“very interesting and thought provoking and the information was delivered very clearly and concisely”
Northern Grid delivered an in school support session on Parental Engagement to the staff of Ash Trees School in January 2012.
The focus of the session was how technology can be used to support effective parental engagement.
The aims of the 1 hour session were to:
recognise the importance of parental engagement
identify how technology can be used to improve parental engagement
start the process of planning how to develop your school’s approach to parental engagement.
The session included:
A review of the current literature and research
Parental Engagement and the Ofsted Evaluation Schedule and the Ofsted Schools and Parents report
Becta resources
Technology and how it can be used
Glenn Atkinson, ICT coordinator at Ash Trees provided the following feedback:
“the staff and myself found your input very interesting and thought provoking and the information was delivered very clearly and concisely. I know you had condensed your usual delivery to meet the limited time available for our staff meeting but I do feel you imparted lots of useful information without the feeling of being bombarded with too much.”
For more information about this session contact christine.jack@northerngrid.org
To find out how else Northern Grid can support your school contact support@northerngrid.org
Northern Grid has been providing eSafety support to schools for many years. As well as our own services and guidance materials we are always interested in finding out about resources from other companies. We have been talking to Roar Educate to find out about the resources they offer and how schools can access a free 30 days trials as well as special prices.
Northern Grid has negotiated a special price for all Northern Grid schools. Northern Grid has been receiving some great feedback about Grapple whilst out and about leading eSafety events in schools so we thought it would be a good idea to negotiate an extended offer.
For just £75 you can put Grapple onto your school's website. It's a fun and interactive way for schools to engage with parents about the critically important e-Safety issues facing their children
Did you know once you have purchased the Grapple licence for your school you can distribute copies to parents free of charge so they can engage in the interactive activities with their children?
For more information or to place an order simply fill out the order form, or alternatively please provide your contact details by sending an email to raz@roareducate.co.uk
Roar educate is a leading provider of interactive eSafety and eSecurity modules for schools, to see more please visit www.roareducate.co.uk
Northern Grid has been working with Northumbria Police to develop teacher resources within a web resource that contains a wealth of crime prevention information and personal safety advice aimed at youngsters. Issues such as alcohol, awareness, drug misuse and bullying are all featured on the site, with information on where to get help and what is and isn't legal.
More about ebeat
Young people, parents and teachers can now get information about Northumbria Police at the touch of a button after the launch of a new youth website.
Called ebeat, it's been designed with help from school pupils and teachers and features interactive sections, advice and information and a range of educational resources.
Resources available include specially developed lesson plans which teachers can use in school. The first lesson plan, covering alcohol awareness was launched earlier this year, with an interactive tie-in game also available on the site.
The second set of lesson plans have just been added and cover anti-social behaviour.
The new site also contains a wealth of crime prevention information and personal safety advice aimed at youngsters. Issues such as alcohol, awareness, drug misuse and bullying are all featured on the site, with information on where to get help and what is and isn't legal.
There is also advice on a career with the force, including how to go about becoming a Northumbria Police officer.
Web Services Team Leader Ian Sparham, said: "We're always looking at ways of making our information as accessible to as many as possible but before now we've had no dedicated site for young people.
"Teenagers can be a challenging audience to reach and that's why young people have been closely involved with the content."
"Our aim with the new website is to make it as interactive and informative as we could and we hope young people will go online, have a look around and let us know what they think of it."
SCHOOLCHILDREN are being encouraged to take part in an online meeting with police officers.
Pupils from junior and senior schools are being invited to use the virtual meetings to pose questions to officers and find out how their community is policed.
Officers will also ask the young people what they think about policing.
Inspector John Smith, from Killingworth neighbourhood policing team, said: “This is the first time we’ve involved schools in North Tyneside in online meetings just for pupils.
“We want to encourage young people to get to know their local officers and find out what we do to help them and their families.
“Our officers see schools, pupils and staff as very much part of the community we police and want to continue to build strong relationships with them.
“We think that asking pupils to contact officers online from school will help us do that.”
The meetings will take place on Wednesday, October 19, via the Northumbria Police website for young people, specifically designed for children.
Officers have set up two meetings, one for six to ten-year-olds and a second for 11 to 16-year-olds.
