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Ed-technically superior software

Education Secretary, Damien Hinds, has challenged school leaders to take advantage of modern technology in and outside of the classroom to reduce teacher’s responsibilities.

Acknowledging workload as a common reason for teachers leaving the profession, Mr Hinds stated that innovative technology in the classroom has resulted in both challenges and opportunities: “Education is one of the few sectors where technology has been associated with an increase in workload rather than the reverse.”

On the one hand, technology is making it easier for parents and schools to stay in touch, which is great news! However, common tech-platforms such as email, text and direct messaging Apps are resulting in more pressure on teachers who find themselves spending hours replying to parent responses, questions and queries; time that could be better spent on what they do best – teaching!

At ParentMail, we believe that rather than interfering with routine, parent communications should support schools. With nearly 20 years’ experience, our technology is developed to save schools time and money, whilst improving parental engagement for the benefit of students, staff and parents.

Our system is designed specifically for the school office, providing tailor-made solutions to deliver communications for every occasion. From straight-forward messaging to digital forms, office staff are completely in control of parent communications, managing responses from one platform and alleviating pressure and supporting teachers in the classroom.

The free ParentMail App supports parents to stay up-to-date with all the latest school news, without labouring your school with hundreds of responses and questions in return. For trip consents, dinner selections or any communications requiring a reply, our flexible Online Forms solution allows staff to build forms to enable easy management of responses.

Streamlining communications in the school office means staff can work efficiently, cutting out paper (and paper related costs!) while saving hours of time on admin tasks. Organised parent communications support teachers, too, particularly when it comes to Parents’ Evening. Rather than giving the responsibility of appointment booking to students, who are liable to either lose or purposely avoid certain meetings, Parents’ Evening Manager puts the power into parent’s hands, allowing them to book convenient appointments to fit their busy schedule, saving hours of time and confusion in the school office. The flexible platform also allows parents to include notes, enabling teachers to plan for each meeting accordingly.

Don’t let technology be a hindrance for your school. Make the most of tailor-made software specifically designed for the education sector and take control of your parent communications. Whatever your needs, ParentMail offers a solution for you, whether that’s simple messaging, cashless payments, data and consent collection or event planning. Get in touch to arrange a free demonstration today.

App-solutely brilliant – our mobile app has been updated!

The free ParentMail mobile App is used by over 2.5 million parents to stay in touch with schools every day, from the comfort of home, at work or while out and about!

Over the years, it’s been through some major changes, as our Development team have stayed ahead of the latest EdTech innovations in order to bridge the home/school gap.

We caught up with Richard Shergold, Front-End Developer at ParentMail, to talk about the latest App developments.

“Our recent update is really important as it allows us to deliver fixes and make improvements to the mobile App more regularly. The team are always looking at feedback from users and have recently made several improvements to the App to make it even easier to use.”

“For example, one of the latest updates is the ability to mark items, such as messages, in bulk, rather than one at a time. We’ve also updated the way the App handles attachments and made a few handy changes to the App appearance, making it easier to navigate and manage school communications.”

“Our roadmap for 2019 holds even more exciting new developments, including Amex card payments and several other handy updates.”

Are you making the most of the ParentMail App?

Our free mobile App is by far the most convenient way to stay in touch with your school, supporting parents to make cashless payments, book appointments, respond to forms and more:

• Dependable dinner money – Online cashless payments make topping up dinner money quick and easy, with just a few taps, thanks to handy low-balance reminders
• Online Forms – Paper letters and forms are easily lost or forgotten at the bottom of school bags; digital forms are super convenient, making it easy to respond instantly
• Online Payments – Trips, uniforms, clubs and more – pay for them all via the handy App, via credit/debit card, PayPal, PayPoint, PayCash or Amex (via desktop)
• Parents’ Evening Manager – Booking convenient meetings to fit around busy schedules is quick and easy via the App

Feedback from parents is really valuable to us! Here are a few reviews that made our day…

“I think its brilliant how we can stay in touch with school so regularly and know what’s happening straight away instead of having to wait for school letters at the end of the day or week.” – Becky Hawkins – 5 stars

“The app is really easy to access and up to date, good layout and easy to navigate through the app.” – Ranj K – 5 stars

“Straightforward way to keep up with school communication and respond to forms without the hassle of them being misplaced. I enjoy using this app.” – Parent – 4 stars

“I love ParentMail! Makes school life much easier! Our school is new to it and it’s already much more useful!” – Parent – 5 stars

“It is great for keeping up with what is happening at my daughter’s school, when I am out & about & not by the laptop.” – Sarah Young – 5 stars

Share your feedback about the ParentMail App, – we’d love to hear from you!

Have you downloaded the ParentMail App yet? If not, visit the Google Play Store or Apple App Store today and search “ParentMail”.

If you’re a school looking to streamline communications and improve parental engagement, get in touch to find out how ParentMail can support you!

Easy, dependable dinner payments with +Pay

A number of schools have recently hit the headlines as outraged parents complain their children have gone without a hot meal due to a lack of credit on their cashless dinner accounts. In Wales, school councils have argued in defence, stating they have a ‘zero tolerance’ policy towards dinner money debt in order to protect school budgets when parents fail to pay.

