Theme 2: Communication Underpins Everything

Many of the individual adult participants mentioned the fact that that they like to be able to talk directly to important stakeholders about education. Schools have many ways in which they communicate with their parents, governors, staff and the local community, but several of the participants commented that Twitter is a practical social media platform. It is extremely visual, quick to use and can be accessed by anyone who has a laptop, tablet or Smartphone, even if they are not linked directly with the pupil population (provided that the school operates an open or public access account).

In their questionnaire responses at the start of the main phase, two parents alluded to the fact that Twitter quickly became their number one choice when it came to seeing their child involved in learning. One remarked that she probably wouldn’t know anything about what her children were doing in school if it wasn’t for the Twitter feed, as the children were often “hard to get information out of” (questionnaire respondent no.6). Another parent stated that seeing photographs meant that he felt “connected” to his child in a way that he had not previously (questionnaire respondent no. 16).

Table 2: Examples of pilot study transcript extracts – Communication underpins everything

Selected examples of significant statements

Significant statement Formulated meaning Theme/s Overarching Theme/s

“Those of them who react really well and respond really well to their mums and dads knowing what’s going on, it’s like that - look here it is”.

M – p.14 lines 1-2

Children want to tell their parents what they’ve been doing in school.

Parents Communication

“It’s a very real form of writing”.

M – p.15 line 14

Children need to have real audience for / purpose behind their writing

Curriculum Communication

“You ask them ‘what did you do at school today?’ and they say ‘nothing’, so at least that way we would have an idea about what they are doing”.

Parents and other stakeholders need to know what’s going on in school

Community Parents Friends Family Staff Pupils Communication

82

S – p.10 lines 13-14 “It’s going to have an up to date notice board on there of what’s coming up, details of anything that’s going on at the school”. S – p.6 lines 18-19

Parents need to be regularly updated with school news

Community Parents Friends Family Staff Pupils Communication

In the second phase of the study, the Twitter ‘bio’ was considered by the researcher to be of central importance. A biography (or ‘bio’) is a short account description that introduces the Twitter feed and explains something about the account holder. The Twitter bio for this particular school was “Where we share our learning” and sharing learning with others was one of the main reasons the school reported setting up its account in the first place:

So we can share as a school family some of the really great things that have been happening (R – p.7 lines 3-4).

When the school set up its Twitter account (prior to involvement from the researcher) the senior staff team was keen to open up a new communication channel with parents. From interview discussions it appeared that parental engagement with Twitter was a way to get the children talking about school:

Parents love it! From your research the parents said they love it! What they like is the classic comedy if you like “what did you do in school today?” “Nothing!” I mean I remember saying it to my mother when I was in school and nine times out of ten it’s because they don’t want to engage with their parents, they wanna go home and play on their x-box or be left alone or whatever and they are killing the conversation because they didn’t want it. Whereas I think now the parents are saying “I noticed in

school today you did this” and then the children are…not being forced but being

coaxed towards…I think it opens a conversation (R – p. 8 lines 18-22 & p.9 lines 1-5). A parent made a similar comment about the interaction with her son about his learning:

(Twitter is) a good conversation starter and it gives them that bit more of a voice and confidence to tell them, you get a bit more out of him...so using the Twitter post I was able to say “Yeah I noticed you did this, this and this today and I bet that was really

good” (S – p.9 lines 9-14).

I think that it’s great because you can look at is as a parent and can get engaged with their learning and it’s not boring stuff, it’s relevant to them in the lesson (S – p.10 lines 17-19).

83 The pupils also felt that by creating and posting their own Tweets, it helped them to speak to their wider family about school:

I told my uncles and grandparents about it and they were interested about Twitter because quite a lot of my family use it (H & Z – p.5 lines 17-18).

It was exciting because people could see the good learning that we were doing (D & S p.5 lines 9-10).

When I Tweeted I would go home and go on Twitter, the school Twitter and I would show my mum and dad my Tweets and they would be happy (D & S p.6 lines 11-13). One male teacher mentioned the fact that the Twitter account even has a role to play in keeping the Head Teacher up to date with what is happening:

X goes home every night lies in bed and looks at Twitter so that she knows what is going on in the school every day…she can actually look at live footage (R – p.9 lines 17- 20).

And it was clear that the school senior management team had thought carefully about the way that the account could help them to make bigger connections in a global context:

In that way it brings people in. I mean how it extends out, I suppose it’s global it doesn’t matter where you are (R – p.10 lines 8-9).

During the research, this was achieved by linking the children up to celebrity Twitter accounts to help motivate the children (as in the Jamie Oliver example below) and by thanking local businesses for helping them to organise school trips:

That’s right because Tesco sent us a banana poem so we read that and we Tweeted that and sent it back (J – p.13 lines 13-15).

The Tweet back (from Jamie Oliver) was ‘wow thank you class 3’ or something so they were buzzing really, so yeah definitely I think it’s an excellent communicating tool and I think the more we use it for those purposes then they will understand that (N – p.6 lines 18-20).

Staff reported that the school Twitter account has a big part to play in helping parents feel part of their child’s educational experiences:

It’s things like sports day when we had the lovely images and some parents miss out on that and we are so lucky that we get to see it every day, but parents just don’t, and I think it’s lovely that they have that opportunity to see their children in all aspects of their school life, so it might be their Maths learning but it might be them having an

84 amazing day in sports day if they weren’t able to make it. It’s just getting that community feeling where everybody is involved I think (K – p.8 lines 7-13).

Twitter’s been the biggest impact on building home to school links, because even parents that work can come and access it, and at the end of the day they might not drop their children and pick them up from school, yet at night before they go to bed I know lots of parents check on Twitter (A – p.10 lines 1-4).

They could also identify that Twitter helped them to make links with other people not just with the parents:

It’s brilliant for communication with parents, but also other people…it’s not just a tool for taking photos it is actually a tool for communicating (N – p.6 lines 16-18).