A new poster has been published to advertise the courses and service – ideal for use in your staff room. Go to ICTCPD4FREE Poster and download it today or go www.ictcpd4free.co.uk and find out more about the courses currently available.

Courses include:

• Assessment of ICT in Primary Phase,
• Assessment of ICT in Secondary Phase,
• ICT knowledge within the QCA Primary Framework,
• Embedding e-safety in the Curriculum – Short Course
• Embedding e-safety in the Curriculum – Long Course
• Exploring Digital media Introduction
• Finding Digital Resources
• Developing higher-order thinking skills utilising ICT mind mapping and concept mapping interfaces
• High Interaction, Reflection and Peer Assessment through Educational Online Forums.
• Finding Digital media
• Modelling and Models for learning
• Using ICT in Innovative ways
• Web 2.0 Visual Learning Collaboration Tools (Primary)
• Web 2.0 Visual Learning Collaboration Tools (Secondary)

These courses are absolutely free and will enahnce your experience, knowledge and CPD Portfolio.

Jeremy Meades, Director of ICT Strategy and e-Learning at SchoolsICT joined the Think Tank in Bristol to emphasise the role of SIF (Systems Interoperability Framework) in education and, in particular, in schools.

More than twenty people from schools, local authorities and sponsors took part in very interesting discussions throughout the day. making good use of technology, another 20 people followed the discussions on Ustream and many more on Twitter.

Jeremy reported, “The commitment of NAACE members to support ICT in Education, schools and wider communities was very evident. Contributors to the discussions were passionate about their areas of expertise and their concerns as we all try to find a way forward against a background of arbitary funding cuts. For many, the notion that ICT can somehow be sidelined to a backwater is inconceivable within today’s digital infrastructures in education.”

Naace members have already committed to produce outcome papers from the Think Tanks to share with the community. It is anticipated that these papers will guide thinking for strategic leaders in all schools and academies in the months ahead.

SchoolsICT look forward to the outcomes from all Think Tanks. If the Bristol experience is a yard-stick, ICT in education is in excellent hands.

At SchoolsICT we like to talk about ‘Parent Involvement’ because we understand that involving parents is not just about the provision of specific data but it is about being involved in an informed conversation about their child’s learning.

So should that conversation look like?

It should be more than a school providing information at set times during the year. It should be more than a paper-based report that appears several weeks before a Parent Evening discussion with a teacher. It should be more than a one-way conversation – school to parent.

We believe it can be so much more, and the potential for a positive impact on learning can be realised when parent involvement is based upon an informed conversation between parent, teacher and student.

Parents need access to high quality, timely information about attainments achieved, targets set, attendance, behaviour and SEN status. They also need information about work that has been set, their child’s progress, feedback on completed activities and the ability to enter into conversations via e-mail, SMS and maybe even video conferencing.

For a long time, parents of secondary school children have felt disenfranchised and isolated from their child’s learning. It is now possible, with the correct tools, for parents to become fully involved.

If your school would like more information contact us at SchoolsICT. Our advice is given freely but it content could prove invaluable!

ZiLink brings true interoperability between SIMS.Net or CMIS and Moodle. ZiLink is a ‘super-block’ containing a number of blocks within Moodle that can be configured to meet individual school needs by Moodle administrators.

Using the Systems Interoperability Framework, SchoolsICT is the first company in the UK to bring a complete interoperable framework to schools that is affordable, sustainable and scaleable. In the current economic climate this is a considerable achievement.

ZiLink includes four blocks working together using the data from the management information system.

• Online Reporting with parental access to attainment, targets, progress, attendance, behaviour, SEN status plus additional features such as immediate access to their child’s current work, work attempted and overdue work.
• Individual Learning Plans
• Timetable
• Timetable Week

Plus, new developments that will be on-stream in September 2010 include Parent Appointment and a Room Booking system.

SchoolsICT is maintaining and extending its commitment to Moodle as the premier learning platform by continually adding the value that schools are seeking.

Click the ZiLink logo and find out more by watching and listening to a presentation about the online reporting and timetable components or trying out our demo here.

For more information e-mail sales@schoolsict.net or telephone freephone 08000 488 777.

Navigate to our ZiLink blog for more information and a video of our presentation.

The Subject Overview

Today, I want to show you the Subject Overview and the Work Progress interface. By clicking the subject bar in the Curriculum Overview or the Subjects tab you can see target and attainment information for an individual subject.

This chart is dynamic which means that as a new assessment is added, the chart will adjust to include the new information.

In this way a parent can view the progress that their child is making in the subject. This example shows that the child is performing at a higher level than expected but may have plateaued – which raises questions about the target being unrealistic and reason for the maintenance of grade rather than improvement.

Work Progress

Parents like to know what their child is doing at school, how they are working and if they need additional support and help.

This list shows the parent their child’s currently assigned work, the work they have attempted and the work that is overdue. This information is gathered from the resources and activities in Moodle.

As you can see ‘Due dates’ are included so that a parent can help their child plan their work and maybe identify issues of overwork which can then be discussed with a teacher.

Clicking the title of each piece of work will open the resource or activity in a separate window and enable the parent to provide help and support.

We would be very pleased to hear any feedback – just leave a comment below.

In this example, we are showing the statutory attendance for one child as a stacked column chart. By hovering the mouse over each section, the section highlights and displays a tool-tip message to explain this student has attended 35 days out of 35 days this term.

As you can see in the diagram all late registrations, authorised and unauthorised absences are also displayed enabling the parent to see a clear picture and history of attendance.

To the right is a personalised message about the attainment for the student together with a ‘call to action’ advising parents if they should contact school.

