BETT: Real-time reporting for students

Parents are to have online, real-time access of their children's progress in school by 2010, the schools minister said today.

Jim Knight, the minster of state for schools and learners, told attendees of the BETT conference in London today that secondary schools must offer web-based access to progress reports for parents by 2010, with primary schools following two years later.

"We know from schools around the country that if families are going to be involved in their children's education really effectively, they need a good two-way flow of information," he said in his speech, which opened the show -- the largest gathering for educational technology in the world.

He continued: "[We need] a channel which is more efficient and more frequent than a once a year written report, or a letter home when there is a problem or something to celebrate."

The reports would be accessible "where and when" parents like, via the web, and could include grades, attendence, assignments, awards, class schedules and also "behaviour events". Knight walked through an example of such a system already in use at Shireland Collegiate Academy, showing attendees how he could log into the web-based portal -- in this case, supplied by Serco -- and view an imaginary student's classes for the day, as well as recieve reports about behaviour and assignments not completed.

"That is a real-life example of how technolgy is working," he said.

Knight said that information could be used to spur conversations with students at home, to encourage better performance and reward good results.

"Real-time reporting is not a substitute for real interaction... but a supplement," he said.

But Knight noted that not all parents have internet access in their homes to take part in the programme. A home access taskforce was launched at the BETT conference last year, but it won't be reporting until April this year. So, alongside the real-time reporting initiative, Knight announced £105 million in additional funding for technology to be issued in the next few weeks as part of the next spending round. Some £30 million of that will be targeted at low income families to help bridge the digital divide and ensure parents have internet access.

Knight also announced that a trial which sent text messages to parents to alert them of absent students would be rolled out to another 200 schools via government technology partner Becta.

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