• Another time• A different place• Another persons perspective

ematurityWe are the people we’ve been waiting for!

Personal Cost Savings

(Energy bills; cheaper holidays)

Communications(Cheap, messaging and call services)

Social Networking(Inclusion for adults and

children)

Skills and employability(Lifelong learning and

access to jobs)

Local Services(Access to services and benefits)

Health and care(NHS Direct, access to

information)

Home ICT

=+9% 5A-Cs

Learning

(Opportunities and support beyond school)

Parental engagement

The changing world of home access…..

Parenting support

(Helping child learning and development)

School involvement

(Information about schools and extended

services )

Becta Harnessing Technology Schools Survey 2010

Email Telephone School website

Information management

systems

A learning platform

Mobile phone/text Don't know

Primary 37% 32% 55% 16% 12% 19% 9%

Secondary 62% 54% 32% 30% 16% 17% 5%

Special 28% 53% 41% 16% 19% 25% 16%

-10%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

Type of technology used for communicating with parents

Becta Harnessing Technology Schools Survey 2010

Achievement for All

Online reporting supporting structured conversations with parents of children with SEND

10 local authorities 450 schools directly involved

The research - Parents’ Premium

Achievement Parent effect School effect

Age 7 0.29 0.05

Age 11 0.27 0.21

Age 16 0.14 0.51

Parental involvement in a child’s schooling between ages 7 and 16 is a more powerful force than family background, size of family and level of parental education.Feinstein, L & Symons, J. Oxford Economic papers, 51 (1999)

Effect of parents / Effect of school

?

“Education is an emotional business”

“… there is a consistent relationship between increasing parental engagement (particularly of hard to reach parents) and improved attendance, behaviour and student achievement.

Engaging hard to reach parents has a disproportionate impact on raising school performance and student achievement.”

Parents’ influence on student learning outcomes is greater than the school influence This is particularly true of ‘hard to reach parents’

Professor Alma Harris 2007

EPRA “Hard to Reach” EPRA “Hard to Reach” HeadlinesHeadlines

Just 16% of children proactively share any information with their parents about their school day,

37% of children say they find it quite or very difficult to speak to their parents about their education.

43% of parents find it either difficult or very difficult to extract information from their child about their day at school.

Just 16% of children proactively share any information with their parents about their school day,

37% of children say they find it quite or very difficult to speak to their parents about their education.

43% of parents find it either difficult or very difficult to extract information from their child about their day at school.

“Education is an emotional business”

INVOLVEMENT

RESPONSIBILITY

RELATIONSHIP

Attitudinal change of parents towards education 2001 - 2007 “Parental Involvement in Children’s Education 2007” :DCSF-RR034

Mark Peters, Ken Seeds, Andrew Goldstein and Nick Coleman

“Parental Involvement in Children’s Education 2007” :DCSF-RR034Mark Peters, Ken Seeds, Andrew Goldstein and Nick Coleman

“In terms of future communication strategies, informal discussions are now seen as the most useful method of communication. Methods other than face-to-face contact (e.g. e-mail) were more popular with parents who are currently less involved, so these methods could be focused on such parents.”

Parents increasingly value informed informal discussions

What teachers say about parents….

of parents want more from their child’s school website*

Online Reporting expectationsIn June 2008 a joint letter clarified the expectations for online reporting:

“.. provide parents with up-to-date information at appropriate points through the year to maintain their interest and enable a richer dialogue”

“Parents and learners should be provided with online access to information about: •attendance and behaviour (both positive and challenging); •progress and attainment•special needsBut schools should consult with parents, learners and staff in deciding what aspects of these areas will be most meaningful and useful to provide and how ICT can be exploited.”

“…schools will have the flexibility to determine what frequency best suits both the school and their parents and learners."

“The focus should be on arrangements that are manageable in school, effective for staff and meaningful for parents focusing on the quality of information, rather than quantity.”

"Therefore the type of information provided should be appropriate for the parent/learner and its provision proportionate for the school "

meaningful useful

dialogue

proportionate appropriate

flexibilitymanageable

quality

Becta Harnessing Technology Schools Survey 2010

Becta Harnessing Technology Schools Survey 2010

of parents want more from their child’s school website*

Simple as ABC?Attendance, Behaviour, Coursework

Gathering meaningful data from more than one school.

“Real-time” access to information.

The schools’ systems are invisible…

Meaningful and timely

How far do we go?

The technology should complement, enable, motivate and add value to the relationships between learners, parents and schools.

Technology is there to be exploited but must support human interactivity not replace it.

`

Key Findings: •83% of parents struggle to support their child with homework.•Over half of children are confused by their parents when they try to help with school work.•81% of parents welcome guidance on how to support their child’s learning better.

Exploiting ICT to improve parental engagement, moving towards online reporting

Online Reporting Framework

Exploiting ICT to improve parental engagement,

Community information

Home access to learning

Information for parents

Access to resources

Course and home work

Sharing achievements

Online reporting

Parent and learner days

Electronic reports

Email exchanges

Mobile phone alerts

SMStexting

Two way communication

moving towards online reporting……

Becta Harnessing Technology Schools Survey 2010

Gateways and Portals for all

Students Teachers Parents

Make navigation simple and visual - KISS

Use images and video… a picture paints a thousand

words.

Contact…

simon.shaw@becta.org.uk(simonshaw@live.co.uk)

Head of Institutional Managementwww.becta.org.uk/engagingparents