Parental engagement is one of the National Improvement Framework’s seven key drivers. The use of social media in a Facebook and smartphone-obsessed age is often viewed as the holy grail of parental engagement. But is it the ultimate weapon for improving parental engagement or an invasion of teacher privacy?
Whether we’re using Twitter and Facebook or bespoke services, such as ClassDojo and Seesaw, we can provide parents with a window to successful learning in classrooms. Social media is a storytelling platform that gives substance to the eternally poorly answered question asked by all parents: “How was school today?”
Scotland is awash with school Twitter accounts. One of the best covers the learning adventures of Mrs Jalland’s class (@ElliePrimary7) and Ellie the elephant at Westquarter Primary in Falkirk. They even have a French-speaking “global citizen”, Blue Ellie (@WQP7Adventure), who travels the globe. Ellie and Mrs Jalland transcend the usual Twitter experience in that the feed is not simply used for broadcasting information; Ellie demands and inspires you to actively engage with the class and pupils.
Whole-school approach
Despite rigorous school consent forms, a negative aspect of Twitter is that too many class accounts still pair pupils’ names with images. Kirkton of Largo Primary in Fife (@KirktonPS) overcomes this by simply not using any images of pupils. The simplicity works and the storytelling always focuses directly on the learning.
Social media most effectively engages parents when it is a whole-school approach. Where I work, we opted for ClassDojo. It provides a login firewall - but is easily accessible on mobile apps - and a very effective way of sharing learning and information from individual classes and the whole school.
How can we avoid social media becoming a Pandora’s box for schools?
However, social media provides many challenges. It gives the false impression that teachers are contactable 24/7 and blurs the lines between work and privacy - issues covered in Tes Scotland last week. I have genuine long-term concerns about data management and storage. Also, the social media ills of “confirmation bias” and “like” culture often inhibit real debate. I am always thankful for those parents who take the time to write and post a full comment.
How can we avoid social media becoming a Pandora’s box for schools? Arguably, parental engagement is most successful when it seeks to engage rather than simply inform, and strives to share process rather than praise products of learning. In my view, there is still a strong role for developing e-portfolios (in whatever form), so that pupils can share their individual learning reflections, but also to make the school website a home for both engagement and information.
Middleton Park primary in Aberdeen - which was named creative school of the year at the Tes Schools Awards 2016 - achieves this spectacularly with its weekly Live Learning broadcast.
Ultimately, social media is no replacement for face-to-face engagement with parents - but it fulfils a marvellous role in storytelling and learning, provided it is used carefully and consistently.
Athole McLauchlan is a primary teacher in the West of Scotland
@athole
