Andrew Mulholland, chief marketing officer at Groupcall, discusses how schools can elevate effective edtech use and teacher workload to the top of the leadership agenda:

We pose this question to Lynne Taylor, cofounder of data protection specialists GDPRiS:

With the deadline to be compliant with the new General Data Protection Legislation (GDPR) just around the corner, schools are scrambling to get prepared. Whilst the GDPR does represent a change from the Data Protection Act, achieving compliance may be simpler than you realise. Groupcall, in association with GDPRiS, has put together a short guide for schools to follow – it’s divided into 12 manageable steps to walk you through the list of tasks needing to be addressed.

One of the undisputable diary dates for this scholastic year is 25th May 2018 – when the new data protection regulation will become enforceable. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) replaces the Data Protection Act, which was based on European legislation passed in 1995. Since then, the world of personal data has changed beyond all recognition so the rules needed a significant overhaul. This now means that schools have to go through a robust process to ensure compliance in time for the deadline.

Groupcall has been developing software to improve school-home communications for 15 years. Recently we published an e-book summarising the academic research relating to parental engagement, top tips for helping schools put together a parental engagement strategy and a glossary of the best EdTech tools available to support best practice in this area.