Parents will soon be able to use the internet to check up on their children’s progress at school under plans unveiled yesterday by Schools’ Minister Derek Twigg. The strategy will utilise new technology across the education system, granting schools, universities and other associated organisations greater capabilities to meet the particular needs of their learners.
In Harnessing Technology: Transforming Learning and Children’s Services, Twigg sets out plans to have all schools equipped with broadband by 2006, to improve online services for special needs learners and to use online resources to grant parents greater access to their children’s progress reports.
Under the DfES proposals parents will be able to become more connected with their child’s education. Twigg hopes that these measures will help parents, particularly of secondary school pupils, get around the well-known reluctance of children to discuss their school day, by making the information directly available to them online. A pilot of the scheme is already in operation at Millfields Community School in Hackney where parents are encouraged to contact the school by e-mail.
“Imaginative use of ICT will open up a new world of possibilities in education,” Derek Twigg commented. “As far as I can see, there’s no reason why most information shouldn’t be made available. We’re already talking about giving more information to parents, so there’s no reason why it shouldn’t be accessed online.”
Many of Twigg’s proposals are still in the planning stages and no date has been set for the scheme to be fully implemented; it doesn’t yet address the needs of parents without home internet access. While some aspects of the scheme will certainly be beneficial to learners, there is the worry that giving parents such access will only increase the existing pressure on many pupils, and anyway what was so wrong with the default answer of “fine” when asked how things went at school?