Edvolve

Audience: School leaders, teachers, administrative teams, parents, guardians and anyone involved in supporting a school community

Communication & School Community

Communication is at the heart of everyday school life, from a message to a parent about an upcoming event to an important update for staff, a change to the school timetable or information that needs to reach students, schools communicate constantly. When that communication works well, it can help people feel informed, involved and connected to what is happening around them.

The challenge is that effective communication is not simply about making information available, it is about making sure the right people receive the right information, at the right time and in a form they can easily understand and respond to and, for schools, that can be more difficult than it sounds.

A school community has many different communication needs

Schools bring together a wide range of people, each with their own responsibilities and priorities. Teachers need to communicate with colleagues and families, parents and guardians need reliable information about their children and school life, students need access to information relevant to them, while leadership and administrative teams need to keep everyone informed about the wider running of the school. These different requirements can make communication complicated, particularly when information is spread across several systems and channels.

A school might use email for some messages, a separate system for attendance, another platform for documents and perhaps additional tools for events, forms or parent communication. Each system may have a useful purpose, but over time the number of places people need to check can become difficult to manage. For staff in particular, keeping track of communication across multiple channels can become another everyday administrative task.

Communication is about more than sending information

It is easy to think of communication as a one-way process - the school has information to share and the people who need it simply receive it, however, good communication is more than that.

A connected school community also needs opportunities to respond, ask questions, provide feedback and stay involved, communication should therefore work in both directions, helping schools understand what their communities need as well as allowing them to share information. This is particularly important when schools introduce changes, whether it is a new policy, a change to arrangements or the introduction of new technology, people are more likely to engage when they understand what is happening and have an opportunity to ask questions. Listening is part of communication too.

The importance of timely communication

Timing really matters, as a message that arrives too early can easily be forgotten, while information that arrives too late may no longer be useful, and for busy families and school staff, being able to access important information when it is needed can make a considerable difference, this is one reason why schools increasingly use digital communication to complement more traditional methods. Notifications, messaging and online information can make it easier to reach people quickly, particularly when information changes or something needs attention.

However, speed should not come at the expense of clarity, as more messages do not necessarily mean better communication. If people are receiving a constant stream of notifications, important information can become difficult to distinguish from everything else, therefore, the aim should be communication that is timely, relevant and useful, rather than simply more frequent.

Making communication work for everyone

A school community is diverse and people will have different levels of confidence, availability and access to technology. Communication therefore needs to be considered from the perspective of the people receiving it, not only those sending it. Information should be clear and accessible and schools should consider whether their chosen communication methods work equally well for staff, parents, guardians and students.

There is also a practical consideration for schools themselves, meaning that communication needs to be manageable for the people responsible for it. If sharing a simple update requires staff to enter the same information into several different systems, the process can quickly become inefficient and, over time, that can place unnecessary pressure on already busy teams.

Bringing communication closer to everyday school life

This is where thoughtful use of technology can make a difference, as a well-considered digital platform can give schools a more consistent way of communicating, while making it easier for people to access information and stay connected with what is happening. That does not mean every aspect of school communication needs to move into one digital system, nor does it mean technology should replace personal communication.

Schools are communities and relationships will always matter more than the tools used to support them and the role of technology should be to support those relationships and make everyday communication easier to manage.

Communication is part of the wider school experience

When communication works well, its value can extend beyond individual messages, whereby parents and guardians can feel more informed about school life, staff can spend less time searching across different channels for information, students can have clearer access to the information they need, and school leaders can have a more consistent way of communicating with their wider community.

None of this means that technology alone creates an engaged school community, engagement comes from people feeling listened to, respected and included and communication is simply one of the foundations that helps make that possible.

At Edvolve

At Edvolve, we believe communication should support the whole school community rather than becoming another system for people to manage, that is why communication is such an important part of the platform, but it is also why we want to continue listening to the people who use it. Schools have different communities, different priorities and different ways of working, so there is no single approach that will be right for everyone.

As Edvolve develops, we want to work alongside schools, staff, parents and guardians to understand what is useful in practice and where technology can genuinely support better communication and stronger connections across school life, because ultimately, good school communication is not about how many messages a platform can send, it is about helping the right people feel informed, connected and part of the community around them.

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