The way we’re teaching in the classroom is changing, and it’s time to review the way we communicate and engage with the whole school community. Following the removal of national curriculum levels, schools have been given a measure of freedom as to how they teach the curriculum. Some may think this is an improvement – but it begs the question - does that make it more difficult for parents to understand how to read the performance of their child?

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.

Schools across the UK are streamlining parental engagement with My School App, an innovative new platform that allows staff to send relevant news, updates and events to parents and guardians. Created by developers Pixelhead Creative, the software is tailored to each individual school’s needs, with digital flyers also supplied for printing and distributing. This resource is free to download. The first 10 sign-ups to mention Innovate My School will receive six months free-of-charge, with a further 20% off the set-up costs.

Curious teachers from across the UK are signing up to take part in the first ever Teacher Email Challenge. From the 9th October teachers will be sent 14 fun and snappy challenges across 14 days, designed to promote collaboration, share ideas and raise a smile in the classroom.

At the heart of any outstanding school is a commitment to the wellbeing and success of all of its pupils. All members in the school community have an impact on children’s attainment either directly or indirectly, so ensuring a core focus on learners and learning is essential to creating an optimised learning environment.

While our schools generally remain a safe haven for children, enabling parents to part with their little ones each morning, confident that they are out of danger, emergencies do happen making it crucial for schools and parents to be prepared, should the worst come to pass.

What is digital citizenship? If you asked ten people to define it, you’d most likely receive ten different answers. Why is this term so difficult to define? It’s complicated, and the terms “digital” and “citizenship” are broad. Perhaps it’s because we are constantly evolving with upgrades and new ways to consume and produce electronic media? Or maybe we just don’t know enough about digital citizenship and our fear dictates our decisions to block and ban what we don’t understand? Whatever the reason may be, digital citizenship is everyone’s responsibility.

Staff and pupils from Ysgol Cae Top, Bangor, have teamed up with local IT company Semantise Ltd to help parents keep up to date with the school's activities. Innovative iPhone and Android app eeZeeTrip enables parents to quickly see details of the school events and trips children are going on. eeZeeTrip was the brainchild of Llew Davis, headteacher at Cae Top, who wanted to solve the problem of the large number of letters going to and from home.

One of the most important parts of my job has to do with finding new ways to connect our parent community to the school. In some areas where I have worked this has not been a big problem. I have experienced schools with strong parent councils, and parents groups who have the time to put a great deal of time and resources into the school.

School Spider's newest addition to their ICT-oriented product set provides parents with a free-to-use push notification and messaging app. The resource allows schools to send messages to all parents, with the School Spider app available at zero cost.