This is just a small part of the interface but this style is being replicated to the curriculum overview, behaviour, SEN and more. We’re keen to hear your views – add a comment below – you will need to register.

A recent report published online at http://www.nextgenerationlearning.org.uk/AboutUs/Research/Schools-and-Parents/Schools-and-Parents-blog/Introduction/ has identified some key findings.

Did you know – “80% of households with children aged five-17 years old have internet access at home. For those that don’t, many will be supported through the Home Access Programme, which aims to provide access to computing facilities at home for over 270,000 families in the next 18 months. For more information visit www.becta.org.uk/homeaccess“

Given this infrastructure is in place right now, it is odd that the majority of parents are not in frequent contact with their child’s school and the question has to be asked – why?

Becta’s research shows:

• Over half of parents contact their child’s teacher just once a term or less
• Of the parents who rarely get in touch with their child’s teacher, more than one in five (22%) say they don’t see any benefit in regular parent-school contact and 22% say they don’t want to add to the teacher’s workload
• More than one in five (22%) school staff feel they do not have enough contact with parents at present

Becta also publishes some practical advice to both schools and parents at http://www.nextgenerationlearning.org.uk/AboutUs/Research/Schools-and-Parents/Schools-and-Parents-blog/Practical-advice-and-guidance/

One piece of advice is for schools to make full use of their web site to provide parents with practical advice but we believe that parental engagement is something more than a one-way communication. SchoolsICT’s parental engagement extension to Moodle, which will be relased next month, displays relevant and timely information about about a child’s attainment, progress, attendance and a great deal more including the Moodle Gradebook comments and feedback that teachers provide to progress a child’s learning.

In Becta’s “An exploration of parents’ engagement with their children’s learning” research found that:

• complex, synchronous, two-way, reciprocal, communication with parents, specifically about their child, has the most potential for parental engagement with their children’s learning. Whilst this finding was associated with traditional opportun ities for contact such as parent evenings it also acknowledged that other pressures impact on parents’ ability to participate – enter onlne communication;
• good use of learning platforms has the potential to mirror this kind of thick communication between schools and parents. However, few parents have had any extensive experience of these yet – an opportunity to explore for all schools;
• parents want more information from schools on what their children are learning and how they are being taught. They would also appreciate guidance on how they can support their children’s learning – an online experience will support learning by providing access to information in a timely and appropriate way for today’s parents;
• lack of home access to computers and the internet has restricted some parents’ opportunities for communication with the school and creates obstacles for their children’s formal learning. It is the recognition of these obstacles that is important – once recognised, solutions can be found. The roll-out of learning platforms and online reporting need to take this into account.

Download the executive summary, “Parent engagement with children’s learning“, from our Client Area.

For more information about SchoolsICT and parental engagement register here and download information from our Client Area at our web site Contact Us, Client Area, Downloads.

This is our Curriculum Overview. Each subject is shown – the column represents the current attainment and the placeholder on the red line indicates the target for that subject. Hover the mouse over the column or target and the points score is displayed. Click on the column and you drill down into individual subject progress over time.

To the right is a personalised message about the attainment for the student together with a ‘call to action’ advising parents how they might support their child’s learning.

This is just a small part of the interface but this style is being replicated to attendance, behaviour, SEN and more. We’re keen to hear your views – add a comment below – you will need to register.

Our research shows that the answer is, no a student cannot prevent their parent viewing data about them held by a school.

The booklet (click the link to view or download) Access to pupil information is a very good starting point produced by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). Under the Data Protection Act a child, at age 12, will have a ‘right of subject access’. However, when a child cannot act for themselves or the child gives permission, parents will be able to access this information on their behalf. Also, this document is the ICO Guidance – young people – education requests regarding access to their data by young people.

Independently, parents have a right of access to their child’s educational record – this acces is covered by separate education regulations. Therefore, a child cannot prevent their parents accessing their educational record.

Data Protection Act

The Data Protection Act can be viewed here.

Under Part II of the Act data subjects (you and me) have rights. Amongst other things they include the right of access, the right to prevent processing likely to cause damage or distress but there is no apparent right of control over access. Hence the separate regulations to cover parent access to educational records of their child(ren).

Secure Data Handling Guidelines

These are relevant to Parental engagement because Jim Knight stated that SEN information would be available as part of Online Reporting.

In May 2009, the gudiance relation to secure data handling was updated specifically for schools. Contained within the guidance is reference to Impact Levels – broadly speaking Impact level 1 is very low and likely to associated with a single data item out of context. Impact level 4 however is applied to a combination of data items that shoudl e treated confidentially and with limited access.

In the document Information Handling Impact Levels there is very clear guidance about data relating to indivuals in schools and its transport. I recommend the whole document is read to develop a context for the table in Appendix A – Impact Levels for Portected Data. Within this table it describes some SEN data attracts an Impact level of 3 or 4 which has implications in terms of security of access. It is not clear from the guidance which SEN data items are intended to be IL4 and which are IL3 – perhaps this is a matter for the Information Access Officer or Data Controller within the school.

It is worth considering the table below when determining which Impact Level data falls into:

It is unlikely that SEN data associated with an individual will be IL4 because it is unlikely to affect many citizens or organisations.

The guidance suggests to suppliers of Parental Engagement that some form of marking may be necessary for those data items considered to be at IL3 and this should be an expectation of schools.

SchoolsICT

The Parental Engagement model being developed by SchoolsICT will incorporate appropriate measures concerning the security of data being transported to ensure that as far as practible security is maintained at the highest levels and in accordance with the above guidance.