Communications

Modern life provides many powerful and flexible ways of communicated with each other.  This guide outlines which communication tools staff have at there disposal and when they are to be used.

Methods of Communicating

• In Person/Phone Call – be aware of the interruption to the person, respect their time and the disruption this can cause, where possible book a meeting in advance.
• Email – INFO/ACTION/URGENT – Allows staff to respond when it suits them and best to manage their time.  Also allows the use of flagging emails to manage follow up actions in Outlook.
• Teams - Great for instance chat and comms however not everyone prefers or uses it regularly. Only use when the group or person prefers this method.  Most pupils prefer teams and will read/reply much quicker than email.  Conversely  you may need to set boundaries with your pupils early as they will be keen to message you directly.
• Daily Bulletin - Goes out every morning from iSAMS to all staff.  Submit a message via iSAMS at least one day before your message needs to go out.  You can schedule messages for the future and across multiple days.  Do NOT use for actions, only information.
• Thursday Parent Emails - Regular communications should go on a Thursday via School Office and contains information or notices of which a parent needs to be aware.  Parents generally prefer fewer emails with any actions/responses clearly displayed.  Look to use a M365 form for gathering any responses/data rather than asking for email responses and place the link to the form at the beginning with the information underneath.
• The Diary - Every Friday the diary is a Marketing communication that goes out to the whole school community.
• Digital Signage - Various TV screens throughout the School provide opportunities to advertise information passively to parents, pupils and visitors.
• Whatsapp - Highly discouraged in place of Teams instant messaging, however in certain scenarios it is still used by SLT, SMT and Boarding to manage dynamic and emergency situations.  As Whatsapp is not managed by the School, even on School devices, it should never be used for confidential or sensitive information.
• iSAMS - Our school management system contains many useful tools for contacting just the right groups of people, common scenarios include: Emailing a specific pupil's teachers, emailing a group of parents or logging pastoral concerns and behaviour.  For more information see the full iSAMS guidance and specifically Notes and where to store information
• Firefly - Our online learning platform.  Used to set prep and cover work for pupils, extensively for structured parent information and internally for staff guides and handbooks such as this.

Suggested Communication Paths