Teachers want to teach – here’s 6 ways IT can help them do that

Teachers want to teach. It’s more than just a job, it’s their vocation. But it’s clear that the growing burden of administrative and clerical tasks is weighing heavily on many of them. Class sizes are getting bigger, which means tasks like preparing lesson plans, marking, data management and general admin are taking up more of teachers’ time, affecting their morale and wellbeing, as well as staff recruitment and retention.

Teachers feel that the weight of admin they face is distracting them from delivering the quality of education they would like, and many believe it is an increasingly unsustainable situation.

In this guest blog with Brother Printers, we look at the ways in which technology can be deployed in schools to help teachers teach.

How serious is the problem?

Research from the Department for Education found teachers work an average of 54.4 hours a week , while a survey by the National Education Union found 80% of teachers have seriously considered resigning because of their workload.

This is an issue that is now being addressed at the highest levels of government.

An opportunity to improve outcomes

Education secretary Damian Hinds says that reducing teacher’s workloads is a priority and he wants schools, colleges and universities to use technology to reduce the burden of ‘non-teaching’ tasks, particularly around planning and data management.

This gives IT managers the opportunity to create more efficient ways of working for teachers and support staff.

A good start is to explore systems to communicate with and engage pupils and parents, which can successfully reduce the many admin hours spent drafting countless reports and letters – which are reliant upon being delivered by pupils to their parents or carer.

There are numerous options, including ClarionCall, Edulink one, Groupcall Xpressions, SIMS InTouch, Schoolcomms and Tasc Insight, which have varying features and are all designed to support more effective and efficient communication within school communities.

Communicating with the community

Essentially, these platforms provide a platform that schools can use to securely store documents, and share them using texts, emails or push notifications.

You pay an annual or monthly subscription to license the software and the platform can either be hosted in the cloud or within the school’s infrastructure.

They often require parents to download a free smartphone app where they can either choose to accept push notifications about any new information that has been uploaded, or opt to receive text messages or emails instead.

Documents such as end-of-term reports, assessments, exam timetables and details of after school clubs can be uploaded to the platform, where they can be accessed by parents, who can then confirm they have received and read documents and send feedback.

They also include letter templates that can be quickly customised to share information about events like school trips or parents’ evenings, and parents can use the app to confirm their attendance and book a specific time slot.

Simplifying processes

Support staff can use the platform to send out reminders about overdue library books, for example, and more sophisticated systems can even process payments.

They can be used by parents to take payments for things like after-school clubs and school trips, and even book and pay for tickets for school plays.

It’s easy to see how such systems can simplify a diverse range of labour and time-intensive administrative processes, while also increasing engagement with parents and pupils.

Another big benefit is that school staff can access these systems outside school, wherever they have an internet connection, supporting more flexible ways of working.

Supporting collaboration

Another particularly time-consuming burden for teachers is lesson planning.

The Department of Education has recently issued new guidance that teachers no longer need to spend time filling out templates for every individual lesson plan.

This had previously seen teachers preparing SMART presentations for use on interactive whiteboards, then writing up lesson plans that contain the same information to be checked by senior members of staff and Ofsted inspectors.

Lesson planning can now be completed solely using SMART presentations, which can then be stored on a central server so they can be amended and re-used.

It also means that a series of lessons can be saved and easily revisited with classes to recap on learning.

This opens the door to increased collaboration between teachers using platforms like Microsoft Planner and Sharepoint.

Teachers can upload lesson plans to share with colleagues, creating a library of lessons, materials and resources that can be shared, amended and reused as required.

IT and education, working together

Schools are also using project management apps like Microsoft Teams and Trello for information sharing and discussion.

They support collaboration by providing a place for posting questions and comments about ongoing issues, removing the need to trawl through lengthy email threads.

For example, it can be used to share exam grading criteria with a particular department, and teachers can then respond if they have any questions about marking, with the responses visible for all to see.

Again, these kind of apps can be securely accessed remotely by teachers who may be working at home after school hours or during school holidays.

Supporting this kind of flexible working is crucial for maintaining teachers’ workflow and removing potential obstructions to efficiency.

This can also be an issue with printing classroom materials like tests, reference texts and worksheets, which are a fundamental part of most lessons, but having a small number of printers housed in a central hub can create backlogs that tie up teachers unnecessarily.

