The Schools Blog

The power of celebrities and the power of the internet is now so strong when it comes to teenage girls that (according to a survey by GirlGuiding UK) advertisers and politicians have little chance to influence their opinions and behaviour.   Teachers have less power than celebrities or the media - but are way ahead of advertisers and politicians in their influence.

And although celebrities do have this influence - much of the influence they have is openly seen as negative by teenage girls.

The survey found that away from friends and family, celebrities have the biggest hold with 42% naming them as the greatest influence.

As you might guess, the top celeb is Victoria Beckham, who was nominated  by 35% followed by Leona Lewis who polled 32%.

Kate Moss and Amy Winehouse came next with 29% and 23% respectively.

38% said that the media is the prime influence of their attitudes to alcohol and drugs.  Teachers on the other hand were a prime influence at 30% - way above advertisers who influence 7% and politicians at 4%.    19% say the media influences their opinions about sex and relationships while teachers influence 15% and advertisers 2%.

59% say Channel 4 TV programmes like ‘Skins’ and ‘Hollyoaks’ help them  understand issues affecting people their age.

44% of the girls said they could name more WAGS [footballers’ wives and girlfriends] than female politicians.

However celebrities actually have a negative influence on the way girls view the world, with 59% believing they make girls their age less well-informed.

75% of the girls taking the survey said they used the internet daily, but they placed less trust in it than in newspapers or TV.   The most trusted medium is television news, which was named by 90% of the girls.  Although around half said they didn’t bother to stay informed about world events.

A group of teachers and educationalists have launched “Celebrating Schools Day” – which will be held on 15 July 2008.   It is a day that allows your school to get some free positive publicity, should you wish.

The idea is simple.  Every summer the media run a series of negative educational stories – often centred around the fact that standards in exams are falling, along with declining literacy and numeracy levels in primary schools.  

Such stories are, of course, all made up, and although ministers and others come out and defend schools the newspapers treat such ministerial comments as excuses.

So the plan here is to get in the retaliation first and have a day which celebrates the good things in schools – a day which occurs before the negative summer stories emerge.

In the coming weeks the Celebrating Schools Day committee will be sending press releases to every local paper and radio station in the UK to tell them about the Day and inviting them to contact their local schools for stories of the year.

The idea is that a week or so ahead of the day all interested schools should send a press release to their local paper commenting on some of the great things that have happened during the year in the school.

This can include anything that the school and the pupils or students value – such as special achievements by pupils, money raised for charity, expeditions, work in the community, and indeed the fun and celebration of the leavers’ ball and other such events.

We’ll be putting more ideas and details on the www.schoolspr.co.uk site in the coming weeks and there will – but you might want to make a note of this option now, because there is very little time between now and the big day.  It would be a shame if your local paper received a press release from another school in your area for the Day, and not one from your school.

Celebrating Schools Day is being sponsored by Book-Builder, the company that publishes School Yearbooks.  They will be building a website that allows pupils and students to post their own positive memories and recollections of the year.   There is more about Book-Builder on www.yimple.com or by phoning 0845 388 9901.

Tony Attwood

New government research shows that parents want ever more involvement in their children’s education – and prefer informal chats with school staff instead of parents evenings.

The research shows half of all parents feel very involved their child’s education - up from just 29 per cent in 2001 - and the majority (65 per cent) want to get even more involved. Parents now see informal discussions with school staff as the most useful way of finding out about a child’s progress.

Since 2001 the proportion of parents who see parents evening as the “most useful” way of communicating has dropped from 43 per cent to 19 per cent. Key findings in the Parental Involvement in Children’s Education survey are that:

• Around half (51 per cent) of parents feel ‘very involved’ in their child’s school life, a noticeable increase from 29 per cent in 2001, and 38 per cent in 2004. In common with previous years, work commitments were perceived as the main barrier to further involvement.

• There has been a moderate shift in parents’ attitudes away from a child’s education being the school’s responsibility, towards it being more equal or mainly or wholly a parent’s responsibility.

• Three in four parents (73 per cent) say it is ‘extremely important’ to help with homework, and this has hardly changed since 2001.

• Parents were generally very positive towards information provided by the school such as information provided about their child’s progress (86 per cent said their child’s school provided clear information on this) and the school being welcoming to parents, (92 per cent said it was).

• Parent’s see communicating with schools through ‘informal discussions with school staff’ as the most useful way of finding out about a child’s progress. This follows a noticeable decline since 2001 in the number who said Parents Evenings are the most useful method (from 43 per cent in 2001 to 19 per cent in 2007).

• The survey findings show many sub-group differences, but some of the strongest impacts and most consistent differences have been found in respect of parents of children identified as having Special Educational Needs (SEN).

 The Parental Involvement in Children’s Education (PICE) 2007 survey involved a telephone survey of 5,032 randomly selected parents of children attending state schools. Similar surveys have been carried out in 2001 and 2004. This year absent parents were included for the first time.