For many busy parents, topping up dinner money is just one small task, easily forgotten, on a long to-do list. However, when it’s schools hitting the press for turning children away without lunch, it falls on school leaders to seek out a solution. Low-balance reminders give parents a handy nudge to top up dinner accounts before lunch time, ensuring their child enjoys a hot meal and schools avoid unnecessary dinner debt.

More and more schools are choosing online payments systems in a bid to go cashless, for good reason! No money on school grounds results in less time spent handling and banking cash. However, finding the right platform for your school is important, so before you make any decisions or renew your contract, read on to find out more about the fastest growing cashless payment system in the UK…

Introducing +Pay!

+Pay, by ParentMail, offers some of the lowest transaction costs on the market, proven to save primary and secondary schools thousands of pounds every year. Our flexible platform manages not only dinner accounts but offers multiple registers for breakfast and after-school clubs, too!

For parents, +Pay is convenient, easy to use and reliable; parents can access and top up their accounts when they need to most, even at the busiest times. The socially-inclusive platform allows parents to top-up with credit/debit card, PayPal, PayPoint and AMEX, offering a solution for everybody.

Alternative cashless payment systems lack the flexibility offered by +Pay. Our top-up reminders are free for parents, informing them instantly when their balance goes below a pre-set amount. Parents can simply log in to the handy mobile app and top-up – they can even manage accounts for more than one child and view what has been purchased. Schools can also send out handy reminders to parents yet to top-up, protecting the school budget and ensuring accounts are ready for lunchtime!

It’s not just the +Pay platform that offers flexibility; ParentMail offers subscription costs to suit any school’s needs and budget, from primary and secondary schools to multi-academy trusts and colleges. Set-up is quick, easy and won’t interfere with the day-to-day running of your school. The system integrates with all major cashless catering systems and our team of +Pay experts are on hand to offer support when you need it most.

Last year, more than 700 schools chose +Pay as their online payments platform; of these, more than 300 left the market-leading provider in search of more features and a parent-friendly service – make the move to +Pay and never look back! Get in touch to have a chat about your cashless catering needs on 01733 595961.

Breaking down parental engagement barriers with EdTech

For many families, the prospect of crossing the school threshold is a terrifying one. Though many schools may spend a lot of time and energy on events or activities for parents, the reality is that every school has those “hard to reach” parents and there are many barriers in the way that stop parents feeling connected with what is going on in school.

One key area that I feel can begin the process of breaking down barriers and building bridges to communication and community, is through the school office, as it can be instrumental in fostering a positive connection among families and educators. It can be a consistent source of engagement providing current, reliable, and useful information.

Many school offices across the country now use technology to communicate home various things to parents, realising that the more they engage parents with what’s going on, the better the outcome for students. Online communication has really helped bridge this relationship and many schools now send home messages, online forms, allow parents to book parents’ evening appointments and even request payments – allowing parents to pay with ease on their mobile phone or computer.

Previously, having to come into the school office to make payments, for example, would add stress to parents and administrative staff’s already busy day, so the beauty of using technology is that parents no longer have to cope with scrambling around looking for cash or cheques, or worry about coming into the school office to make payments for lunch, uniforms or trips, as  an online  system helps parents and admin staff communicate quickly, easily & more efficiently.

A system like ParentMail helps parents build a better relationship with the school office, without having to worry about physically coming into the building. For those parents who don’t feel comfortable coming into the office, or don’t have the time to do so, which is often the case, technology has broken down the barriers and allowed regular communication, helping these parents feel more connected with what is going on in school.

Watch Sue discuss this further in the video below…

To find out more about ParentMail and the range of applications that can help you improve parental engagement, simply visit the website, email info@parentmail.co.uk or call 01733 595959.

Five ways to change up your parental engagement usage

Parental engagement solutions make everyday office tasks quick, simple and cost-effective. Thousands of schools across the UK now collect dinner money, permission forms and share information about school events online, saving both time and money and improving relationships with parents as a result.

We regularly receive feedback from schools who use ParentMail in a variety of ways to keep parents engaged with what’s going on in school, to help further enhance pupils’ education journey. Below we’ve shared with you some of the ways primary schools are utilising ParentMail:

Share homework tips with parents

Homework is important in a child’s education and good habits can help throughout their school journey. Parents play a big part in encouraging this in their children, but some see it as more of a “pain” than a useful tool to help further improve their child’s understanding of the subject. Why not use ParentMail to get them on side, sending tips such as setting up a specific homework-friendly space and being available to offer help and support. These tips on the BBC website are great to share with parents.

Organise paper-free parents’ evenings

Lost forms, double-booked appointments and long waiting times lead to a parents’ evening headache for school teachers, office staff and parents. If parents have more than one child at a school, or more than one teacher to see, it can be a challenge to arrange appointment times accordingly. Parents’ Evening Manager puts parents in charge of booking appointments and removes the need for children to be involved in the process.

