What’s your role at Hurworth School?
I’m the Assistant Head teacher (Pastoral Care) at Hurworth School. We are an “outstanding” school who have been modernising our pastoral systems since September 2013. Class Charts has represented a natural stage of progression on that process and has quickly become central to everything we do inside school.
Why did you choose us / what you were looking for?
We heard about you from a partner school in our town wide Darlington Behaviour and Attendance Partnership. Quickly we were able to see how this system built massively and expanded upon the SIMS network, allowing us to offer bespoke interventions and support to pupils.
We were looking for a system which allowed us instant updates, a means to feed our internal pastoral analysis, something which could automatically book sanctions and distribute reward. Something visual to use in daily interactions with individuals and groups and something which could demonstrate and pinpoint what was going well and what needed to improve
I was really attracted to the fact that Class Charts was evolving with us – already intelligence systems. Segmentation of pie charts, development of tutor group reports and tighter parental features have been developed and this has been brilliant.
I wanted to make our pastoral updates and interventions truly interactive and show staff exactly why the interventions and advice was being dispensed. Class Charts was it!
What impact has it had in your school / the benefits in terms of behaviour management?
Already huge we have been able to launch active walkabouts with mobile devices giving a live feed, and allowing instant praise and instant rebuke. This has made the streamlining of the business of pastoral care more useful and more meaningful.
Our Pastoral Bulletin is now essentially a mini weekly INSET and the analytics allow us to produce daily behaviour updates to keep everyone informed.
We are in the process of streamlining how we demonstrate the narrative of a lesson through Class Charts to make improve a holistic approach – making the stats reflect the full story and giving the best possible information and support to all.
What we are like to deal with / customer support?
The best thing about Class Charts is that it is a great product but a developing product- customer service is superb and they are open to innovations and changes to improve the product.
Its not just rhetoric – it comes into fruition.