 It is available at:
http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/research/data/uploadfiles/DCSF-RR034.pdf

Tony Attwood

Here’s a summary of what the government says it is doing in this field, in its most recent pronoucements.

• Providing funding of around £1m over three years to the No to Failure project. No to Failure is trailblazing and evaluating the impact of specialist training for teachers and specialist tuition for children with dyslexia in some schools in 3 local authority areas.

• Through the National Strategies, rolling out to all areas this year an Inclusion Development Programme (IDP) designed to increase knowledge and awareness of dyslexia and communication difficulties amongst the schools and early years workforce and improve learning outcomes for this particular group of children

• Providing £150K over two financial years to enable the British Dyslexia Association to develop their helpline, which provides advice about dyslexia – including to teachers and parents.

• Providing £250K over three financial years to enable Dyslexia Action to run further Partnership for Literacy pilots.

Sir Jim Rose has been asked to make recommendations on the identification and teaching of children with dyslexia, and on how best to take forward the commitment in the Children’s Plan to establish a pilot scheme in which children with dyslexia will receive Reading Recovery support or one-to-one tuition from specialist dyslexia teachers.

Sir Jim is being asked include the following sources of evidence in developing his recommendations:

• a summary of published research on the impact of specialist dyslexia teaching and Reading Recovery on progression and outcomes for children with dyslexia, currently being prepared by Dr Chris Singleton of Hull University;

• evaluations of Every Child a Reader, including Reading Recovery, carried out by the Every Child a Chance Trust and the Institute of Education;

• a recently published interim evaluation of the No to Failure Project’s identification of children at risk of dyslexia/ specific learning difficulties;

• No to Failure Project’s final evaluation of the progress made by children identified as being at risk of dyslexia/ specific learning difficulties who have received specialist dyslexia teaching, which the Project expects to publish at the end of this year.

Sir Jim Rose will also consult with the No to Failure Project and other dyslexia organisations in considering his recommendations. He has agreed to prepare a report containing his recommendations early in 2009.

If you would like to receive regular updates on information about education, you can get these free of charge. Just go to http://www.schools.co.uk/subscribe.html where you can sign up. If you are in the business of selling to schools you can sign up to the Education Marketing news group by emailing www.education-marketing-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

Tony Attwood

Hamilton House Mailings plc reg number 2444392 VAT 354907535GB. Phone 01536 399 000.

Every week schools send my office questions - and mostly they are pleas for help.

Below there is a list of questions - this list is just one day’s worth of question.

What we do is forward these questions on to subscribers to our news and information service - and lo and behold they send in the answers.

Here’s the questions - you might find one of them relates directly to a product or service you supply.  And even if you don’t you’ll appreciate that next week or the week after we could be dealing with something that is right up your street.

And if we are, I’ll tell you something very interesting and unexpected, right after this list.

1. I wonder if you can help me with a query.  We are an independent school and need to create a new admissions register.  We wonder if you have any information on where we might be able to buy one or if any of the other schools on your mailing circulation would be able to provide a prompt response.
2. Rats - any ideas from rural schools on safe ways to reduce the population??
3. Hand driers VS paper towels: Anybody looked into whether elec hand driers are more economical than paper towels?? We seem to use up LOADS of paper towels, and the Governors need to be convinced that this is not the way to go…..
4. Cleaning schedules: Do other schools use cleaning schedules for their cleaners to ensure that all areas in school are given a deep clean periodically?
5. What email system do the majority of schools use.  We are experiencing major problems at present with our email provider and wonder whether any schools use Google Mail.  If your school does use Google Mail what is your opinion of it?  What are the safety levels?
6. Can I ask how schools without a dedicated HR/Personnel function manage the ever increasing workload connected with Staff Recruitment/Retention, Staff Policies and Procedures and Employment Law etc especially from, though not exclusively so, a Support Staff perspective.  I seek guidance from an independent school viewpoint – do state schools generally have an HR Dept?
7. I would like to update our software to monitor school fund account and would like to ask other administrators which software they currently use and which they would recommend.
8. I would like to hear from anybody who has or is using the Tucasi School Cash Office and the Dinner Money Management software they are part of RM. I have seen a demo and it looks fantastic, but before I go ahead I would like to have some feedback on it. It would also be very helpful if anybody could recommend any other similar Dinner Money Management software they are aware of. I also would like to hear from any administrators who are or have used RM Integris web based MIS system. This is also something that I am looking into and recommendations would be much appreciated; especially if anyone can recommend a MIS that has a really good HR section. Obviously with the new workforce census coming into place the MIS would need to be compatible.

Now here is my “interesting point”.  All these questions came from school adminstrators who have subscribed to the School Admin News Service that we run.

School administrators, as you can see, are making all sorts of decisions day by day - but amazingly no one is mailing them with information or thoughts on this or any other topic.

If you feel your product or service ought to be considered by the administrators of the school, do give me a call.  We can mention it on this news service, or on an email to all schools, or on the weekly printed newsletter we send out, or as a leaflet in a shared mailing, or….

Interesting, don’t you think?  (Well I do).

Tony Attwood 01536 399 000