In a school or academy with hundreds of pupils, if even one machine is out of action for just a short time it can create even more inconvenience.

Instead, a far more efficient and controllable solution for teachers is to have printers in classrooms.

Convenience and cost saving

Schools commonly use print management systems like PaperCut or PrintSmart, which means teachers can remotely send print jobs to their printer at a time and location that is convenient for them.

Then they can simply tap their work pass on their dedicated printer when they get to the classroom to release the job.

It means no queues, less potential for logjams and that teachers can be more spontaneous and creative in their teaching, as they can print materials during a lesson, without having to collect materials from another location.

Brother can help you overcome everyday printing frustrations and help your school become more productive and efficient. Find out how you can rein in runaway print spend with cost control measures such as automatic two-sided printing and real-time budgeting tools, and understand how you can stop sensitive information getting into the wrong hands with password-protected printing and scanning.

Watch to see how Brother’s professional laser printers can help reduce printing costs:

Overall, it’s clear that modern technology in schools presents numerous opportunities for IT managers to help teachers save time, improve their work-life balance and boost their job satisfaction.

Ultimately, we’re all working for the benefit of the pupils, so if it means better outcomes for them, then it’s a job well done.

Find out more

Give us a call on 01274 396 213 to find out how to order and claim your cashback.

Complete IT Systems and Brother

See how Complete IT Systems and Brother can help your business here.

 

How cyber criminals use email to attack businesses

Email account takeover and lateral phishing represent a growing threat to enterprise UK businesses. In this blog we look at recent findings into Spear Phishing and how it can be used to take over business email systems and access critical data.

How do cyber criminals exploit businesses?

Attackers follow four primary strategies to choose target recipients of lateral phishing attacks. In about one-third of email account takeover attacks, cybercriminals use additional deceptive behaviour to make their lateral phishing emails stealthier or more convincing.

A recent report from Barracuda takes an in-depth look at how compromised email accounts are being used to launch targeted lateral phishing attacks that are designed to evade many existing email protection systems, and which advanced detection techniques, security awareness training, and other strategies and solutions businesses are using to prevent attacks.

A closer look at evolving threats

Barracuda’s research uncovered fresh insights into how these popular attacks are evolving and the tactics used by cybercriminals to try to make them successful. The main findings are as follows:

  • 1 in 7 businesses experienced lateral phishing attacks in a seven-month period, based on a random sample of enterprise organisations.
  • More than 60 percent of organisations that were attacked experienced multiple incidents.
  • About 11 percent of attacks managed to successfully compromise additional employee accounts.
  • 42 percent of the lateral phishing incidents weren’t reported to the organisation’s IT or security team.
  • More than 55 percent of the lateral phishing attacks targeted recipients with some personal or work relationship to the hijacked email account.
  • 37 percent of lateral phishing attacks used tailored content that was enterprise-oriented or highly specific to the victim’s organisation.

“Email threats, including account takeover and lateral phishing, continue to evolve, and cybercriminals continue to find new ways to execute attacks, avoid detection, and trick users,” said Mike Flouton, vice president of email security at Barracuda. “Staying ahead of these types of attacks requires an understanding of the latest tactics being used by cybercriminals and the critical precautions available to help defend your business.”

Find out more

Barracuda’s latest report, titled Spear Phishing: Top Threats and Trends Vol. 2 – Email Account Takeover: Defending Against Lateral Phishing, reveals new details about these growing and evolving threats, including the latest tactics used by cybercriminals and the critical precautions to help defend your business.

The report shows you:

  • How compromised email accounts are being used to launch targeted lateral-phishing attacks that are designed to evade many existing email protection systems and fool internal and external recipients
  • Why attacks are becoming more sophisticated, stealthy and successful and how to stop them as they become harder to detect
  • Which advanced detection techniques, security awareness training and other strategies and solutions businesses are using to prevent attacks

Secure your business

While we’ve all seen the headlines of data breaches such as British Airlines and Marriott, don’t be lulled into thinking that small and medium sized business aren’t also at risk.

Email is the leading source of modern cyber-threats which makes selecting the right enterprise email security is critical to your business success – this is vital even if you’re using Microsoft Office 365 as we discuss here.

Don’t miss what Forrester Research is saying about enterprise email security – Barracuda has been named a leader in the recent Forrester Wave Enterprise Email Security report.

 

 

Request your copy of the complimentary report now to read more!