There are lots of different methods for electronic communication, this includes fax, e-mails, paging and video conferencing. Faxing has its advantages, the first of which is that it’s fast and gets there faster than other methods. Secondly nobody needs to be there in order to pick it up, the recipient can pick it up when possible. But the advantages to this method include, you can’t send confidential things and the print can be of poor quality.
E Mail is method used by many businesses also. The reason is due to it being fast, confidential and having the choice to send the same information to many people at one time. Although sending confidential information can be problem if hackers are able to hack into the persons email account. Also if the information being sent is important and urgent, you need to make sure the recipient checks their mail regularly.
Video conferencing is used by some businesses only. The main advantage is that you can see the person you’re talking to without being with them. It’s really time consuming and saves pollution as there’s no need to go directly to the person, instead you can see them over a screen. The disadvantage however to this method is that it costs money and it can be of poor quality sometimes.
In my opinion I would say to use e- mail as the electronic form of communication. I say this as I think it’s a lot more efficient than the other methods such as video conferencing. Video conferencing has its advantages but I still think that it’s a lot more difficult to get hold of because you need to get these special cameras that can send sound and pictures from one location to another so that business people can conduct a live meeting with colleagues who are many miles away. In addition email is available at all times and it is a facility which you could use all the time. Also I know that usually there’s a high initial cost in setting up a computer network and in training workers but I still think that in a world of business it will improve customer satisfaction and will result in high sales and better communication in the long term.
Having good communication is vital in a business organisation. Having communication means that clear instructions are given out so that the task is completed correctly and on time. It also means that action is consistent and coordinated well. If communication was at its best then the information would be simple and the information would be as accurate and up to date as possible. However if communication is not good then many problems occur. First of all jobs would not be carried out properly as the employees would not have understood instructions that had been given out and secondly bad communication would lead to disappointed employees and customers. The effect of poor communication would then develop problems such as unrest within the workforce and loss of business with poor service.
The School’s Communication with Parents - External Communication
The school communicates with parents and carers in various different ways, it is extremely important for the school to have such good communication with them because they need to inform them about any problems or important updates that could affect their child’s education. The main aim is to keep the parents informed on how their child is progressing at school, if changes were being made parents would then be able to take these changes on adapt to them. Above I have drawn a table showing the different that the school communicate with parents.
For the different reasons of communication the school use different methods of communication, the first one is through writing. For example they would write to parents if their child has been in trouble, asking the parents to visit the school. They would also write a letter to inform all parents of end of term arrangements. This method of communication is usually quite successful; this is because the letter can be very constructive and detailed and can be sent directly to the recipient. The problem however with sending letters home is that firstly the student could forget to give the letter to their parents and secondly the student could intercept the letter so therefore the parents may not receive it.
The school also communicate with parents verbally, for example they phone the parents if they want to let them know of any complaints or praise. This provides a fast method of communication and is really effective; this is because the teachers receive immediate feedback and if there are problems they can be sorted out quickly. Although the problem with phoning is that the parents could be really busy so as a result would not be able to be contacted easily. The school also meets parents face to face since they regularly hold parents evenings and meetings. The main advantage of this is that they are able to discuss freely and that the feedback is given and received immediately. But the problem with this method of communication is that is everybody able to attend, some parents work late and therefore aren’t able to be present.
The school sometimes communicate with the parents electronically, for instance teachers often email parents regarding their child’s progress. This method of communication is really good because it’s a lot faster and it’s easier to store rather than looking through lots of pieces of paper. Although the downside of using email is that the parents need to check their mail regularly to keep in contact. Also the parents could forget to respond to the message so therefore there would only be a one way system communication between the school and the parents. The school also have their own website; this includes OFSTED reports and the schools performance etc. This is a good way of communicating with parents as the website has a variety of things and it’s a lot easier to access nowadays rather than phoning up and waiting for letters. On the other hand there are disadvantages, they are that some people may not be able to access the internet or may not have the time to do this or the website may not be updated regularly.
