Improving Communication

St Joseph’s RC Primary School,

Aldershot

Improving communication

Emily Beere, Sarah Key-Smith & Alison Paterson |2ndMay2017

BACKGROUND

Further to parent feedback, a small parent working group was established to review how St Joseph’s RC Primary Aldershot was managing its’ communicationwith parents and to make recommendations on how the school might improve.

The review considered all forms of communication: paper/letters, email, Parentmail, SMS, Face to Face meetings (individual and group) and telephone. Analysis across these areas was conducted viaseparate questionnaires issued to parents and staff and discussions in the working group, ourselves interested parents.

As a specific further step, we would also suggest:

• follow-up work with the school office staff and a couple of teacher representatives to better to understand “as-is” of the school communications. Information such as how many communications per week/year, what channels, when etc. How do teachers and Head feed into the regular communications – is it during the day or by a specific time of day? Who creates the content?
• This report is reviewed by Joan Van Zyl who has specific responsibilities around liaison with families who do not have English as their first language to see if there are any additional and specific recommendations for this audience

The parent survey was issued to 713 parents and we received 81 on-line responses and 2 paper = 83 total which equated to a 12% response rate. The staff survey received 4 paper responses and 4 on-line responses, totaling 8 responses of (c. 40 staff?).This report brings together the key findings and recommendations and presents an action plan for the school now to consider.

The working group is happy to remain involved and support the school in relevant areas of the suggested action plan.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

This report provides an overview of the 6key findings and 32recommendations arising from recent parent and staff surveys and parent working group thoughts.

The summary findings are:

1. In general parents feel communications are working well but there are some areas that could be improved. There are few key areas that parents consistently identified as gaps in what and/or how information is provided
2. The main channels of communication that parents prefer to use are the Newsletter, Parentmail and Other Parents; However Parents would like to see an improved school website, used and updated with content more regularly, and greater use of SMS messaging
3. Broadly – parents feel well informed when children start at St Josephs, and reasonably informed when moving into new years and about school policies. In comparison they feel less informed about transitioning between years, what children are learning at the moment and how to support them. For the latter they have a clear preference in terms of how they would like to receive this information.
4. Parents appear to be relatively engaged with school events but their availability is constrained by other commitments, namely work and caring commitments, and they would appreciate more flexible access routes to communicating with the school
5. Staff see many of the same opportunities to improve. From the returned surveys from staff, their responses indicated very similar themes to the parents and indicated their willingness to support improvements in key areas such as running homework sessions and their personal profiles being more visible.
6. Additionally staff also indicated greater parental engagement in activities such as a PTA would be beneficial

Recommendations have been split by key themes and timescales; there are a number of quick win changes/improvements that could be introduced and trialled within the current academic year.Other medium to longer term changes which could be implemented for the 2017/18 academic year onwards.The key recommendations centre on:

• The timeliness of Communications – actions to improve the timing of key communications

• Communication Quality – actions to improve the consistency and effectiveness of communications

• The content of Communications – ensuring the content and messaging of communications is more rounded and developed with the overall communication policy/strategy

• Communication Channels – ensuring the most convenient and appropriate route is used for different communications

• The School website and social media presence– a review and refresh of the school’s online presence

• Supporting Transition between Years – activity to aid pupils and parents transitioning to the next year

• Supporting Pupils Learning – enhancing information provided by the school so that parents can fully support their children’s learning

• Facilities & Signage – additional physical signposting and communication across the school site

KEY FEEDBACK AND OBSERVATIONS FROM PARENTS

A full PDF copy of the questionnaire responses is available in PDF format. The headline findings and observations summarized above, are now explained in more detail, pulling out supporting verbatim comments from parents:

1. Overall parents feel communications are working well but there are some areas that could be improved.

78% of respondents felt they received enough information from the school. This is a great endorsement that generally parent-school communications are working well. However their supportingcomments pulled out the following additional observations:

1.1.The timeliness of communications could be improved. Parents indicated that they would value more notice and communication on events than is currently provided.

This is particularly important to note given that 85% of our parents have work or caring responsibilities that might deter them from reading and taking action on any such communications at short notice.

1.2.The quality, consistency and effectiveness of communications could also be improved.

