Earwig was initially set up to solve the problem of teaching evidence in schools, making the process digital saved teacher’s time and resources but also enabled them to share the wonderful photos and videos of the children learning with the parents, which nourished parental engagement.

As Earwig evolved into the assessments software it is today, schools were increasingly reluctant to open up access of the images and videos to parents. Despite the additional development of the ‘Parent Observations‘ facility which enabled parents or pupils to upload content to Earwig themselves.

However, Coronavirus lockdown has changed the minds of several heads who could easily see the benefit in engaging with families during the crisis who activated the facility and have been enthusiastically sharing school work, evidence of teaching and homeschool activities.

And they have been delighted at the enthusiastic response from parents who really enjoy using Earwig as a repository for the evidence of learning, the connection with the school and guidance from teachers. In fact one of our schools, Black Firs, a small primary school in Cheshire reported 824 parent observations in the first week!

So if you’re considering activating parental access for your school – you may be pleasantly surprised at the response.

(We want to reassure you that parents only have access to media and ‘external’ notes – so no assessment data, internal messaging or annotation or reports are visible to parents or anyone without a staff login).