Hilbre High School in Wirral, Merseyside Improves Parental Engagement With Call Parents Technology

Hilbre High School in Wirral, Merseyside is taking a proactive approach to improving communication with parents by installing Call Parents (www.callparents.com). This technology allows school staff to send texts, automated phone calls and emails to inform parents regularly about their child’s progress and school activities such as parents’ evenings and closures. Should parents not own a mobile phone, Call Parents translates the text into voice and delivers it to a landline phone. The Government recently announced that 82% of parents wished they had more information about their child’s school life, with a mere 16% of children volunteering information to their parents about their day at school*. By installing Call Parents, Hilbre High School is taking positive steps to address this by engaging parents with their child’s learning and development. Miss Levenson, Head Teacher at Hilbre High School comments: “This technology has helped us to contact parents a lot more efficiently. Previously we had to call all the parents individually, now we simply press a button and Call Parents does the job for us! A text message is not only immediate, it is easy to read and less formal than a letter, so it allows us to engage with parents who are otherwise hard to reach.” The technology reads live parent, governor and teacher contact information from the school’s management system and can send messages to the parents of pupils ordered by class, year or other groups. In addition, live pupil contact information can be used to send messages directly to students, which is especially useful for schools with sixth forms. It enables them to instantly communicate all important messages, not only concerning progress but also about attendance, school closures, outings, parents’ evenings, event cancellations and report cards. Stephen Clarke, Managing Director of Call Parents, adds: “Hilbre High School is setting an excellent example for other schools in Wirral, Merseyside by using the latest developments in technology to build greater collaborative relationships with parents. The technology relieves support staff from making all those calls and reassures schools that messages are reaching parents rather than getting left in the bottom of school bags.” For more information on how Call Parents can benefit your school, please call 0870 046 4246, email sales@truancycall.com or visit www.callparents.com. *According to a 2009 Becta survey of 1,000 11-14 year olds and their parents.

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