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We want to and will make it easy for schools to keep their staff, pupils, parents, partners, other stake-holders and wider community informed, updated and engaged.
Now, by merely typing in the text you can do it too!
It's so easy even 7 year old children can do it. If you are able to move a mouse, click a few buttons and string a few sentences together you can maintain a cutting edge site.
We'll give you all the training you'll need, support you on the phone or with email, all to make sure you get the best out of your investment.
Our killer features are:
Superb content management and blog software. Excellent Google optimisation.
An email to weblog interface, making updating your school blog a doddle.
Top draw support and feedback.
Try a demo or build your
Now, by merely typing in the text you can do it too!
It's so easy even 7 year old children can do it. If you are able to move a mouse, click a few buttons and string a few sentences together you can maintain a cutting edge site.
We'll give you all the training you'll need, support you on the phone or with email, all to make sure you get the best out of your investment.
Our killer features are:
Superb content management and blog software. Excellent Google optimisation.
An email to weblog interface, making updating your school blog a doddle.
Top draw support and feedback.
Try a demo or build your
30 day free trial
school website yourself. What will you write today's school news to be?Inspector evidence
Inspector evidence
Talking with one of my Heads, who leads a double life as an inspector, he mentioned, upon seeing how easy emailing 30 pictures truly is, that this was a wonderful way of collecting evidence for inspectors. With inspections dropping on schools so quickly, with little notice, schools have boxes of evidence sitting in in their classrooms.
"This would be a much better way of collecting and displaying evidence. It's all dated. You can just say to the inspectors, take a look at the website."
I don't know what he means. I'm not an inspector, teacher nor Head. But I do know databases and web forms. I know any teacher can send an email with pictures attached, and can do this with little fuss, pain, or time. Fastest is 30 seconds, slowest is under an hour, if they change the file names of the images to captions.
If I can make this whole process better, easier for you... It's my mission in life, why I'm here on Planet Earth.
What types of evidence do you need to collect?
Performance data
Indicators of pupils’ progress
Self evaluation evidence
Would you ask parents to fill in a web form for their views on the school?
Notes: I've read the New Relationship with Schools and can't see any requirement for 'boxes of evidence.' I do see the Self Evaluation Form several times.
I can add forms to any page. Perhaps you need specific news items for this with a drop box here, a tick selection there...
Perhaps you need me to add a survey for students, or for parents.
Perhaps you need an intranet for all this? And a way of grabbing a bit from the intranet and easily placing it on the public site? (An intranet is just an empty duplicate of your current site, email your evidence to here. Only a selected bunch of editors can see the site. You allow inspectors in, of course.)
Perhaps, you need just a new department to which you email in a selection of children's work? Or, if you need to raise standards in history, email in the areas you've been teaching. (I'm just guessing here.) Or, perhaps you need to do something about bullying. Perhaps, again a news department where you can add photos and stories written by the children from the school yard about the friendship bench. Pupils needing to learn about different types of work—again, another department? What about early reading, equality, working in teams, how you inform parents...
Al this is easy for me, once I know and understand your needs. But, whatever I do, it has to be easy and painless, and hopefully fun—for you. Else, if it's a chore, if it's hard, you're not going to do it, and I'll have done badly in this world.
Here's a quote from an inspection report, "Pupils use databases to produce graphs and pie charts, though there is limited evidence of its use to support investigations in science or surveys in geography or the recording of statistics in physical education. The cross-curricular use of information and communication technology is an area for expansion." Having children add news items themselves, with links to other sites or photos or screen grabs of their work seems like 'good evidence' to me.
A link to writing a good SEF (Word doc). Notes on filling in the form and a dummy SEF for a primary school.
"This would be a much better way of collecting and displaying evidence. It's all dated. You can just say to the inspectors, take a look at the website."
I don't know what he means. I'm not an inspector, teacher nor Head. But I do know databases and web forms. I know any teacher can send an email with pictures attached, and can do this with little fuss, pain, or time. Fastest is 30 seconds, slowest is under an hour, if they change the file names of the images to captions.
Help me!
So, if you know about evidence, if you're collecting it, if you need to see it in your inspections, if you can see the brilliance of emailing in 30 pictures of 'what you did in class today' either whiteboards, pupils' work, shots of the classroom displays, of the class with their heads down or hands up... If you have a box in the corner and think about it late at night...If I can make this whole process better, easier for you... It's my mission in life, why I'm here on Planet Earth.
What types of evidence do you need to collect?
Performance data
Indicators of pupils’ progress
Self evaluation evidence
Would you ask parents to fill in a web form for their views on the school?
Notes: I've read the New Relationship with Schools and can't see any requirement for 'boxes of evidence.' I do see the Self Evaluation Form several times.
Help you!
Here's a librarian keeping evidence in Australia, "She already has a portfolio stuffed with papers, everything from students' test scores to surveys to checklists, anything that will chart her vital role as a school librarian." Is this what's in your box?I can add forms to any page. Perhaps you need specific news items for this with a drop box here, a tick selection there...
Perhaps you need me to add a survey for students, or for parents.
Perhaps you need an intranet for all this? And a way of grabbing a bit from the intranet and easily placing it on the public site? (An intranet is just an empty duplicate of your current site, email your evidence to here. Only a selected bunch of editors can see the site. You allow inspectors in, of course.)
Perhaps, you need just a new department to which you email in a selection of children's work? Or, if you need to raise standards in history, email in the areas you've been teaching. (I'm just guessing here.) Or, perhaps you need to do something about bullying. Perhaps, again a news department where you can add photos and stories written by the children from the school yard about the friendship bench. Pupils needing to learn about different types of work—again, another department? What about early reading, equality, working in teams, how you inform parents...
Al this is easy for me, once I know and understand your needs. But, whatever I do, it has to be easy and painless, and hopefully fun—for you. Else, if it's a chore, if it's hard, you're not going to do it, and I'll have done badly in this world.
My research
I've found a course, I bet it's expensive, to 'Master your SEF.'Here's a quote from an inspection report, "Pupils use databases to produce graphs and pie charts, though there is limited evidence of its use to support investigations in science or surveys in geography or the recording of statistics in physical education. The cross-curricular use of information and communication technology is an area for expansion." Having children add news items themselves, with links to other sites or photos or screen grabs of their work seems like 'good evidence' to me.
A link to writing a good SEF (Word doc). Notes on filling in the form and a dummy SEF for a primary school.
