Class Dojo

[MooMooTheFirst]

It's a new arrival in our school and I'm pretty ambivalent towards its uses in my nursery classroom. However I am very VERY anti the parent communication bit and voiced this firmly in the last staff meeting.

When I set it up I clicked all the no parent communication bits and yet I check my personal email at 6pm and there is a request from a parent asking to join.

Aside from the fact that I was told that personal emails would be fine, I am really uncomfortable that despite clicking the NO buttons, I'm still getting requests.

Does this seem right or am I missing something??

Good god, the word salad in that last sentence - that's what you get when editing sentences midway through!

It should be "I'd like it if they gave the teacher that flexibility".

As a parent I like it (the school doesn't use it a lot, just an occasional photo or message about a trip) and we aren't able to email the teachers. I only use it for keeping the teacher informed of relevant stuff eg recent family bereavement, please be aware, or nice stuff like thanks for xyz...

And I definitely don't expect a response outside of office hours. I don't generally expect a response full stop, for me it's the equivalent of sending a note in.

We have never been given the email addresses of the teachers. So maybe that is why it works well in our school.

I like to click into the app during the day. I have two sons and one teacher posted quite a bit and as i said earlier, it really improved conversations at home. My other son's teacher was not as prolific. I think it is mainly used as bit of a noticeboard. Before dojo class letters were once a term; it is a big school with 650 children so I imagine the cost of printing is prohibitive. So I like the fact that this is so cost effective and it ties in nicely with the environmental stuff they do.

The office posts stuff from the PTA, so it sounds like our school is using dojo differently to some of the others on this thread.

All the parents I have spoken to have found it to be positive and a good thing. I must ask my sons if they interact with it as well.

When they were away on their school residentials it was great to see the fun they were having. In year 5 they were away for four nights, a few of the parents were apprehennsive about that.

Has your school brought it in primarily for behaviour management or as a parent communication tool?

If the latter you could suggest that EYFS switch to Tapestry, which is lovely.

I'm not entirely sure why it was brought in... possibly purely because the new teacher used it in her last school.

I do completely understand why parents must love it, but I do find the idea of it very intrusive. It feels like just another way to remind me that I should be working 24/7 and grateful to be a teacher. I'm part time, mornings only, with a child under two, depression and anxiety and a sick partner, I really really don't want to be reminded of work after hours anymore than I have to be. I'm sure that sounds unsympathetic to some, and perhaps it is, but I'm a good teacher and I work hard, so far the dojo hing has just made my life more difficult.

Are you obliged to answer straight away then? My sons teacher usually replied in school hours

No, you wouldn't be obliged to reply straight away I think. But I just don't like the idea of it - as OP says it feels like adding another responsibility to a long list of things to do.

I can see why parents like the idea but as a teacher, I feel that the fb style messaging option is something I can do without.

You could say the same about email but I find that parents don't usually email about changes to aftercare plans/lost jumpers (immediate things that I would need to see during the day), they ring the office. If I got a message on dojo like that I probably wouldn't see it in time.

Maybe I should message dojo about being able to turn the messaging off - I could come around to the idea of using it then!

Gosh..there's a lot of teachers who don't want to be contacted by parents. I always presume our teachers had linked dojo to their works computer..what on earth they doing linking it to their personal mobile? I am guilty of sending messages at night, but always presumed the teacher would see it in the morning. I never expected an immediate response. When she did seem to reply at night, if I needed to message at another time, I would put "please don't answer this till morning".

Our teachers don't have email, so previously, the only way of getting a message to teachers was via the office...and this was difficult for me to do what with being in work and not able to make calls.

I also think the photos are great. It shows the teacher cares about your child and you can see what they are doing during the day. Yes, they have photos on school twitter site, but with hundreds of children in the school, unlikely your child will ever be in them.

We use it in some classes but just as a reward/behaviour chart type of thing. One teacher who always does her own thing regardless of the head's wishes uses the parent contact facility. She sends a daily collage of the class goings-on and is endlessly sending and receiving messages from parents.

When the next teacher takes on the class she gets all the, "Why don't you send us photos and Mrs F used to message us every day - it was SO good etc etc"