MANAGEMENT
S C H O O L C O M M U N I C AT I O N S
Listening - why it matters and how to do it SIMON HEPBURN, of Marketing Advice for Schools, explains how your school can become a better listener
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chools can be difficult places to listen in - there’s a lot going on, people are busy and often in what you might call a ‘problemsolving mode’. It often feels far easier to make swift decisions and focus on making sure they are put into place but this can be a big mistake. The stakeholders in schools, of whom there are many, have diverse needs - and often strong opinions about these needs; in the society we live in today they expect to be given a chance to share these. Schools that don’t listen can find it difficult to make changes stick – or they can suffer real reputational damage as parents and other stakeholders speak their minds on social media, with friends and family or, in more and more cases, by calling in local media.
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March 2022
WHAT DOES LISTENING INVOLVE? The introduction of Ofsted’s ‘Parent View’, and similar inspection tools, has had an impact on schools which can see that stakeholder views do matter - but the narrow nature of these tools means that, in some places, they are seen as something to prepare or even train parents for rather than an opportunity to develop a listening culture. Other schools talk about using ‘open door’ policies as a way of listening but, in practice, this is also problematic. Many people are conditioned by their previous experience of schools and may, for example, feel extremely nervous about going to the ‘head’s office’ to talk about something they aren’t happy with; others, such as working parents, may never visit school during working hours. The result can be that a small group of confident parents or staff make most use of this time and the views of others are missed. Real listening means giving all stakeholders equal chance to share their views – it doesn’t mean that you need to do everything you are asked to do by everyone, but it does mean that you know what they want! And, of course, listening is not just about anticipating or avoiding problems – listening is also all about getting amazing new ideas from the huge number of imaginative people in your wider community and creating productive links between different groups of people.