However, now if communication did not get through then problems would begin to occur. First of all parents and carers would not be aware of their child’s progress, if letters were being intercepted by students and phone numbers and addresses weren’t being updated, then the parents and carers would not know of their child’s progress in school. This could lead to their child having poor academic achievements due to poor communication with the school because the school and the parents aren’t keeping in contact to discuss important matters. To try and stop these problems from happening the school and parents need to try and keep in touch as much as possible, even if it means having face to face meetings every two or three months. Furthermore they keep in touch by phone calls, as long as the parents and carers know how their child is doing academically and behaviour wise.
If I am to compare the methods that teaching staff are using to communicate with parents I think that face to face in a meeting is better than phone calls simply because when teachers and parents are face to face with one another it is a lot easier to discuss freely without having to worry about other outside issues; like when you try calling parents an issue is raised to whether or not the parent has time to speak on the phone. Secondly you are able to have a three way conversation with the member of staff, the parent and the pupil; this way issues are sorted with the person who the meeting is about (- the pupil) and thirdly problems are sorted out face to face rather than over the phone, where you are able to see the body language of everyone. Whereas in contrast, when you use the phone you need to make sure telephone numbers are right and if the parent has the time to talk at the time the teacher calling. However a serious problem is that you are not able to see who you are talking to, for all you know you could be having a conversation with someone claiming to be someone their not, therefore the message is not getting through to the right person. So by organising a face to face meeting at a time where both parent and teacher can attend, whatever matters are to be sorted, will be sorted out easily and in a formal manner. The only down side that I worry about is the fact that are the parents able to attend these face to face meetings? If they aren’t then there would be a communication barrier and another form of communication would need to be used.
Parents Survey
I will now show the results to the survey I carried out about how much the school really does communicate with parents and carers. I will enclose with this section a copy of my questionnaire, to show what questions I had asked parents and their responses.
These are the responses to this question; I will now show this in graphical form- A Column Graph.
Overall I asked 30 parents to fill in the survey. In Question 1 asked parents in what ways does the school communicate with you most? From the responses I got I can say that in general most parents thought that the school communicate with them most by letters and reports.
Below are the results in the form of a pie chart,
In question 2, I asked do you think the schools method of communicating with you is good on a whole. Twenty four out of the thirty parents I asked thought that it was good. This tells me that the schools communication is really good as most parents are satisfied by the methods the school are using.
In question 3, the response that I got was that eighteen out the thirty had no difficulties when trying to communicate with the school. Although from the twelve that experienced difficulties the main problem they were having was that the school never responded to parent’s letters and e-mails or when they did the reply was very delayed.
My final question was whether or not the parents had visited the Preston Manor High School website. Ten of the thirty said that they had in fact visited the site and said it was actually average on usefulness. But twenty parents said they had not visited the site. This does show that the school could try and improve their electronic method of communicating by websites.
To conclude I think that overall the schools method of communicating with parents is good, although the school must try harder to reply to the parents and carers because it would then lead to more satisfied people. One on hand the school would know that they are doing their doing their jobs well by communicating efficiently; on the other hand parents and carers know that they are being heard of, showing that there is a two way method of communication between the school and parents/ carers.
Communication amongst Staff around the School - Internal Communication
It is very important to have good staff communication. This is because staff need to be regularly updated on information that is very important about the school, the students and themselves. This means that staff must then go on and pass on messages to the students so they know of any changes, events etc that will affect them.
Staff communicate with each other in various different ways; one method is through written communication. For example when teachers are given current or urgent information it is done through memos, this is a good way of communicating in a sense that it’s quick and to the point. However the disadvantage is that the memo can get lost and that there is no immediate feedback. Teachers are also informed of their wages for the month through a payslip. This is a good way of communicating as teachers know exactly how much they have been paid, how much money is deducted through taxes, national insurance etc.
The other method the school use to communicate with teachers is through letters, for example this is sometimes used to inform teachers about the end of term arrangements which have been made. This method of communication has many advantages, the first of which is that letters provide a permanent record and the second which is that they can be very accurate, clear and they can include very detailed information. The problem however is that it’s a lot more complicated than other methods as there could be times when the teacher it’s addressed to doesn’t receive the letter due to the letter being posted into the wrong pigeon hole.