A good proportion of children are now coming from homes where they have been in full or part time childcare where there are strong communication channels and daily handovers. Therefore parents’ expectations around school communications are relatively high in terms of quality and timeliness of communications.

Various feedback suggests that the current approach to Parentmail and other communication vehicles can come across as inconsistent and confusing. At times there can be “information overload”, multiple communications and basic spelling and grammar mistakes that make it difficult for them to engage with the communications effectively:

1.3.There are three key areas that parents also consistently identified as gaps in what information and/or how it is provided:

1.3.1.The main channels of communications that parents preferto use are the Newsletter, Parentmail and Other Parents. Parents would also like to see greater use of SMS messaging for more urgent communications

Overall, parents rate the frequency, timeliness, and quality of Digital communications (email, SMS and Parent Mail) communications provided by the school higher than traditional (paper based) communications and face to face communications. But there are differing experiences and conflicting views when looking at parents’ comments:

1.3.2.Parents would welcome more direct contact with teachers during the course of the year

1.3.3.Parents would like to see an improved school website, used and updated with content more regularly

Parents would also like to see the following on the school website:

• Class pages with relevant curricular information
• Updated photographs, and
• New features such as the ability to book their own appointments for parents evening via an app and the ability to email a member of staff.

1.4.Broadly – parents feel well informed when children start at St Josephs, and reasonable informed when moving into new years and about school policies. In comparison they feel less informed about what children are learning at the moment

51% of parents did not feel that there was sufficient information provided by the school to help them support their child’s learning through the curriculum for the year and on specific class/year group topics and subjects:

Parents would be most interested in learning more about how subjects are taught in school through Booklets (72%) and Information on the school website (56%), in preference to face to face workshops and sitting in on classes.

1.5.Parent Engagement: Parents appear to be relatively engaged with school events but are constrained by work and caring commitments.

100% of respondents indicated that they had attended Parents Evenings and over 80% had attended school sports/fun days. Notably the lowest type of engagement was help in the classroom and school trips with only 19% of parents indicating they had done this – a potential opportunity for the school to exploit more?

• Convenient times for parents: When asked about when is most convenient for parents to access/visit the school, 38% indicated their preference was an evening, followed by after morning drop-off (27%) and post afternoon pick-up (25%).

• 77% of our responding parents indicated that their work patterns are the main restriction around being able to come into school. A further 9% indicated caring responsibilities. Of the remainder – these were some of the comments:

* NB: This comment is interesting. If the school’s communication policy is intentional on this i.e. to give parents a flavour of what to come then this should be explained; otherwise – more tailored emails might increase engagement (and reduce non-relevant communications)

Finally, when asked, parents indicated that the areas that they would like greater communication on fromthe schoolasthe following (this summarises the 37 specific responses received, where feedback did not already fit within the previous categories):

• Engage with parents on school expectations of them to make Parental responsibilities clearer. Many of the responses indicated that parents are more than happy to support if they are clear about the school’s policies, approaches and expectations of them as parents. There would be benefit in developing a stronger partnership tone with parents and making parental responsibilities clearer. Two parents wrote:

• Reception Children: Additional information that helps parents understand whether they had a good or bad day; including more rounded information on whether for example they ate well at lunchtime
• School Trips – significant amendments and changes. Example of Year 3(?) Minehead Butlin’s trip. Ensure parents have the opportunity to review significant changes such as a new venue, the security and educational benefits to ensure this is still something they would like their child to experience

