Key benefits
- Immediate, positive impact on parental engagement
- 100% of parents engaged
- Friendly interface for parents
- Consistent, positive messages from school
- Reduces the workload for teachers
- Saves time, money and resources
- Fully GDPR compliant
About Pennoweth Primary
Pennoweth Primary is a school of 300 pupils aged 3 to 11 based in Cornwall. The school’s ethos is to provide the very best education and consistently inspire children to aim high and reach their full potential.
The headteacher, Cathryn Andrews, joined the school in January 2020. She had used MarvellousMe in a previous school and was keen to introduce it to Pennoweth.
Parent-friendly
‘What I love about MarvellousMe is that it is such a friendly interface.’
‘Parents who might not have had much opportunity to interact with the school can’t help but smile when they receive a positive message from school celebrating their child’s success. It’s brilliant.’
‘Parents now know that communications from school are generally positive and that we love sharing the good news.’
One app for everything
Parental engagement is essential for a child to achieve their potential, and during the lockdown, the school used MarvellousMe.
‘Using MarvellousMe during lockdown was brilliant. We had 100% of parents on board, and we used it to message parents what work pupils needed to complete with links. We could also send reminders or any other information parents needed.’
‘It was great to know that we were instantly reaching every parent through their phones, regardless of where they were. We didn’t need to wait for them to open an email.’
‘We could also continue to send rewards during the lockdown, and at a time when it was important to praise pupils to raise morale, this was great.
We could reward pupils for their great work, and parents could see it too, celebrating good learning even whilst working remotely.’
Money matters
With MarvellousMe, the praise, rewards and communications are the main features, along with the Reading log, but for Pennoweth Primary, they’ve also realised some other benefits. With school funding tighter than ever, schools need to look to make savings where they can.
‘We’ve been amazed at the amount of time and money MarvellousMe has saved.’
‘Firstly, there’s the fact that we now have a consistent messaging system that goes out to 100% of parents. Secondly, we don’t use paper or postage for parents, so there are great savings there. Then there’s the time saved, no photocopying, very little chasing up as parents respond via the App, so it’s worth its weight in gold.’
Smiles all round
The key to authentic engagement with parents is to make it fun, friendly and enjoyable. MarvellousMe is easy for parents, teachers and pupils, as Cathryn says:
‘For parents, MarvellousMe is a simple app to download; then the notifications mean that they don’t miss anything, and it’s instantly accessible, no passwords to remember or login to a PC. I think that’s why 100% of parents signed up during lockdown.’
‘For pupils, they love it. It’s such a positive thing. When parents are in the playground, you hear them say:
‘Wow, you got a MarvellousMe badge today for good fraction work in maths. Well done!’
Parents are engaged in what is happening in the classroom, and children are more motivated to learn.
We have tailored school badges and ‘Star of the week’, and I love listening to the positive playground conversations; it’s lovely.’
‘For our already busy teachers, it’s so easy to use, so intuitive. It makes sharing good learning with parents very easy. They can use it on the go and share positive news with parents in a couple of clicks, message a group, the class or the school.’
‘MarvellousMe really does create smiles all around.’
Positive Impact
What has the impact been at the school? Cathryn explains:
‘As I said earlier, 100% of parents signed up during lockdown, and they send hundreds of positive high-fives to the school, demonstrating that they are engaged in what happens in their child’s education.’
‘As a Head Teacher, I love that we are celebrating children’s good learning and sharing this with parents daily. We also use MarvellousMe for communications with parents, reminders and low-level permissions. We don’t send paper home anymore; we send newsletters, letters, homework, and all communications through MarvellousMe.’
Next steps
As a school using EdTech to help reduce teacher workload and improve parental engagement, what’s next?
‘I think that it helps parents to have a much better understanding of what work is happening in the classroom, which is excellent. Covid has highlighted how important and effective MarvellousMe is at our school.’
‘It’s continued to support us excellently throughout the pandemic, it’s cost-effective, and we can communicate with every parent at our school. We can even communicate with nan or grandad, which has been lovely.’
‘We may look at using the Reading log in the future as well as investigating other features. But, for me, the main thing I would say about it is that MarvellousMe is the only formal yet friendly interface to communicate with parents.’
‘There is so much going on in parents lives, and this is a brilliant way to keep in touch easily, quickly and positively.’
