Welcome to Day 9 of the 2020 Appvent Calendar!
A consistent feature throughout the AppventCalendar event so far has been those tools and apps which have really helped to make a difference to communication, collaboration and teaching and learning throughout the pandemic. In the early years and primary setting one such tool that has continued to support and help teachers and learners is today’s entry on the calendar. It is the super useful app and portal for teachers, ReallySchool!
What is ReallySchool?
ReallySchool is an app and portal for Early Years and Primary practitioners to use to help them record, assess and share EYFS and Primary school pupils’ learning and development. Super easy to use, ReallySchool, developed by the superb NetSupport Group, was designed from the ground up with teachers along its entire journey with one simple goal; helping EYFS and Primary teachers do their jobs more easily, more efficiently and with flexible tools to allow them to track progress, identify learning gaps, boost parental engagement and support the continuation of learning at home.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xonv1G7-gH0
Home Learning
Already a superb tool to improve communication about a child’s progress at school with a parent/guardian, ReallySchool really came into its own during the lockdown and since then. It wasn’t just the ability to share a child’s progress and other aspects of daily school life that was able to be shared between the school and home, other activities and content were easily shared too. Using ReallySchool, teachers are able to share remote learning activities such as video, photos, audio clips and notes on how to complete home learning activities. Equally, parents can use the platform to submit evidence of work undertaken and completed back to the teacher too.
The built-in notification system means that neither parent nor teacher ever have to feel out of touch about feedback, achievements, progress and more. The benefit of this is that whilst a lot of anxiety might have been felt by children, parents/guardians or even teachers – everyone is part of the loop and that’s a great win for all those key stakeholders so that everyone feels completed supported by what is happening with their child in relation to their schooling, even if they haven’t been able to physically attend school.
Simple to use
Adding rich content to messages to children, parents or vice versa is a simple activity using the intuitive user interface.
As a teacher, you just simply choose to send a note to your class, choose from the handy icons at the bottom of the screen about what type of content you’d like to attach, attach it and then just hit send. The beauty of this for parents is that it isn’t just really simple, they can easily access this on any of their devices too, even their smartphone. ReallySchool works on both Android and iOS which makes it superbly accessible for parents too, regardless of their device.
Described by one school as:
a great resource that is very effective in supporting practitioners as they collect and collate observations of our children’s learning and progress.
Check out some of these features:
Parents can easily share out of school achievements – parents can easily add photos, audio notes, videos and text notes to demonstrate their child’s achievements from home as part of home learning or other activities such as distance swimming awards, for example;
EYFS 2020 is available for all assessments – if you want to use the assessments earlier than required, they’re all already built-in ready for you to use or trial, with your children and classes;
Observation counters – a simple to view dashboard which gives you a clear overview of all of the observations made relating to all of the children in your class/classes;
Easily observe reports from previous years – a great feature for teachers is to be able to easily see reports and observations of learners from previous years, great for transition and checking on learner progress, all of which help build that rapport and knowledge that is essential in helping us do our best job for the children we serve.
To sum up
ReallySchool is a great tool to support teachers, families and children and is jam-packed with lots of simple to use, access and share, features which make it a seriously compelling offer for EYFS and Primary settings.
To find out more, visit their website here or follow them on Twitter here.
This is a sponsored post
