I thought I’d share a site with you that was shared with me. You may have heard about it, but you probably haven’t. I hadn’t either until this morning!
The website is called Parent View and it allows parents to record their thoughts about their child’s school. Visitors to the website can then look at the findings and (I presume) judge the schools depending on what parents have said. Sounds a bit like the ‘Rate my Teacher’ website from a little while ago (or the ‘Rate my Doctor’ website that was ridiculed in an episode of Scrubs). So is it a good idea? Let’s start with the first point…
Who runs the website? Ofsted.
So is this because they want to see what parents say and then come and visit with that data in mind? If 20 parents (or 200?) click ‘strongly disagree’ enough times, will the inspectors come knocking?
Now to give them credit they have set it up so that users ahve to register before commenting on a school and each email address can only be used once, if you try writing a 2nd time it will over-write the first one and so on. Of course a REALLY malicious parent could have multiple email addresses but there’s not much that can be done about that I guess.
My question is who will be the parents that will bother filling this in? Will it be the majority? No. I think it will be the ones with something to get off their chest.
One flaw is that results are just shown ‘as-is’ without any time filtering. Now anyone that has used Trip Advisor will know, you only want results from the past 6 months or a year. What about the school going through difficulties now, but clears them in 3 years? Will their data still show that parents are unhappy? Surely filtering by latest results would be nicer and ore useful?
Another question is, what do schools do about it? My school is classed as ‘outstanding’ by Ofsted so my approach will be different to other people’s I’m sure but we will be adding the link to the voting and results pages on our school website. I am doing this partly because there are so many ‘St John the Baptist Primary Schools’ and partly because I think it is better to be open with these kind of things rather than hiding them away in case a parent has something negative to say.
So, you’re curious to see what parents have said about your school aren’t you? Well the website can be found here: http://parentview.ofsted.gov.uk/
And just for fairness, here is the link to my school’s (currently blank) results page: http://parentview.ofsted.gov.uk/parent-view-results/survey/result/12065/1
Is this website a good idea? Will you use it? For the parents out there, will you go and rate you child’s school?
Having had a look at the site myself, I believe it is possible to input completely made-up names and email addresses and still gain access to the rating area. Doesn’t seem very well-designed, to me…
Thanks for this overview, Ian. I had heard about the website but didn’t know the finer points. The idea of it made me slightly uneasy and now I know more, I’m still feeling that way.
I think you make a valid point about who is going to take the time to respond. It’s human nature: I once heard that if you receive bad service you tell 10 people, but only share good service with two. I wonder if this site will be be subject to such a notion? And if it is, is it painting a true picture? And indeed, what do Ofsted plan to do with that? Lots to consider!
I think it is interesting that despite the concerns you raise about the legitimacy of this system as a forum for truly representative parent feedback, you are still considering legitimising it by promoting it on your school website. I wonder whether rather than promoting this potentially flawed system, you would be better implementing your own using some free web tools that would engage the full spectrum of parents and allow you to get truly representative feedback.
Making my own survey has already been added to my to-do list. I plan to bring this up in the staff meeting this week and see if it is something that others think we should do. After all, it will be a management decision how we proceed. I do think our one will be more valuable, however schools could do this and remove the ‘dodgy’ comments!
I posted my own thoughts about Parentview on my blog a couple of weeks back when the site was launched to the public http://www.ictsteps.com/2011/10/parent-view/. I consider the site to be a complete joke as how else could you explain a system which allows anyone to register a false email to vote on a school? I have emailed OFTSED with my concerns but have yet to hear back from them, not even an acknowledgement! I registered a false email, chose a school at random then selected strongly disagree for every question asked. I never submitted my results but the system is open to serous abuse. It’s yet another failed attempt by the Government and OFSTED to try to move education forward.
I think a lot will depend on the school & it’s catchment. As a HT, my schools were in areas of social deprivation where we were lucky to get a handful of the old style paper questionnaires for parents. I’m sure that there will be the same sort of response for the online site.
However, if you have a more articulate parent body, there maybe more. I would hope that any problems identified on the site would already be known to the school. If not, at least it gives an idea of what is out there & gives a chance to take some action. However, if parents have a gripe, they usually want it dealt with immediately not wanting to wait for a ground swell of comments which would be needed to flag up to Ofsted.
In principle I believe it is a really good idea. It has the potential to really change how schools interact with parents and deal with problems. I will use your example of Trip Advisor. This has transformed the way some people pick and choose their holidays. It is amazing how much trust we put in the ratings of hotels from complete strangers. But people do trust those comments and book holidays based on the ratings.
Obviously, in schools this could be the difference between a parent sending their child to your school or the one around the corner.
I too have concerns as to which parents will actually use the website and use it fairly. I think schools can combat this by promoting in newsletters and on their website.
It will only be successful for your school if you embrace it and use it as a tool to engage parents more!
Many people may jump on the ‘Parents… huh… they’ll just complain!’ bandwagon however, having been in the hot seat of Head teacher for a few months, it is easy to feel that parents will just complain. I still have faith in parents, I have found that there are only a few that complain and there will be a pattern to this.. a X% that will be the same in EVERY school. After speaking to many parents in my role as ‘Acting Head’ I have seen another side. The ‘Vast Majority’ of parents (at Heathfield) absolutely LOVE the school and many of them felt that OfSTED did not dig anywhere near deep enough to capture the character of the school in their report in March 2011 – possibly more to do with the current inspection system. The parents know the school very well and yes, we hear about the complaints when things are not going well, but we also have to understand that we in school will hardly ever hear about the things that are going well. Parents expect things to be going well so why would they ever feel the need to come and tell us? If it will be possible to view the thoughts/gradings by parents, then I am pretty sure that if Heathfield shows as being targeted by a ‘small minority’, the ‘vast majority’ will action themselves too. If they don’t then publicising the messages/grades by the ‘small minority’ will be something I would consider doing.
Recently, I sent out one of those ‘parent feedback’ questionnaires that OfSTED send out. Yes, we received some GREAT feedback and yes, we received some less than constructive feedback too. When reporting to parents, I included some of these less than constructive snippets and it really wound some of the ‘vast majority’ up. I have faith in the ‘vast majority’ that they will defend the school privately and publicly too.
Time will tell!
I was able to sign up today, and i don’t live in the UK. Dodgy stuff I say. Thank you for highlighting it Ian.