Key Facts
- Quick, seamless, smooth transition
- Simple to use
- Complements other systems
- Flexible
- Excellent support when needed
- 90% of parents engaged within 2 weeks
About Rothienorman Primary
Rothienorman Primary is a rural school in Aberdeenshire, with 140 pupils aged 3 to 11. The school’s ethos is to work together with parents to ensure that every child can achieve their full potential.
The challenge
The school needed a UK-based solution that would enable them to communicate with parents and help deliver their remote learning. The system needed to be put in place quickly, with minimum disruption to teachers or families.
To communicate effectively, the school wanted a system that parents would immediately like. One which could be accessed through simple notifications on their phones. Parents are busy, with many working, so accessibility was key, as headteacher Rachel Wood explains:
“We needed a system which allowed us to communicate quickly and easily with our parents. For our pupils to achieve the most, it is important their parents continue to support their education at home. If parents are aware of what is happening in lessons, they can more easily talk with their child about their learning.”
Much more than just messages
The school looked at various systems. The school chose MarvellousMe, Rachel explains why:
“We wanted a system which made it easy to communicate with parents. MarvellousMe sends messages, from teachers and the school office, straight to their mobiles. It’s quick, easy and accessible for parents.
We use MarvellousMe to message parents but are using it for so much more than that. During lockdown, we are using it for daily registers, to share the week’s learning, and to make it easy for parents to access other learning platforms, such as SumDog, and well-being resources like Joe Wicks PE.
For any parents who might need additional support, MarvellousMe also enables them to contact the office or message the teachers in one click. It works seamlessly with our other channels.”
Supercharging children’s achievements
“MarvellousMe also provides a great rewards system, with teachers able to award colourful badges to praise children for their hard work, resilience and achievements. We have personalised the badges to reward our school aims and values and can easily change them whenever we want.
With each badge awarded, the child’s parents are pinged the news in real-time, so they can say “well done” to their child and reinforce the teacher’s positive comments. Formative praise is a key part of our ethos and MarvellousMe helps us to deliver this.
It’s great for keeping spirits up whilst children are remote learning, and once they are back in school, the badges will help us to motivate and celebrate their progress in class, and keep their parents positively engaged.”
Seamless transition
The challenge for any school moving to a new system is always the worry that it will take weeks and be a headache. But that was not the case with MarvellousMe, Rachel says:
“The move to MarvellousMe was straightforward. A simple import of our class data, and once we had parental consent, we were ready to go. The process was easy and the system so simple for everyone to use. Whenever we have needed support or tips, the MarvellousMe team has been amazing, proactive and responsive.
As a headteacher, I can create different groups, and I can easily set up staff members who work with this cohort to award badges to the children and communicate with their parents.
I can also see an overview of the whole school or each class. How many badges are awarded, how many messages have been sent, and what about, and I can see which parents are engaging with their child’s learning. It’s a very flexible system, which is great.”
Positive parental impact
For Rothienorman Primary, using MarvellousMe has allowed them to onboard parents to the system quickly and easily, even whilst they have been at home; Rachel says:
“Within 5 days of using MarvellousMe we had 88% of parents engaged, we had sent 1,259 messages and 2,563 learning activities home, and awarded 277 badges to pupils, and received hundreds of high-fives back showing that parents are engaged in their child’s learning.”
Next steps
As a school who has just started to use MarvellousMe, what is next?
“At the moment, pupils are working remotely. When we get back to school, we will see the full power of what MarvellousMe can do. We look forward to that.”
