NOTRE DAME HIGH SCHOOL

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NOTRE DAME HIGH SCHOOL SHEFFIELD A schools
experience of Online and Real Time
Reporting Paul Haigh, Assistant
Headteacher Assistant Head Teacher (Specialisms
and Innovation) phaigh_at_notredame-high.co.uk
Consultant school
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Introduction to Notre Dame

• Comprehensive Catholic 11-18 school 1350 students
• High Performing Specialist School Technology
  College since 1995 with Humanities specialism and
  Leading Edge
• Hold the ICT Mark, twice winner of the SSAT ICT
  award (2005, 2007) Yorkshire Humberside ICT
  register focus school and host of Hallam CLC
• Becta SRF/ ICT Mark consultant school
• Ofsted Outstanding School in 2005 and 2008

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KS2 points score distribution- truly
comprehensive intakesolid line school, dotted
line national
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School improvement outstrips local and national
trends for what was once an average comprehensive
school
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What we offer

• A sophisticated virtual school system
  encompassing
• A public web portal for all online visitors
  (authored with Joomla open source tool) including
  the public facing school web site
• Secure log-in for all stake holders via the
  portal (tabs for staff, students, parents and
  community partners)

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What we offer

• Staff have web access to email (host own 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 childs pages on the MIS

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What we offer staff

• Web access to the MIS allows staff to
• Read student records from home
• Write reports and input assessment data from home
• Web access to all other aspects of the Virtual
  school from booking an IT room, filling in a
  cover request, listening to voice mail online or
  reporting a fault.

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What we offer parents

• Parents access to a blend of Real Time and online
  Reporting including
• Real Time Full attendance, behaviour,
  attainment, progress plus up to date timetable
  teaching groups, digital copies of all letters
  sent home on paper
• Online Reporting of set publishing dates 6 time
  a year to summarised the data, punctuate the year
  and ensure those who dont go online are up to
  date
• Fully meets the Becta aims of reporting that in
  timely, meaningful and manageable
• Has allowed to us to end traditional annual
  written reports to parents- reduced workload for
  teachers whilst increasing the flow of
  information to parents.

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The benefits

• Support teachers working at home (school provides
  lap tops to all teachers and web access to all IT
  systems)
• Engage parents with live Real Time Reporting
  giving far more detailed and regular access to
  information than previously
• Keep parents informed of minute detail of issues
  they can nip in the bud rather than wait for
  problems to build up to a level where more formal
  contact is made with home
• Allow parents to deploy their own rewards and
  sanctions in the home based on what they see

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Starting point- developing 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
• This journey need not take you 5 years,
  especially now schools have trail blazed- seek
  support, see last slide

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Developing the vision top tips

• Appoint an energetic and visionary young leader
  who is part of the face book generation to
  develop e-management
• Headteacher to back the development, putting full
  weight behind and ensuring all staff follow on
• Dont fall behind what is the norm out of school
  with new technology, survey family access to
  broadband

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Starting point- parental engagement

• A survey of parental internet access found 90
  were on broadband 98 on internet (2006)
• This gave us the mandate to exploit the
  technology
• Even the ambitious leaders in school were
  surprised about this for a comprehensive city
  school- know your families, dont make
  assumptions, in many areas there is a digital
  divide but dont penalise those with access- have
  paper back ups for those without
• Remember access if growing rapidly (Becta
  universal access scheme 3 000 000 000 budget)

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Parental Engagement top tips

• Choose a web based tool that is intuitive to use-
  you wont be going in family homes to train them
• Give it a big bang launch but keep the
  publicity going- strap lines at the foot of
  letters home, workshops at parents evenings, year
  6 road shows to induct new parents. Monitor
  usage and publicise more if it drops
• Train pastoral staff in how to use the system in
  partnership with parents

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Starting point- choosing the technology

• Had dropped SIMS many years ago due to
  frustration with the user experience
• Had made progress with RM Integris but pushed it
  as far as it could go and then had to author lots
  of in-house satellite systems on Excel and
  Access
• Moved to Serco Facility because its increased
  functionality gave us development headroom and
  the headroom keeps increasing as they develop the
  tool meaning we can always do more- not
  restricted by the functionality of the tool.
• Of course SIMS and Integris have now developed
  along with new players so this can be done on
  other systems as well- its not an advert for
  Serco- they dont pay us to talk about their
  system and I wouldnt want them to.

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Choosing the technology top tips

• Its easy to stick with lower priced solution
  (e.g. LA funded) when presented with an expensive
  alternative but what price do you put on school
  improvement and parental engagement? See it as an
  investment
• Some schools have got their local authority to
  devolve the funding to the schools to choose
  their own tools, other like to procure centrally
  based on arguments of economy of scale but this
  does not recognise the individual circumstances
  of schools and their readiness to adopt certain
  systems- one size does not fit all
• Get a Rosie have a dedicated Information Manager
  given support, full time post and good salary and
  a free reign to develop the system look for an
  ambitious and creative problem solver not a data
  input monkey

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Choosing the technology top tips

• Involve your data manager and network manager in
  every stage of procurement as they will have to
  live with the tool
• Choose an MIS supplier who also has a package of
  training and consultancy for implementation and
  ongoing support
• If you think BSF ICT strategy will come in a few
  years and solve all this for you and decide to
  wait, think again! Dont waste years when the
  technology is available now and you can set it up
  so it becomes a baseline expectation under BSF,
  not an aspiration

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Starting point developing workforce capability

• Previous MIS had required heavy investment in
  staff development (e.g. 30 minute training
  session just on inputting grades, a twilight on
  doing reports. Not a sign a of a good system)
• This training had to be rigorous to take the
  workforce with us and maintain confidence
• Serco Facility tool is so intuitive - web portal
  suits anyone who uses the internet - that
  training needs are minimal and groans and
  disasters are rare

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Developing workforce capability top tips

• Be very clear with staff about the vision and the
  benefits to their work-life balance and school
  improvement
• Sell the idea to staff based on saved time and
  effort coupled with increased effectiveness
• e.g. Stop writing long wordy annual reports with
  little impact and have automatic systems that
  engage parents and drive student achievement with
  no extra work for teachers
• e.g. Stop wasting energy dealing with students
  who forget equipment, skip lessons, arrive late
  Have a system that informs parents that day

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Further support

• Use the www.ICT-register.net to find schools
  near you who are doing this, learn from their
  journey so you can take the short cuts-
  particular use the EPRA toolkit, linked from
  their to guide your journey
• If you decide to take more holistic big picture
  to ICT angle Use the Becta Self Review Framework
  to navigate the way ahead
• Use a Becta SRF/ ICT Mark consultant school to
  support you or a SSAT/Becta online reporting
  advocate school
• My contact details
• www.notredame-high.co.uk
• phaigh_at_notredame-high.co.uk