Share observations with parents

When you publish an observation in Sonar Tracker for Home, it goes to Comms Hub before parents see it. Comms Hub is Juniper Education’s communications product, and someone at school approves each observation there. Approved observations appear in the Juniper Education app for the parents and carers of the tagged pupils.

Before you start

You need:

• the Observations module
• access to Comms Hub, which you can open from Products in Sonar’s top bar or from Juniper Portal
• permission to approve observations in Comms Hub, which usually comes with the Account Owner, Account Admin or Full Edit role

How sharing works

1. A member of staff publishes an observation in Sonar with the Home audience.
2. Sonar sends it to Comms Hub, where it waits with the status Pending Approval.
3. An approver reviews it and selects Approve & Publish or Decline.
4. Once it’s approved, the tagged pupils’ parents can see it in the app.

Observations published for School only stay in Sonar. If your school has turned on automatic approval, Home observations skip step 3.

Neither Comms Hub nor Sonar can change a published observation. If one needs correcting, decline it and ask the person who recorded it to record it again.

Approve or decline an observation

1. Open Comms Hub.
2. Select Interactions, then select Approval Log.
3. Select Observations. The All Observations list opens.
4. Select the title of the observation you want to review.
5. Read the observation and look at each photo.
6. Select Approve & Publish to send it to parents, or Decline if it should not go home.

Comms Hub only offers Approve & Publish and Decline for observations from the current academic year. You can still view older ones.

Before you approve an observation, check that:

• the right pupils are tagged
• everyone in each photo can be shared with these families, according to your school’s photo consent records
• the note makes sense to a parent and does not name other children
• nothing in it belongs only in school records, such as a concern about a child

Turn automatic approval on or off

Automatic approval publishes observations to parents without anyone approving them. It’s off unless your school turns it on.

1. In Comms Hub, select Settings.
2. Select Observations or Awards & Activities, whichever your school’s subscriptions show.
3. Select Approvals.
4. Turn the Automatic Approvals Status switch for Observations on or off.

Warning

With automatic approval on, every observation goes straight to parents, unchecked. The setting covers all observations, from Sonar and from Awards & Activities. Agree the decision with senior leaders before you turn it on.

What parents need

Parents and carers see observations in the Juniper Education app. For each parent, check that:

• your school has invited them to the app through Portal
• they’ve accepted the invitation and can see their child in the app
• your management information system (MIS) records them as a parent with parental responsibility for the child

The help centre explains how to invite a parent to the Juniper Education App.

Parents who allow notifications from the app get one for each new observation. Others see it the next time they open the app.

Parent details reach Juniper from your MIS. If your MIS shares data with Juniper through Wonde, your school also needs to approve Wonde’s permission to share parent and carer contacts.

If a parent cannot see an observation

Check each of these in turn:

1. The observation was published for Home, not School only.
2. It has a note and at least one photo.
3. The parent’s child is tagged on it.
4. It shows as Approved in the Comms Hub Approval Log, or automatic approval is on.
5. It’s from the current academic year, because older observations cannot be approved.
6. The parent has accepted their invitation to the app and can see their child there.
7. Your MIS records them as a parent with parental responsibility, with no court order flag.

If the audience, note or photos are wrong, delete the observation and record a new one. If everything checks out and the parent still cannot see it, contact support.

Remove an observation parents can see

Delete it in Comms Hub. This removes it from Comms Hub, Sonar and the Juniper Education app.

1. In Comms Hub, select Interactions, then select Approval Log.
2. Select Observations to open All Observations.
3. Find the observation by searching, or set the status filter to Approved.
4. Select the observation’s title.
5. Select Delete, then select Confirm.

If the observation tags several pupils, it’s removed for all of them. You cannot remove it for one pupil only.

Comms Hub only deletes approved observations from the current academic year. For other observations:

• if it’s waiting for approval, decline it, then delete it in Sonar
• if it was declined, parents cannot see it, so delete it in Sonar if you no longer need it
• if it’s from an earlier academic year, contact support

Related pages

• About observations
• Record an observation
• Review observations and print learning journeys
• Users and roles