Staff are also approached through verbal methods, for example if the school wanted to give staff current or urgent information, the method of communication that they would use is a briefing. The main advantage of this is that it’s quick and straight to the point although it’s not as effective if some staff aren’t listening or haven’t attended. Department meeting are also useful, they are done every week letting staff know of any changes or anything that’s not working out. The advantage of doing this is that all problems if any can be sorted out as quickly as possible with help from department staff.
At the moment I think that the most effective way of communicating with staff is electronically, e-mail and intranet have become one of the well known ways of communicating amongst all staff. If the school wanted to inform all staff of staff inset day, the fastest way of doing this would be through e-mail. First of all one message can be sent to a number of different people at the same time and secondly printouts can be obtained if necessary. The only main disadvantage is that the teachers need to check their mail regularly otherwise it’s one of the best ways of communicating within such a large organisation.
Data Protection Act
The main problem with using the intranet is about the data protection act. The data protection act is a law designed to protect personal data stored on the computer, The 1998 Data Protection Act was passed by Parliament to control the way information is handled and to give legal rights to people who have information stored about them. So the problem is that if somehow a child knows the teachers Eportal login details then they’d be able to access every pupil in the schools details. This therefore breaches the rules of the Data Protection Act, one of the principles states that the information must be kept safe and secure. This includes keeping the information backed up and away from any unauthorised access. It would be wrong to leave open to be viewed by just anyone. After visiting a website, a source said that the if the Data Protection Act was breached it is saying that legislation is weak, The Data Protection Commission cannot enforce the act, only request some sort of agreement, except where fraud abuse is evident, then court action would be involved. To stop cases like this from occurring I would suggest that all staff make sure that Eportal is logged off once they have finished using it i.e. Teachers shouldn’t leave classrooms unattended with Eportal still logged in. Also they should make sure passwords remain confidential and are in no way accessible by the students, by doing this the data protection act will not be breached.
Location
I think communications should be at its best seen as though all teachers who are needed to communicate with are within the school premises, as this is the case I think it should be a lot easier for teacher to communicate with each other. It would be different if teachers were off premises and needed to get in touch with each other, but I still think that considering the location of staff around the school, staff communication with each other can be a lot better than it is at the moment. This maybe due to the lack of communication between one another, or the type of communication of which they are using.
Problems could occur if staff didn’t communicate with each other in the right ways aswell. First of all when staff are communicating with notes, they should be short and to the point, if this is done then there’d be no confusion between what is being said to one another. Secondly I would recommend that staff check email regularly since the school already have their own intranet system in which all staff have their own email address, this is one method which I think is very successful within the school as it enable teachers to send messages and important information quickly. Good communication is necessary in such a large organisation like Preston Manor and I think if improvements are made in certain areas then communication methods would be at its best in Preston Manor.
If I were to suggest some improvements for the school I would suggest that they try to use a pager, my reason for this is that it is easy to carry as in its light in weight, secondly it would benefit the school a lot because it is cheap to run and most certainly because there are a lot of staff. Additionally there is no line rental cost. My main problem with starting this method of communication is that you can’t respond although lets take for example the organisational chart I drew before as an example. I know that the heads of departments really do need to communicate with their colleges. I think a pager would work in that sense because if the head of year wanted to let them know of a message and they weren’t accessible at the time; then as long as the college is on premises (and within signal range) this method would work well. And considering financial costs I don’t think it’ll be expensive seen as though they are relatively cheap this therefore not causing too much of an impact on Preston Manors School finances. But I don’t think in the long run it would be good for all staff to communicate with each other; this is because for one thing they run on batteries, secondly if all teachers then wanted to communicate with one another, all will need to some how call up the call centre operator to leave a verbal message which will be then transmitted as text. I know that pagers do help increase productivity and improve responsiveness, but I think that in an organisation like Preston Manor the process would just be too long in order to get the message received as quickly as it should, especially when there are other methods which would be better to use.
If I compare methods that teachers are using to communicate I would say that e mail is better than memos. I say this because if staff use emails then messages would be passed on a lot faster than if they were to send out memos, in which they’d have to send a student out of the lesson to pass the memo onto the other member of staff, this also causing disruption to the students learning as they’d be missing out on what the class are learning. If an email was sent the member of staff would straight away receive the message without interruptions as long as they are logged onto the school network system, which most teachers are since most classrooms have electronic whiteboards installed. Also as we know memos can get lost easily if they are put aside to read later on but if email is used then the message is automatically stored in the email inbox for the recipient to read, the only way the message is likely to be deleted is if by mistake the teacher deletes it.
