Homework4 is part of the Partnership4 group of companies. The Partnership4 group includes Concept4, who work closely with the education, commercial and health sectors designing beautiful websites, apps and bespoke digital solutions. Made for education who provide a ‘made by you’ or ‘made for you’ service for paper solutions including planners, prospectuses and other printed resources and Printoff who provide an extensive, high-quality, professional print service across all sectors.
South Craven school, a local school to our Nelson office, approached us to see if we could design a digital homework planner which would be bespoke to their school, easy to use and replace some of the other school systems for reporting to parents and students. We were already aware that digital solutions were being developed for many school systems and saw this as an opportunity to explore and develop a digital planner solution of our own.
How we approached the brief.
CONSIDER
South Craven school needed a solution to homework planning, monitoring and management which was easy-to-use and more importantly, implement into school life and enhance student life skills. They had assessed the market leading product and decided that they would only actually use 20% of the system making it a non-cost-effective option.
CREATE
Concept4 worked closely with the school to assess their requirements and vision for homework management. They wanted all teachers to be on board with the new homework planner, as well as engaging with not only students but parents too – giving them a ‘whole school solution’. Concept4 created a web and app based digital homework planner, enabling teachers, parents and students to access homework set, due and overdue at the click of a button. With intelligent integration with existing management information systems, school timetables, homework planning and monitoring has never been as easy for South Craven school.
COMMUNICATE
The solution was rolled out across school at the start of the 2015-16 academic year and feedback has continued to be excellent. The total number of users so far for the first term alone is 2,300 which includes students, parents and teachers. We consider this to be a resounding success and look forward to working on stage 2 with South Craven school.
How did we do.
‘We have been delighted with the service offered by Concept4 for our Homework Planner App. From the start the team listened to our ideas and did their best to accommodate our needs. Their approach was flexible, friendly and honest with a real focus on getting the project right. There was regular communication throughout the development phase and the Planner app has gone down well in all areas of school and is working exactly as we anticipated. I would not hesitate in recommending the company to any school’.
Martyn Hill, Deputy Head
The birth of Homework4.
Once we had developed the product for South Craven we recognised the real potential in the product and set about refining our vision for Homework4. We acknowledged that for schools to consider making the change to Homework4, it needed to be an improvement on both existing paper and digital solutions. It had to save teachers time, enhance the whole homework experience and bring about a simplified method of setting, tracking and monitoring homework. It also needed to be easy to use, intuitive and build strong partnerships with all users, including teachers, students and parents. It needed to be competitively price and simple to implement. We would also need to offer effective support on both the technical and educational front to ensure a seamless embedding of the product. We believe we have achieved this.
If you’re thinking of exploring a digital homework solution for your school then talk to our education consultant today.
