Staff Communication – CPD

Overview

Marie-Louise Brogan is Depute Headteacher at Holy Family Primary school in Kirkintilloch, East Dunbartonshire. As part of her remit she is required to source, book and organise training for staff in line with the School Improvement plan as well as organise cover as required for all staff.

In this cookbook we’ll look at how Marie-Louise used the filter tool on the ‘What’s On’ web part in Glow to ‘work smarter’ and maintain communication while reducing paper trail.

All Staff Communication Calendar

Context

The organisation of CPD and staff cover within the school had always been of a high standard and was systematic.  Procedures were in place both electronically using the Staff Shared area on the school network and through paper correspondence to ensure staff were familiar with CPD courses, attendees and cover.

With the introduction of Glow to Holy Family Primary School a Glow Group was developed to be used as the main Staff Communication area in order to ensure openness and collegiality.  The glow group provided a place to share information, documents and policies with all staff at any time.

It was agreed that to ensure collegiality, all calendar information would be entered into one central calendar area in the Glow Group to make sure there was one fundamental point for booking visitors, events, meetings etc.  As a result Marie-Louise was required to insert dates, times, location and cover for CPD into the calendar and found that by using the old system for CPD and the new Glow Calendar she was replicating her work so wanted to ‘work smarter’.  She looked at the functionalities available within Glow to support this.

In session 2009-2010 Marie-Louise consulted with the office staff member responsible for organising cover and devised a solution which used the Glow ‘What’s on’ web part and the filter tool within this.

In this cookbook, we will find out:

• What the ‘Staff Communications’ Glow Group looks like
• How to create a calendar part and say how to add the what’s on web part, change it to calendar view and add events
• How to use the filter tool within the ‘What’s on’ web part
• What the impact was

Ingredients

What did Marie-Louise need to do to create the elements of the Glow Group and the Calendar part with filter tool?

1. A Glow Group
2. Access to Glow Group for all staff, teaching and non-teaching

It was necessary to ensure staff had Contributor rights within the Glow Group to enable them to take part in discussions, add their entries to the calendar part and upload documents.
In the next section, we’ll take a look at the ‘Staff Communications’ Glow Group and learn how to recreate elements within it.

Recipe

The video below shows the ‘Staff Communication’ Glow Group. The videos that then follow show how these elements can be recreated. Details are:

*What the Staff Communication Glow Group looks like

*What the Calendar Page within the Glow Group looks like and how the filter tool is used.

*How to create a new page within a Glow Group

*How to create a Calendar web part within a Glow Group

*How to add an item to the Calendar part

*How to use filter tool within the Calendar

*How to use the calendar filter tool to organise CPD on Glow

Teacher’s Video on Impact of Glow

Impact

The impact of using Glow to deliver communication to staff has been substantial.

All staff now have access to the calendar within the school and there is a openness and sharing sense to this. All staff have access to the most up to date version of all policies and paperwork which is relevant to their work.

There is a sense of ‘anytime anywhere’ and staff have access to forward planning and school life information at a time which is suitable for them.

Ann McDaid, Administrative Assistant with responsibility for organising cover for absence and CPD said,

“As a member of the office staff I find it much easier to check the
calendar on GLOW for cover required instead of trying to find that bit
of paper handed to me in the corridor.  The system we have in place
enables me to check at a glance when cover is required; a list is
easily viewed by choosing the filter button.  In the past I was given a
list of staff required for the month but now the CPD coordinator puts
this information on GLOW putting CPD* in the location cell and I can
check this on a weekly basis.
Sometimes I have to leave my home number when contacting supply staff, this enables them to contact me in the evening and I can update the
system from home.  When cover is booked I change the location cell to
CPD** – this lets the CPD coordinator know at a glance cover is
organised.
Teaching staff also benefit in that they are able to check who will be
covering their class on GLOW.”
In terms of CPD and the filter tool this has provided a much smarter solution for all staff.