Teachers Interview
In this section I will now give show you the questions I asked in my interview to a member of staff and the response that I got. I am carrying out this method of research so that I can find out the main methods that staff use to communicate with one another, the advantages and the problems that occur.
1) What is you job title?
Teaching staff
2) How much do you actually need to communicate with staff?
Quite a lot
3) Which methods do you use to do this?
Written
Memos
Letters
Reports
Notices
Electrical
E Mail
Intranet
Fax
Internet
Verbal
Meetings
Interviews
Face to Face
Telephone
4) What problems occur at certain times?
You don’t get a reply quick enough and sometimes things aren’t read so therefore there’s no two way communication.
5) What suggestions do you have that will help improve staff communication?
Everyone needs to reply more quickly
From the result of interviewing a member of staff I think it has showed that even staff would like communication in the school to be better, so by everyone keeping up to date with what needs to be said to one another, it would increase the efficiency of communication within the school, resulting in time saved. Or another idea could be introducing another method of communication would help staff know that they need to reply to a message, this therefore would not leave messaged unread to and it would mean that the sender gets a reply back much more faster from the recipient.
Primary and Secondary Research
Now in this section I will start by explaining the difference between primary and secondary research and will describe the various method used for each type. Primary research or otherwise known as field research refers to data that is obtained exclusively for the business; it is useful for finding out new information and getting customers views on your products. Primary research can be carried out in many ways such questionnaires, telephone surveys, product testing, focus groups and surveys. Although, these methods aren’t so simple to carry out, a company must first of all decide on which method they think is suitable enough and then they must decide on the sample number because it is impossible to get views from the whole population of people. To continue they either use random sampling or quota sampling.
The main advantage of using primary research is that first of all it’s up to date, it’s specific to what the organisation’s looking to find out and finally it can be kept private within the company. Although primary research does have its disadvantages, first it’s very expensive to carry out, then it’s extremely time consuming and it also needs a very large sample in order to make sure it’s accurate enough and finally it must be analysed thoroughly to give accurate information.
The type of primary research that I will be using in my investigation will be questionnaires and interviews. The reason that I think this is useful is because the data that I would be collecting would be up to date, relevant and specific to my topic. I will also be using my own observations, for example from looking at others past experiences and my own to help come up with some advantages and disadvantages about communication.
Secondary research also known as desk research refers to data that has already been collected and published. It is useful when looking at the whole market and analysing past trends to predict the future. Examples of secondary research include things like market research reports (such as MINTEL), government publications i.e. The Family Expenditure Survey, newspapers, journals and magazine articles.
Secondary research also holds its advantages. The main one is that it’s very cheap and its normally easily accessible. The disadvantage however, is that this type of research is not specific to the company itself and the information is available to other existing firms. And most importantly information could be outdated, which means it’s of no use in this day and age.
The types of secondary research that I will be using in this investigation will be text books and internet sites. For example when I refer to the data protection act I would have collected my information from a site and used relevant information to relate it my use of work.
Instead of using these methods to collect information I think I could have used other methods, for example instead of just interviewing one teacher for the primary source research I could have interviewed more, this would have helped as I would have received views about communication from a number of teaching staff, helping come up with more accurate findings. In addition knowing what problems there are with communication around the school, I myself could have come up with more alternatives about what method of communication would improve the communication around staff.
Findings from my research on External Communication:
Overall my research showed me that parents thought the methods of communication used by the school for external communication are good on a whole. According to the results of my survey of parents, the methods that worked well were reports while methods such as letters and emails did not work so well (See survey results on page 9, 10 & 11). The main reason for this is because staff at Preston Manor did not reply to parents’ letters and emails or when they did they were delayed. The improvements that I would suggest are to try and make staff use the telephone more frequently; I believe that this would be a better method to use because as staff are making this phone call themselves, it is more reliable and they’d know that the message has reached the parents or carers. Also unlike letters which could get lost or delayed in the post you would know for sure that the message has been passed on since you personally have spoken to the parents or carers. Although these methods will have the problem of not having the correct phone numbers of parents and not always being able to get in touch with them, I believe that it will still be worth trying as it is better than parents not knowing about how their children are doing in school or better than not getting a reply back at all. But I think the school can overcome the problem of having wrong telephone numbers by reviewing parents contact details at least three times a year this would mean there will be no communication barrier between parents and staff.
