As a school or academy – you’ll know the critical role parental engagement plays in parent-school relations. Not only should you continually aim to improve your school’s communication with parents for the benefit of their child – it is also a crucial OFSTED target you need to meet effectively.

In the inspection framework presented by OFSTED, under the ‘Good’ category in “Quality of leadership in, and management of the school” the framework states:

 The school works well with parents, including those who might find working with the school difficult, to achieve positive benefits for pupils.

But as a school, what does successful parental engagement look like? The framework deems success if the engagement has a clear and positive impact on pupil outcomes.

So how can your school address common barriers and break them down to effectively communicate with parents?

Common barriers to parental engagement and overcoming them

Within the National Governance Association’s September 2019 ‘Parental engagement:

A guide for governing boards’ is a table of common barriers on both the parent and school sides. Do any of these look familiar to you?

Image source: National Governance Associate ((NGA)

Looking down the list of common barriers for parents – you can see there’s a substantial amount of miscommunication between parents and their school.

The fact that many of the parents feel they have not been asked to participate, and also feel fathers aren’t sufficiently encouraged to participate are problems that can easily be solved with a communications app.

The ‘lack of time’ parent barrier is a common issue, with many parents out there struggling to juggle work and parental responsibilities. A school communication app means parent communication with your school is less time-intensive — no more filling in physical forms, or communicating via letter or desktop email. Your parents can reply to your messages via the mobile app – they’re always able to keep up-to-date without having to think about it.

 Push notifications and alerts straight through to their mobile phone means instant engagement with your school. No more planning and juggling your time for booking in parents’ evening slots – this is all managed through the app interface.

2020 is better late than never

Focusing on parental engagement for 2020 is better late than never. Although you’ll have consistently tried new ways to engage your parents over the past years – we get it, it’s hard! Implementing a school app means you no longer have to create redundant email chains – only re-send to parents who don’t respond.

Our parent app also means your school can engage parents through their mobile devices with ease almost instantly. According to Ofcom – eight in ten UK adults own a smartphone as of August 2018; a communications app is the next natural step in our growing digital society.

Pricing starts from just £499 a year

Our prices start from as little as £499 a year. We offer four different pricing packages – Lite, Economy, Premium and Platinum. So whether you’re just after an app that helps you deliver messages, newsletters, events and the ability to contact your school.

Or you’re after an entire parental engagement overhaul with the ability to send consent forms, access photo galleries, integrate social media and your website, include meal menus and access to policies and much more – we’ve got you covered!

contact us for more information.