If you don’t know how you’re doing, how do you know it’s working? Many people deliberately avoid getting feedback in the fear that they are going to get negative comments or highlight known issues. 

Isn’t that the point?

At the end of the day, if they aren’t telling you about them, they are telling someone. So, would you not rather know?

The iTCHYROBOT Team have been working alongside schools to support their communication strategies. With the aim of streamlining and improving how they communicate with their parents and carers, and we have seen some great results!

When should you be getting feedback?

In my view, feedback should be consistent and happens without us even realising. For example, a parent in the playground may say “Oh, Oliver loved that science lesson you did about planets, or a social media post may comment on a recent trip telling you how much Stephanie loved it. It doesn’t always have to be formal, but hearing it is great.

I get parent feedback through Parent View so why do I need to do more?

Parent view is a great opportunity to get feedback, but it is limited. The questions are just general and not tailored to your school so you may only be hearing half a story.

In addition, when parents/carers complete these forms, they go directly to the DfE. You only have sight of these questions and answers once the recipient numbers are over a certain amount.

When do parents pro-actively complete a Parent View questionnaire? I’ll tell you. They either have a problem and want to air it, or you have an impending Ofsted. Unfortunately, if this lands during a bad time at the school where issues have been part of the daily grind, your feedback could be swayed negatively.

If you were to take say, two questionnaires a year and send these out to Parents/carers, you also have a back-up of evidence to show any stakeholders or inspectors that you are performing well.

What should I be asking?

Alongside the general information and questions about how safe and happy their child is at school, you could also incorporate more questions around how they engage with the school, how they find out information, how they want to find out information. We all know that many of the problems encountered within a school setting is due to a miscommunication, or more detrimental to that – no communication.

You may want to ask how effective they believe current communications are? What communication channels do they use? Just because several schools in the area send out a weekly newsletter doesn’t mean it will work for your parents.

Wouldn’t you like to streamline your comms, know that when you send a communication or message that your parents know where to access it and more importantly DO access it? It is all about managing expectations and getting this very important knowledge can assist your school in meeting the expectations of parents/carers and improving the communication process by doing so.

So how do I do it?

There are many ways of sending a survey or questionnaire to your parents/carers including Survey Monkey, hard copies, using your website. The iTCHYROBOT Schools platform comes integrated with an intelligent survey system that can be customised at the touch of a button, and saves mounds of paper and resource. 

Share the link on your social platforms, text messages or apps that you are using and ensure that you are monitoring the feedback and have a plan in place to review the answers and let your parents know that their comments have been received, taken on board and what changes may be undertaken as a result of it.

How Do You Know Your Communications Work?

If you aren’t measuring the effectiveness of your communications, you may be frittering your school’s budget away. Our Comms Audit provides a structure for managing, measuring and providing the information for you to assess the effectiveness of your communications, potentially saving your staff time and your school money.

For a limited time only, we are offering a discount on our School Communications Audit.

To experience guaranteed improvements to your school’s communications strategy, book today.