These improvements will mean that the school will need to spend more money on phone bills but it would be worth it because the parents and staff would have a two way system of communication. However, the school will also need to think about who exactly will make these phone calls, if staff aren’t able to do this- due to the amount of work they do during the school day, then the school will need to hire more admin staff, who will have the job to contact parents. This will mean the school will need to pay extra members of staff, therefore making me think about the financial issues involved in using the telephone to communicate. But in my opinion it will help the school achieve its aim to keep parents and carers informed on how their child is progressing and if there are any changes which need to be made, then the parents can help their children adapt to these changes together, therefore helping the students at Preston Manor achieve their full potential.
Findings from my research on Internal communication:
My research showed me that teachers thought methods of communication used by the school for internal communications were good. According to the results of my interview with a member of staff, the methods that worked well were memos, letters, email and face to face. The main problem with the internal communication was that replies often were late or didn’t come in fast enough (See interview on page 15). The improvements that I would suggest are that staff reply to messages as quickly as they can and furthermore check email inboxes everyday in order to keep up with what needs to be done. I believe this is a good way of trying to get communication amongst staff more efficient as both sender and recipient will be able to communicate faster and will get the reply they need quicker. However, my conclusions are based on an interview with one member of staff. The weakness in using this method was that I am only getting the view from this one teacher, other members of staff may have other opinions toward how they communicate with one another. I could have had more factual information if I had interviewed more members of staff such as five; this would then give me views on internal communication from many members of staff around the school, giving me a range of views and more reliable information.
These improvements will mean that the school will need to make sure all staff know how to use the internet facilities and email, this will be worth putting in the effort because when teachers know how to use the electronic system, it would make it easier for them to understand exactly what they are doing and because they will know how to use it they’d use it more often and use it properly, leading to faster replies to messages. This will implicate some financial costs on the school, for example they would either need to send some of the teachers off the job for training which could be quite expensive (i.e. transport costs, course fees accommodation etc.) or they would either need to be trained on the job and to save money. Some teachers could be trained by members of the ICT department who know about the internet facilities and email system and how they work around the school; this will help staff feel more at ease since they are being taught by people they know and are in their own working environment, gaining direct experience. This will help the school achieve its aim to keep staff updated on issues about the school, the students and themselves, this will help the students education as their learning would be a lot smoother and without any problems. Furthermore staff need to be updated on important issues everyday; therefore by making the improvements suggested communication would run efficiently around the teachers.
How could I have improved my coursework?
I could have improved my planning and organisation by keeping up to date with all my work and making sure things were completed on time. The strengths in my planning were that I got on with the report in my own time and worked well as an individual, I also want to say that I was able to give my work to the teacher on time which benefited me because I was able to see which areas I was weak in and needed to work on, in addition by giving my report in several times I was able to continuously improve my work. Whilst my weaknesses were things such as not being able to expand on information that I was putting into my report. I dealt with this weakness as I went back and adapted sentences which made them a lot better and I also tried using things I wrote and tried linking them with the whole point of my report.
I could have improved my research by interviewing more than one teacher as I said above. Also I could have asked the teacher a question below question 3 which would have read ‘Why do you chose these methods to communicate?’, if I had asked this question I would have seen the reasons for the use of these certain methods and what advantages they held for the teaching staff. Furthermore a question like ‘Why do you not use these other method of communication?’ would have helped my research as I would have been told the disadvantages that the teachers have with the methods they don’t use. If I had these disadvantages I would have been able to make more specific suggestion which would have improved communication even more. The problems I experienced were with gathering information, it was hard to get parents views on the school because they didn’t really know what to say, but I overcame these problems by working with what I had and using it in the best possible way I could.
Bibliography:
1) Text Book- GCSE Business Studies for Edexcel
2) GCSE Bitesize Websites:
3) Class Notes: Unit on Communication
4) People - Teacher Interviewed
- Parent’s Surveyed
- Business Teacher
