Imagine using the technology your school most likely already has, to send your
school's pupil reports directly to their parents' mobile phones (similar to
the picture on the right), instead of exclusively relying on the traditional
methods of delivery.
Would that impress the parents? Would it be more convenient for the parents? We
at School Report Services think so. Here's why ...
Based on our research of parents with school-going children, every single parent
stated that such a report delivered directly to their mobile phone would add
value to their lives - and they were prepared to pay the school extra for the
convenience. More on that later. The parents were shown the exact example as
seen on the right.
Because of the international nature of our service, we
first have to clear up some terminology.
In some countries, what we call a SCHOOL REPORT is not the actual grades
or results of the students. In these countries, a school report refers to a
report on the school itself - location, number of students, demographic profile,
pupil/teacher ratios, subjects offered, funding sources, financial statements,
governing body members, etc., etc. ... What we call a school report, these
countries call a PUPIL REPORT or PROGRESS REPORT.
Regardless of your local terminology, when we talk about a SCHOOL REPORT
on this site, we mean the results of the individual student per term or
semester.
Below we are going to explain in detail how your school can leverage the mobile
phone phenomenon to boost your school's image in the eyes of the parents of
pupils in your school.
You might be wondering why we are focusing so much on the parents of pupils that
attend your school, or parents of prospective pupils?
The answer is simple. Your school is a business. The parents are your main
customers! They are the ones that pay the school fees. They are the ones you
have to impress. They are the ones you have to direct your marketing efforts to.
They are the ones that are going to judge and compare your school with their own
expectations, and perhaps even with other schools (your competition).
It is in your school's best interests to satisfy the parents wants, needs, and
expectations. As you know, when it comes to their children, parents react very
strongly.
Therefore, anything that can make the parents lives easier - especially
regarding their children -
IS GOOD FOR BUSINESS!!!
School Report Services can help with at least one aspect of providing such
convenience.
Together, we will:
- look at historic and current pupil report delivery mechanisms,
- analyze the pros and cons of the various delivery mechanisms,
- discover why sending reports via SMS is good for business,
- learn how to comply with privacy legislation (the legal stuff),
- understand our SMS school report delivery process,
- and more ...
|
Image produced by
Kondor Photograhic
The above image features:
- An opening phrase - "School Report for" which identifies exactly what the
message is.
- Pupil initials and a very long last name (this can be altered to first name
only, if privacy and security are a concern).
- Ten subjects - each with:
- a 4-letter abbreviation;
- a grade level: High, Standard, Low;
- a 2- to 3-digit percentage (this can be altered to your school's grading
method).
- An overall "PASS" or "FAIL" statement.
|
A Quick History Lesson. School Reports 101 ...
Shown below are a sampling of various school reports through the years, some as
old as 1912, some as recent as 2007.
There is an overall theme to all these reports -
GRADES! The grades may
be weekly, monthly, per term or semester, or yearly. The grades may be
percentages, relative positions in the class, or letters representing ranges of
achievement - but the fact remains that
parents are interested in GRADES!
With the schooling system as it is, regular grades or measurable results
are
still the best way to guage a pupil's academic progress.
Click in any of the pictures below to see a larger image. Only the relevant
grades have been highlighted. All other personal information contained in the
report has been obscured to protect the particular individual's right to
privacy.
1912
|
1912
|
1922
|
1930
|
1936
|
1939
|
1943
|
1945
|
1946
|
1947
|
1955
|
1955
|
1961
|
1962
|
1983
|
1996
|
2003
|
2004
|
2007
|
|
Uncanny, isn't it? The old adage seems to apply. The more things change, the
more they stay the same. Basically, the pupil reports and school reports from
2003 - 2007 are not much different in essence than the report from 1912 - they
are still written on paper (made from wood - which we seem to be using faster
than we plant), the delivery mechanism is still pretty much the same (posted,
collected, given to the students to give to their parents ...).
The Bad News Is ...
If you school is fortunate enough to have it's own website, perhaps you publish
the school reports there - hopefully securely. Perhaps you email them to the
parents. That is great! Better than paper perhaps - but still with limitations.
All school report distribution media and methods have their limitations. For
paper-based reports these include, but are not limited to:
- The cost of paper and ink (and printers, and stationery supplies).
- The cost and time for postal delivery with the risk of non-delivery (in some
countries with inadequate infrastructure, this is a major concern).
- Collected reports usually have to be collected at certain times. These
collection times often are not convenient for the parents, who have to take
leave, time off work, battle traffic, perhaps wait a while at the school, ...
- Reports given to the students to hand to their parents, often get damaged,
perhaps even altered, and may never even get delivered.
Using electronic media like websites and email also have their limitations:
- You need to own a server to host your site (plus have the expertise on hand
to develop and maintain the website, and the server in a secure manner) - or
you need to pay someone else, like an internet hosting company - to do it for
you.
- In today's tubulent online world, can you actually be sure that all reports
hosted on your site, are only seen by their intended recipients? Insecure site
design has been the cause of many privacy breaches on school websites.
- Sometimes parents do not want to view such personal material at work or at an
internet cafe. If they don't have internet at home, this can be a real problem.
In the affluent countries, this may not be much of a problem, but what of poorer
areas, or developing counties, where internet connection is NOT a given?
- Email suffers from similar problems and worse. In most cases email is NOT
private. Many people don't know this, but many companies, and internet
service providers are legally compelled by their governments to keep archives of
all email sent and received - at least for a time. If your email is not
purposely encrypted, it is actually open to anyone who cares to read it. Email
can and does get intercepted by who knows who.