• Celebrating success: Parents would like to see celebrations of children's successes and not just targets. They would enjoy highlights from school activities and achievements of individuals and teams and feel this would boost children’s confidence knowing the school takes note and recognises their achievements whatever they may be
• Extra-curricular activities such as learning musical instruments “I also heard on parent vine (talking with other parents) that you need to request if your child wants to lean a musical instrument. “This feels like a secret and only if you're in the know do you get in”
• Uniform Policy–“I find uniform policy confusing - in terms that I see many children in what I would consider non-uniform. Reminders on full policy would be great (many seem to have forgotten since children started in reception”
• Parents not educated in the UK: it may be beneficial to provide additional information and access to parents whom themselves have not been through the UK school system
• Media format for updates. A couple of parents mentioned photographs as a format they would like to understand what their children are working on. Appreciating there are privacy and safeguarding issues on this one so it might be useful to highlight the school’s policy in this regard to clarify for parents.
• More flexible access that accommodates modern family lives– three quotes:
• “To be able to access and return electronically a booking form for holiday club without having to go to the school office when you cannot get there because you do not drop off and it is shut. To have a more flexible office opening hours to accommodate parents collecting from Teatime”
• “Have some time available in the evenings to facilitate full time working parents”
• “To bear in mind parents that work and do not have a relationship with any of parents. I have the one child and struggled to know what to do. I was able to ask a relative but if her children didn't go to the school I wouldn't have had anyone to ask. I would feel silly going to the teacher over not knowing how to do a 5yr olds homework”
• Informal and open access –parents would value more informal communication routessuch as direct classroom drop off to chat with teachers, regular open classes to look at displays, children’s books and talk with the teacher. Also establish the Yellow Reading Book as a two-way communication book with parents
• Wider development topics – more information on topics such as wellbeing, social interactions and confidence building
• Staff changes – timely sharing of information on new teachers and LSAs
• Content – make sure the balance on topics is right – “Improve communication means parents are informed about their kids' education matters and NOT about reminding the parents to bring the money in for such charities organisation!”

• Parents Suggestion Box/Forum – “a suggestion box or parent forum to feed into senior management the suggestions, feelings and thoughts of the community. For example, if breakfast club opened 15 minutes earlier commuters to London could get a train at 8.04 and not 8.34 helping the working parent. The same is true of tea time club.”

• A clearer “Contact Us” strategywith defined email addresses, roles and contact names and details“if there's a question who can answer queries”

KEY FEEDBACK AND OBSERVATIONS FROM STAFF

Staff survey – of 8 respondents:

• 6 thought parent’s engagement was 7/8 out of 10 – indicating good perception of parent engagement as a whole; some of the comments did indicate there were some parents who were not very engaged “some parents are always engaged. Others not at all”and“Not sure if parents see the need for more parental help not only in and around school and school trips but at PTA functions - but on the flip side more parents work these days.”
• Overall – staff rated the communications that parents receive from the school across all channels as higher than the responses received from parents
• Staff identified key questions that they are consistently asked around tea time club, after school clubs, mufti days, and wet play. One wrote that parents often ask “are there any clubs, when several different message have been sent”, highlighting the impact of inconsistent messages
• In terms of what parents could do to improve communication at the school and support staff in their roles, the responses indicated
• Maintaining up to date contact information
• Checking their child’s reading folder and emails daily,
• Completing Evaluation slips, and
• Discussing matters directly with teachers rather than reverting to social media

• Staff felt the school could improve its communications through the following
• Larger noticeboard in front of school,
• Up to date calendar with all events,
• Reviewing the frequency of newsletters (more or less),
• A regular update of website. Currently is it viewed as neither up to date or informative or up to date and staff are not involved in its content
• Staff are supportive of running homework sessions/creating guidance sheets (7 of 8 staff) and having a personal profile on school notice board / website (all staff)
• Other Comments
• Parents Engagement

• “I think the boundaries have changed so much with parents and school - but if we all work together to achieve the same aim (the wellbeing and education of children) then it really should work”
• “there should be more representation from each year group on the PTA, it should be part of the agreement between school and parents to participate in the life of the school while your child attends”
• Social Media – “social media has become a way of communicating feelings with immediacy that reaches lots and lots of other people. Playground/school gate chatter/discussion has always gone on (and so long should it) but the immediacy of people's feelings if they put it on Facebook is for lots more to share - more than it used to be. Sometimes those feelings or thoughts or ideas or ideas of wrongdoings are not quite as they are but once it goes out to everybody then there is no stopping it. This is definitely not just a St. Joes issue as it is happening in every school - and I really believe in open and honest communication but I do think that social media is sometimes wrongly used to express an opinion. PS I don't use social media at all - and I am very sure that there must be lots of benefits of using it as well.”

RECOMMENDATIONS

32recommendations which have been created to improve communications for both the school and parents, and therefore ultimately benefitting pupils and their learning journey. The recommendations have been organized according to timescale and also the key theme/finding to which they relate and the initials also indicate volunteer helpers from the parent review group to develop the recommendation if the school would like to proceed with it. 15 of the 32 recommendations can, we believe, be completed relatively quickly. The remainder are longer haul, but would really strengthen the school’s capabilities: