The ClassDojo App – Connecting Teachers and Families to Build a Support System Around Every Child

Every afternoon when I pick my seven-year-old daughter up from school, I ask her how her day was and what she got up to. This is usually met with grunts of “okay”, and “can’t remember” or “I don’t want to talk about it”.

When your child first starts school or even nursery, it feels so strange to suddenly not have any idea what they are getting up to all day long, especially after spending most of the first few years of their life with them and always knowing what they are doing.

And you don’t really get to see or hear much of what they have been learning about, apart from at a quick parents evening maybe twice a year. It can leave you feeling quite disconnected from the school and your child and can make it harder to support their learning at home.

This is where ClassDojo comes in. ClassDojo is a school communication platform in the form of an app, for teachers, students and families, that allows teachers and parents to communicate more effectively and consequently build strong relationships and supportive communities. Their mission is to bring communities together and give them the tools, ideas, and energy to improve education for all kids.

This is done in two ways:

1. By sharing what’s being learned in the classroom back home through student portfolios, photos, videos, and messages.
2. By helping students build social-emotional skills through in-classroom feedback and engaging activities.

With the free and secure app, teachers can instantly share pictures, videos and messages with families about what’s happening throughout the school day. It can really help to build a close-knit, supportive classroom community that bridges school and home – a support system around every child.

We don’t currently use ClassDojo at our primary school, but I really wish we did, and it is now something I am going to speak to our lovely headteacher about. I would love to see photos of what Ava gets up to whilst she is as school and the things she is learning. Not only would it be lovely to see, but it would also really help to know more about what she is currently learning so that we can open up more discussions about it at home. She loves learning new things so it would be great to extend the conversation together at home.

Another reason why I would love to be using the ClassDojo app with our school is as a communication tool for general school messages, such as information about school trips, or the newsletter. It must cost our school quite a lot to print out and distribute letters home all the time (of which there are many!) and so often they don’t make it home at all, let alone all of the paper used for them – especially the school newsletter. From the people I’ve spoken to it seems like our school is one of the few who still distributes a paper copy of the newsletter. So it would be great to be able to access all of the information in one place and receive any important information as soon as it is sent out via the app, whilst helping the environment too!

Not only that, but you can use it to communicate with your child’s teacher which I think would be so incredibly useful. Teachers are always in a bit of a rush in the mornings as the children go into school, and at the end of the day they are often surrounded by parents wanting to talk to them, and kids are desperate to leave too. I know I’ve wanted to speak to Ava’s teacher before but not wanted to bother them when they are so busy, or not felt comfortable talking to them in front of the other parents and pupils if it’s something that Ava may be embarrassed about others hearing.

If I could message a teacher in my own time about any issues or with any questions, and then they could reply when they also have time, that would be amazing. Teachers can set the app up so that it has a type of ‘do not disturb’ message come up when they need it to, for example at bedtime. It’s good to know you won’t be disturbing them whilst they are trying to relax at home!

As I haven’t used ClassDojo myself yet, I asked a few of my mummy friends if they use it and what they think of it, and it is safe to say they absolutely love it. Rachel said that she loves seeing what her boys at infant school have been up to during the daytime and she wishes their junior school used it too.

Others said that the photos of the kids and the updates on their progress makes school feel personal to them, which is lovely. One teacher even used it to send photos and an update to one mum who couldn’t make it to her daughter’s school play! I love how personal that is, and think it could really help build these important relationships between teachers and parents. Those of us whose schools don’t currently use it now wish that they did! I think it would be so beneficial to have as a parent, and I would think, as a teacher too.

Obviously, the app has to be simple to use for teachers in particular, as they clearly have enough to do already and ClassDojo really is straightforward to use. It is the most popular school communication app for teachers, students, and families and currently used in 85% of UK primary schools. In 2018 ClassDojo was named Best for Communication by EdTech Digest.    

ClassDojo recently commissioned some research amongst a sample of 1,000 UK parents with children in primary schools. It showed that:

• 93% of parents have no idea what their children learn in the classroom on a day to day basis and  would like to know more about what happens in their children’s classroom
• 34% of parents say the sentence they would most like to hear their child utter is “Would you like to hear about what I learned at school today?”
• 75% say they have to make do with snippets of information
• 88% feel at their ‘wits end’ with the lack of communication from their offspring
• 6% (so one in twenty) have given up asking what their children did in school each day, as they are convinced they will never get a straight answer!

This is exactly how I feel too and would love to see the app used in our school. Schools are getting bigger and bigger and sadly more impersonal due to lack of funding and the teachers being overstretched. I know when my daughter went from Reception to Year 1 I didn’t like that we hadn’t even stepped inside their classroom until the first parents evening, and I wasn’t even sure who her teachers were for a few days.

It was very different from going into the classroom every day in Reception and made it much harder to feel connected to my daughters’ day or to build any kind of relationship with the teachers. The use of ClassDojo then would have really helped me to feel more reassured as well as being in a better position to support Ava when she was getting very upset about some things at school.

Language isn’t a barrier with ClassDojo either; as it instantly translates all captions and messages into more than 35 languages, which helps close the communication gap between those who speak English as an additional language and teachers.

You can even give your unique parent code for the app to any Grandparents or other carers who would love to see what your children get up to when they are at school. I know Ava’s grandparents would love that so much.

With a better connection between school and home, the educational outcome for all children can be improved. I think it would help Ava to be much more open to chatting to me about her day if I had received a photo of something she was doing, and we could have a discussion around that. I think it would make us feel much more connected, rather than as it currently is, having no idea what she’s learning or doing all day unless she deigns to tell us! 

If your child’s school doesn’t currently use ClassDojo, then you should definitely have a look at it and see how it would benefit your child and their school. You can find out more about ClassDojo here.

Does your school use ClassDojo? If not do you think it would benefit you and your children?

This is a paid partnership with ClassDojo but all words and opinions are my own. See my full disclosure policy here.