SEEKING ADVICE REGARDING SENDING REPORTS ELECTRONICALLY

[Allycat]

Hi everyone

I wanted to ask if there's any school office staff whose school sends out their pupil's school reports electronically.

We have been asked to do this, but can not see a way to, apart from manually attaching individual pupil reports to ParentMail.

We're a large academy and we are concerned that it is open to human error!

Any suggestions would be gratefully received!!!

Hi. At our school we don't actually send them electronically. They are on our parent portal, so each parent logs in with their personal passwords and they get to see the reports that way.
There is no real chance of human error as the reports are all generated on the database and linked to the parent portal so no one actually 'attaches' each report to a child.

I can see if they are not through the database and generated via word or similar it could be a nightmare waiting to happen though!

Hi Bellie99

Thanks for your reply.

What is the nam of the software you are using for your parent portal???

Thanks

Hi

We use iSams as back end ( my bit!!) but then it links via our website (not my bit). I think via firefly??

@Allycat

Look into School Pupil Tracker Online (SPTO) - all reports, assessments etc can be recorded on there and parents given a log on and password to access their child's details.

If you meed something free / low cost you could use drop box. It would be a pain to set up bit once done it would be est to drop reports into the right folder.

My kids schools use go 4 schools. It's very clunky and old fashioned looking so I hope that means it is cheap!! It works fine.

My school does the same as Bellie99's. Parents are alerted by email that the reports are online, but have to follow the link and log into the parent portal to access their child's reports. No chance of emailing a report to wrong recipient.

One interesting benefit of this method is being able to track which parents never even opened the report to read. Around 30% of one of our year groups recently which shocked me. Now of course some could be attributed to lack of engagement with the IT system, but they are all registered and able to access from any device. Probably mostly the same parents who never would have opened the paper copy.

Wow lots of info. Thank you!

Especially interested in seeing who bothers looking at the reports and who doesn't!!!

Will feedback the recommendations to SLT.

Thanks guys 👍

We have the parent portal system, and it works fine.

It did have a bit of a blip when it posted an internal not for public consumption report on one of my DC and I just happened to log in and read it. The internal report was subject teachers being asked to comment on DC's suitability for an award, inviting explicit comparison with other pupils. Fortunately it was very positive but it did make me raise my eyebrows at the frank way children are discussed when it is not for parental eyes. We did contact the school and it was quickly removed. I wish I had screenshotted it!

We use go4schools too, and are also a large academy.

My DD received one report electronically, and as PP have said it was a portal parents had to log in to. They have gone back to paper reports now though, not sure why.

I can't read my DSs report online as my username / password don't work. So that's why I don't open the report.

I suspect a large number of that 30% you found who didn't read their report have the same problem.

Thanks to staff and parents for their experiences.

All this info helps schools to deliver the best information we can.

Will feedback and hopefully save a few trees and give your children the best start at the same time

As a parent I'd hate it being electronic.
I'm a Luddite. I like to have a physical piece of paper in my hand, so I'd have to print it out anyway (though I accept it would save the school money).
I think the parents you most want to access wouldn't bother if they had to log in etc.
I also think I would lose / forget the login details. It is bad enough with parent pay. I keep having to get my login reset for that as I forget the password as don't use it frequently enough.

I like the parent portal system - the only downfall is remember the password once a year.

It means I can get access to it almost immediately, but I do have a DS who would lose the paper reports regularly (accidentally, not purposefully).

It's great to see the Parent's side too, so thank you for responding