- Often, personal email account's logon particulars are known to many family and
extended family members. This makes email even less private.
The Good News Is ...
OK, so we've knocked the most popular school report delivery mechanisms. Does
sending a grade report or pupil report summary via SMS have any limitations? The
answer is categorically - YES! But is has some advantages over the above
delivery mechanisms too.
- Because it
is short, it has to be powerful
... and give the parents exactly what they want - their child's grades.
This means you can't go into detail about little Johnny's behaviour in class,
how pleasant he is to teach, etc. The 160 character limit forces you to get
directly to the point - no fluff!
- It is quick to deliver.
Thousands of reports can be delivered in a few minutes -
PLUS your school will get a delivery report back, to tell you exactly
which reports were successfully delivered.
- For reports that are "impossible" to
deliver - you get a refund
... and the cost of the re-tries are ours. You can't get a better deal than
that!
- The pupil's report is conveniently
delivered to where the parent is.
As long as there is mobile phone coverage, they will get their child's report.
The parents can be at home, at work, shopping, in the car, wherever - the
reports will be delivered directly to where they are. Talk about convenience! No
fighting traffic, no taking time off work, no standing in queues, no schedule
interruptions, ....
- The parents can get the full report from
the school at a time convenient for
THEM.
This is your opportunity to engage with the parent personally - and hopefully
without the parents being tired, frustrated, antagonistic, etc.
As much as we would like to tout our service as the ultimate "sliver bullet" of
reporting - it isn't. No report, or technological mechanism can ultimately
replace one-on-one communication with the parents.
- It's easy to send multiple copies of the
pupil's report.
In today's modern world, the family unit is not like it was in the past. Parents
get separated or divorced. That's reality. Now it's easy to send a second copy
of the report to the other parent - with almost no extra effort!
- Sending reports
INTERNATIONALLY is
not a problem.
We can send pupil's SMS School Reports to over 170 countries! Chances
are, your school is located in one of those countries -
and if it isn't, contact us and we will try and make a plan. You can see our
current list of countries here.
- We help you get the details right.
The report has to be processed by an SMS provider so the report
file has to be in a particular format. This means a bit of work on the part of
the school to get the reports in the correct format.
We can ease the pain, and supply your school with a Microsoft Excel
spreadsheet that takes the bulk of the burden off you and we supply you with
the exact format the file has to conform to in case you prefer to generate
the file yourselves directly from your existing systems or databases.
These are available as downloads to registered users.
- The pupil's reports are private.
The pupil's reports are only sent to the mobile numbers you give us. We
don't need or want matching particulars.
We will sign a reciprocal non-disclosure agreement with your school. When
you register, you will have access to this download.
We will also give your school a sample newsletter with an attached
parental consent form. You can get this sample newsletter as a free
download from our downloads section.
In addition, because the SMS report format is flexible, you can ommit the last
name of the pupil, and only use the pupil's first name. These facilities
and assurances increase the privacy of the school report record.
- We don't replace your existing reporting
systems.
Our SMS reporting service is not meant to replace your existing pupil
reporting methods -
just enhance it with a little something extra!
The Legal Stuff ... How Is My School Protected?
In many countries, there is strict legislation regarding privacy protection, and
the disclosure of private records. In other countries, there is almost no
legislation regarding privacy protection (
if your school operates in such a
country, you can skip this section). In most countries however, there are
various laws around providing private and public information to third parties,
such as us at School Report Services.
Because this is such a complex subject, and every country has their own laws, we
are not going to go into a detailed discussion. However, there is a common
thread to all the legislation and it is this:
If personal information has to be
provided to a third party by an institution, the owner/person whose information
it is, has to give the institution permission to disclose specific information.
This permission usually has to be given in writing. If the personal information
is concerning a "minor" (this varies from under 12 years old to under 21
years old, depending on the country), the parent(s) or legal guardians of
that person have to give the consent for information disclosure.
In some countries, parents or guardians need to get the permission of their
children before consenting to any information disclosure regarding the
particular child.
To comply with the above principle, we have
included a template newsletter
outlining the school reporting service that we provide, giving examples, and all
relevant information, for the reader (
i.e. the parents) to be able to
make an informed decision. As part of that newsletter,
a personal information
disclosure consent form is attached.
The newsletter and consent form are
entirely editable by your school, so
you can adjust it to fit the legal conditions of your country. The school will
have to keep these consent forms on file in case queries arise.
For even extra legal protection, we will sign a reciprocal
non-disclosure
agreement with your school if you so wish. That agreement will
include
our privacy policy, and an undertaking by all parties not to disclose each
other's information to other parties.
The above resources are available in the
downloads
section of our site. You will need to
register to access the formal agreements.
All the above, in conjunction with our standard
Terms and Conditions on this website, should provide you with all the legal
assurances your school requires.
Ready to give it a go?
You have nothing to lose, and everything to gain.
It doesn't matter if your school is large or small - we will be happy to be of
service to you.
Want to try us out before committing your entire school? No problem! Just send
us the reports for one or two classes to start with. This will give you a feel
for our service without a large financial commitment.
Talking of financial commitment -
see how your school can get our services
for JUST ABOUT NOTHING! The details are
outlined in our
Proposal document on the
Downloads page.
By registering, you will have access to our full range of services and
downloads. Registering is
FREE.
REGISTER HERE.
PS:
Want to market your school to all your stakeholders, prospective clients, and
suppliers in a unique way? ...
Why not try our
Customized Location Pin service? It's
cheap, and you don't need to register for our SMS reporting service to take
advantage of it.