The Government wants all secondary schools to give parents online access to pupil data from September this year.
Brislington Enterprise College (BEC) is ahead of the game, having now provided this facility for the families of all its 1,150 students.
The secure online system means that mums and dads can find out real-time details of their children's achievement, progress, attendance and behaviour.
Details are updated daily, enabling parents and teachers to deal with any issues quickly.
School spokeswoman Corinne Breingan said: "This does not replace the interim and end-of-year written reports to parents. We also continue to have parents' evenings and learning review days but this takes college/home communication up a level."
Parents are given a username and password so they can log on and become familiar with their child's predicted grades and receive interim progress reports.
The system, known as Serco/CMIS, also gives details of the individual student's timetable and carers can see information about children's attendance, including if they have been late, and whether they have been given any merits or consequences.
Brislington Enterprise College ran a pilot scheme allowing 50 parents to use the system. It is now being rolled out to families of students in all year groups.
Trudie Poole and Jonathan Phillips, of Rochester Road, St Anne's, were among those who took part in the trial.
They have found it a useful way to find out how two of their three children, 16-year-old Liam and 12-year- old Jennifer, are getting on.
Ms Poole, 47, a parent governor, said: "It is definitely a positive step forward."
Mr Phillips, 43, an IT contractor and solution architect, said: "The information is presented in a variety of ways and is easy to follow. For example, attendance is shown as a coloured pie chart, while the merits and consequences are in a list form.
"It helps both ways. If the children are doing well, it's good to hear about it at the time so you can give them positive feedback. If there are issues that need to be sorted out, you can respond quickly. If everybody does their job properly, I think this will help a lot."
Principal John Matthews said: "We devised a rolling programme where letters were sent over a four-week period from mid-November. Already the response has been very encouraging and it is clear our parents and carers wish to take a more active role in their child's education. BEC has always had an open and honest relationship with its parents and carers, and until now have shared information over the phone or in person. Now that they can view the data for themselves, we are seeing much more pro-activity with regards to queries or concerns."
BEC has for the last three years given all students in Year 7 the opportunity to buy a laptop so the school is hopeful that almost all families will be able to use the system. It is a supplement to the virtual learning environment, through which students and parents can have access to homework, timetables and other school information.
The Government is running a Home Access scheme to try to bridge the "digital divide" in education and ensure that all students can use the internet outside school. Other Bristol schools are using this to make similar offers to their students.
Bristol City Council spokeswoman Julia Walton said: "We are working with all our schools to help them offer online access to data for parents from September."
Source - This Is Bristol