The youngsters will take part via the youth police site ‘Ebeat’, which is aimed at teenagers and ‘My Pod’, which is an interactive portal for children, parents and teachers to learn about policing and what officers do to protect the public.
The website contains fun games and activities aimed at different age-groups with key messages to help inform children about their police officers and the importance of their safety.
Insp Smith added: “We hope to get a good response to our first school on-line meetings and then aim to run them on a regular basis in the future.”
One of Woodlawn's primary aims is to increase their children's participation in and enjoyment of learning. They recognise that that getting parents involved with their child's learning is one of the best ways to ensure that child is successful. Woodlawn School has been involved in the Becta Parental Engagement Project and has developed a wide range of methods for working with parents. As a special school Woodlawn deals with a wide range of special educational needs and all schools can learn from their experience.
This case study gives an overview of what the school did, what the benefits of better engagement with parents were, what they plan to do next and tips for other schools.
Woodlawn is an all-age school for pupils with broad range of severe or complex special educational needs often linked to a medical condition or a physical disability: other needs include speech and communications problems, sensory impairment and other complex needs. The school is able to cater for pupils who are working below their chronological age as well as those with mainstream ability but with other complex needs.
The school was designated as a specialist special school for communication and interaction in September 2009. It has a national reputation for work with ICT, eSafety and Parental Engagement. Members of staff have participated in a number of Becta projects, the Head Teacher is a member of the Leading Leader’s Network and has spoken at regional and national conferences. The school has won a number of Northern Grid Awards over the last 10 years.
Ofsted November 2010
The school's engagement with parents and carers … [is] outstanding.
The school has established a well-deserved reputation as 'an outward looking centre of excellence', particularly in its use of high-quality information communication technology (ICT)
The teachers make effective use routinely of communication aids and other forms of technology designed to promote independent learning, communication and interaction.
The school is at the forefront of the use of innovative technology to augment learning, communication and interaction
The Challenge
The school’s main aim was to give pupils a voice: increasing the children’s participation in and enjoyment of learning.
Only 4 of the 76 parents come in to school, other pupils are bussed in so there is little face to face contact. The school wanted parents to have a better understanding of what their child did in school.
The Project
The school uses a range of technologies to aid communication; all of these are used on a daily basis in school so pupils are familiar with them.
Pupils of different ages use different approaches:
Early Years Foundation Stage / Primary:
The staff works with pupils to produce narrative home school books, eLearning journals and simple talking books. They also use ICT to record achievements and create materials for pupils to take home.
Secondary:
pupils also use VOCA (Voice Output Communication Aid)
While the school already had very good relationships with parents, using technology has enhanced this. Parents were given training and this enabled them to engage more with their child’s learning and get excited about what the pupils were doing at school. They were more likely to take on this learning at home and work with their children on similar activities.
The school also provided support for parents on eSafety. Parents often don’t know what their children are doing with technology and a parents evening was arranged where they used role play and scenarios to explain the issues. This project was Highly Commended in the Northern Grid PHSE Award 2010.
Benefits
Pupils in control:
One child regularly wiped their parents’ comments before they got to school, instead of seeing this as a problem the school recognised that the child was simply doing the same thing as pupils who may choose not to pass on messages.
Information is focussed on the child:
Much of the information schools send home is about the school or class. This project meant parents had access to the information they are most interested in: their own child’s activity and experiences. Information can relate to achievements or be reassuring. One example was a parent leaving their child at school for the first time being very anxious, by the time they got home they had a text from the school reassuring them that the child had settled in well and there was no reason to worry.
Communication comes from the child:
Parents are able to find out what their child has been doing directly from the child and can share the learning journey. There is none of the frustration that comes from having to get the information from a 3rd Party. Parents find out what their child enjoyed and what they are interested in. This leads to projects continuing at home.
2 way commutation:
Parents can keep staff informed of what the child has been doing at home. While not all parents have access to ICT or photos to record this other objects (e.g. metro tickets) can be shared to start the conversation.
Attainment:
Attainment was not a priority for this project but some users have clearly benefited from learning about the available equipment and how to make best use of it. The school plans to build on current activities and to introduce hand held devices. Measuring attainment will become a higher priority.
What next?
Sustainability:
The school makes use of a wide range of technology, some is very cheap and easily accessible but some is high tech and individual items can cost as much as £7000. The LA has been very supportive in helping the school to access funds and some funds have come through Specialist Schools Status and Communication Aids Project. Funding is going to be an increasing issue in the current climate.
