What if school iPads could help with parents’ evening?
We think that school iPads could help with parents’ evening if you gave them a chance. Here are a few ways they could help teachers this term.
Things tend to be busy for teachers at this time of year, so we asked, “What if school iPads could help with parents’ evening?” Surely, they could help take some of the pressure off and streamline operations.
This technology is smart, effective, fast and has a great track record of making teachers’ lives easier, so it’s definitely worth considering.
Read on to find out if school iPads could help with parents’ evening at your school this term.
What are the problems at parents’ evening?
We’re not going to pretend that one device will solve all your parents’ evening woes – it still won’t make it possible to get rid of that really … persistent … parent.
However, school iPads could help with parents’ evening in other areas, particularly when it comes to time management.
One thing most teachers say about parents’ evening is that there isn’t enough time to say everything they need to. Instead, they’re sifting through piles of books, registers and notes to make sure they’re not giving out incorrect information.
We think school iPads could help with parents’ evening by alleviating some of these problems. Take a look:
4 ways school iPads could help with parents evening
1. Booking appointments
Booking appointments can be tricky, but possibly better than a free-for-all where parents get bored waiting until a teacher becomes free.
Use a simple enrolment app on an iPad and send a link out to parents via email. They can then pick and choose a slot that’s right for them. Too high-tech? Why not just use a link to a Google sheet instead?
Whatever you do, make sure you have this schedule open all night so things can run smoothly, and everyone gets seen.
2. Keeping everything on time
Sadly, most teachers only get five-minute slots to talk to parents, but school iPads could help with parents’ evening here too!
Set an alert to go off two minutes before your session with that parent ends, and then another when the allocated slot is done. Remember to save a little time for inevitable overrun.
3. Showing reports and specific pieces of work
School iPads have fantastic reporting capabilities, so use them during parents’ evening.
Teachers can pull up a student’s report from specific apps, attendance registers or learning software to show areas of excellence and improvement. This is often displayed in an easy-to-understand format (such as charts or graphs), so can really help illustrate your point.
You can also show examples of their child’s work by using the ‘view screen’ feature together with the Cloud.
This will really help parents understand how their child is performing at school, and is much faster than searching through a pile of books for the right examples.
4. Demonstrate the effectiveness of iPad learning at school
Some parents might be a little sceptical about using iPads in school. This is your opportunity to show them exactly how they’re used in class. You could show them:
- Learning apps – Perhaps suggest some to use at home too
- Communication functionality – How iPads can be used for homework forums and private communication between teacher and student
- Privacy/security settings – Show how these devices are configured to make sure students are not accessing inappropriate content
You see? School iPads could really help with parents’ evening. Try them next time and see how you go!
If you want to know more about how school iPads could help with parents’ evening, ask our team about them today.
