The government has announced that all parents will get regular electronic reports on their children's progress in future, but does this spell good news for all concerned?

Schools Minister Jim Knight announced that all secondary schools will be expected to have 'real-time' reporting systems up and running by 2010 and all primary schools two years later.

More than eight out of ten parents with children 17 and under are in favour of online school reporting, according to Pearson Phoenix, one of the UK’s leading providers of management information systems for schools.

In the Pearson Phoenix survey, carried out by YouGov, 47% of those in favour said that it would help them to feel more involved in their child’s education and give them a greater understanding of their educational development.

Roger Plant, Education Systems Director at Pearson Phoenix, said: "It’s obvious that there is a real desire from parents to be more involved and using the Internet to get real-time reports is going to be a vital part of that involvement."

However, the news may not be so warmly received by teaching staff, who will have to deal with an increased workload and will be given more responsibility to monitor individual pupils on a regular basis.

Pupils themselves may not necessarily be in favour of the idea either: small slip-ups in behaviour or work attitude which may have been ignored in the past may be flagged up in more regular reports.

Learning is a gradual process, so in the short term pupils who do not grasp a topic immediately may become demotivated if reports are a frequent regularity.

Many schools already run these online systems, which mean that parents are be able to access frequently updated information on children's achievement, progress, attendance, behaviour and special needs wherever and whenever they want using secure, online systems.

Other systems could include text alert systems, school intranet, email or even video-conferencing.

The Government's schools technology agency, Becta, will be guiding schools to adapt their existing technology and advise them how to improve.

However, the issue of security does have to be raised. If all school reports become online, there is the potential danger of internet viruses and hackers threatening the privacy of individual pupils' grades.

Mr Knight said: "We know from schools around the country that if families are going to be involved in their children's education really effectively, they need a good two way flow of information - a channel which is more efficient and more frequent than a once a year written report, or a letter home when there is a problem or something to celebrate."

"Real time reporting will deepen the school-parent relations and is not a substitute for regular personal contact with teachers. Effective technology systems can actually significantly cut the staff workloads, but it has to be to be manageable for individual schools and meaningful for parents."

The Government has invested £5billion in schools ICT since 1997, with another £837million earmarked over the next three years, leaving it with the highest levels of embedded technology in classrooms in European Union and one computer for every three pupils.

The article School reports to go online originally appeared on 999 Today