Learning Platforms:
The school has access to the Local Authority Learning Platform. It has been used and some parents have been trained to use it but it has not been as successful as other methods. This could be because of the lack of time for staff to update it or because it is not the best method for the parents involved. It has been more successful with older pupils and the 6th Form Forum. The school plans to review their use of the Learning Platform.
Where to start / Top Tips
Start simple and work up, don’t be afraid to use things that can look very basic, some of the best equipment is cheap and can be bought from supermarkets and garages. Sales around Christmas time are good opportunities for staff to find resources. The important thing is to have the vision to see how it can be used. Having complex equipment can mean not all functions will be used and pupils and parents may not be confident users.
If you don’t succeed try again. Failure is part of the process and there will be something that will work. Every child and every parent is different and may need different approaches.
Don’t be precious and don’t worry about things getting broken. It is much better for things to be used than for them to be safely stored away from pupils.
The pupils come first; you need to identify what they need. When you know the value the technology will bring you’ll find a way to provide it.
More information
A video about the parental engagement project was created by Becta and is available on YouTube
A new press release on the Naace website details how many schools around the country are still continuing their learning through the use of learning platforms, despite the bad weather.
Have you got any experiences to share about the bad weather and your schools? Comment below!
Many of you will have seen the news headlines, but here is some additional info from CEOP about their new app in collaboration with Facebook.......
CEOP and Facebook have developed a new free application that will make young people safer within Facebook. ClickCEOP is a new app which links the young user and parent directly from their Facebook home page to help, advice and reporting facilities of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) Centre
The 'CLickCEOP' app is a three stage application that asks young people to:
Add the app - and the ClickCEOP tab will appear at the top of your profile page
Share the badge - and you can share the app with your friends via their newsfeeds
Bookmark the app - and an icon will appear on your profile page making it easy for you to access the help and advice from the ClickCEOP app
By adding the app, young people and parents can get support from CEOP on a range of issues - viruses, hacking, dealing with bullying online and they can report someone who is acting inappropriately towards them online.
The app is the outcome of collaboration between CEOP and Facebook who have combined Facebook's expertise in connecting and communicating online with CEOP's expertise in helping young people stay safe.
Once added to their profiles, young users will receive regular messages from CEOP and its partner organisations who operate 'behind the button' to make children safer. CEOP's new Facebook page
ClickCEOP will also contain polls, news alerts and status updates. The page will look at topics that teenagers care about, such as celebrities, music and exams and will link these subjects to questions about online safety. The move is also being supported by an advertising campaign on Facebook that will encourage take up. This will include an automatic advert appearing on every profile of users aged between 13-18 years inviting them to add the app.
We would like to ask you that if you have a Facebook profile, app, share and bookmark the app. If children in your care are on Facebook, get them to search 'ClickCEOP' in Facebook and give them to chance to be one click away from help - if they should ever need it ClickCEOP
Student Ashleigh Hall was raped and murdered by a man she met on a social networking site. John Steel, lead improvement officer for children's services at Darlington Borough Council, explains the efforts being made to prevent similar incidents. (From PublicService.co.uk).
If you're looking for Special Educational Needs resources, planning documents, commercial products/hardware or just general SEN information then check out our old SEN Mini-Site.
Mobile phones and the internet have made a huge difference to our lives. But, like everything, they can be used for good or bad purposes. It all depends on what you do with them.
This resource by phone company Orange highlights some of the dangers of the mobile and online world and provides guidance. Focused on parents.
The focus of the session was how technology can be used to support effective parental engagement.
Also labeled: 
How do you measure up on eSafety?
More about ebeat
Facebook has made further changes to the privacy settings and here is a clear and easy to understand summary of the new privacy options and features.
Oddizzi is a new, primary school focused, multimedia website. We wanted to find out more so we asked the creators to tell us a bit more about it.
Early Years Foundation Stage / Primary:
Pupils in control:
Have a look at resources to help with your learning platform
View full Press Release
Student Ashleigh Hall was raped and murdered by a man she met on a social networking site. John Steel, lead improvement officer for children's services at Darlington Borough Council, explains the efforts being made to prevent similar incidents. (From 