Use forms to keep pupil information up to date

Keeping data for children’s health requirements, next-of-kin information or anything else the school might need to know is essential for happy pupils and parents. ParentMail can make this easy in 2019, with Online Forms. Rather than chasing paper forms that can get lost between the classroom and home, online forms allow parents to respond quickly and with the ease of doing so from their smartphone! Plus, it won’t cost your school anything in printing costs, so you can request information updates as often as you see fit!

Remind parents about the importance of reading at home

Extensive research supports the claim that children who read regularly at home achieve more than those who don’t. We know that parents are busy, juggling work and family life. However, reminding them of the importance of reading with their child is crucial. Book Trust has some great tips here; why not use ParentMail to share these tips with parents?

Share information about key dates  

You may talk to pupils regularly about school open days, open days to secondary schools and school fetes. Now, ParentMail makes it easy to share this information with parents, and subsequently can help their children organise their time and arrange their own diaries, too.

How have you been using ParentMail to stay in touch with parents ? We’d love to hear about them via Twitter!

If you’re looking to adopt a parental engagement system that handles online payments, forms, parents’ evening and more, get in touch here or book a free demo.

St Thomas of Canterbury RC Primary School enjoy paperless Parents’ Evening

When it comes to planning Parents’ Evening, staff at St Thomas of Canterbury RC Primary School were used to all the usual stresses and strains; piles of paper cluttering the school office, lost or missing appointment slips, chasing up parent responses – the list goes on!

With 250 students, the school office would typically send home two letters per student in the run-up to parents’ evening – that’s 500 sheets of paper for one event! In their mission to go paperless this year, the school turned to Parents’ Evening Manager to take the paper out of parents’ evening.

“Like all schools, we’d try and give parents plenty of time to book appointments,” says Admin Support, Bethany Schofield. “We’d send out a form asking parents to pick an hour that that would suit them for their appointments, before trying to put together a schedule that suited everyone. There was a lot of back and forth between parents, staff and teachers. We’re a busy school and our parents are busy people; we wanted a system that would save us all time, whilst reducing our reliance on paper.”

A teacher at the school recently used Parents’ Evening Manager to book an appointment for their own child and realised the huge potential for St Thomas of Canterbury Primary School.

“When I looked into the system, I realised it offered all the flexibility we needed and would make the process easier for everyone involved – so we decided to give it a go! Setting up the evening was really easy. We prefer to keep the slots short and were able to pre-set the appointment lengths and block out times for particular teachers if needed. We particularly like how quick and easy it is to print out lists of appointments so that we can see at a glance how the evening is looking.”

“Parents love being able to book slots to fit around their busy schedules. We haven’t had any negative feedback and bookings came in really quickly! Recently, I was talking to a parent on the phone and she asked me to stay on the line while she booked her appointment, expecting it to be a tricky process – but she booked a slot in seconds, without any help from me!”

“In the office, we’re trying to go digital as much as possible; we know that online processes make things easier, faster and cheaper. We’re no longer sending home paper letters and use a cashless dinner payments system. The response from parents has been very positive. I would definitely recommend Parents’ Evening Manager to other schools. It’s a simple, smooth, time-saving process for staff and parents. We’re looking forward to using it for our next Parents’ Evening already!”

Get in touch today to find out more about Parents’ Evening Manager or to book a free online demo.

Strong communication could be your nursery’s greatest asset

You know better than we do that running a nursery is a busy and time-consuming business! Whilst chatting to parents during the morning drop-off might seem the most convenient way of sharing the latest nursery news, it isn’t the most efficient or organised method of parental engagement.

For many reasons, a strong partnership between your nursery and parents is vital. We all know nursery is a key stage in a child’s development and, understandably, parents expect to be kept up to date on the time their child spends in your care. Whether that’s what they ate for lunch, what time they took their nap or the activities they enjoyed that day, it is up to you to keep parents updated on this all-important information – and there’s a lot of it to share!

Word of mouth and reputation go a long way when it comes to parents choosing their child’s nursery. Strong communications could be key to impressing new parents – in fact, a focus on parental engagement could be your greatest asset! Fantastic facilities and staff paired with regular, reliable and helpful communications are sure to make you stand out against your competitors.

Take your nursery online

The thought of adding newsletters, updates and parents’ meetings onto your already long to-do list may be enough to make you give up before you’ve even started, but don’t worry! In today’s technology-driven world, placing more emphasis on communication doesn’t necessarily mean more hard work or extra cost.

Ask most parents and they are likely to choose digital communications over piles of paper letters, and when it comes to data security, digital documents are the safer choice. You collect such a huge amount of data, from health and safety information, contact details, dinner selections and parent feedback that storing this information in a secure online database will greatly improve the way you use information – from making accessing and updating information easy for staff to reducing your reliance on paper in the office.

Alongside communications, how much time do you spend managing payments? Cash and cheques take up a lot of time to collect, bank and process. Online payments reduce the amount of cash on nursery grounds, improving security where it’s needed most. Cashless payments are also far more convenient for parents, ensuring your nursery receives payments on time, every time. For nurseries operating over multiple sites, a central system from which all payments and data is collected, and all news, forms and emails are sent can save time, improve efficiency and ensure consistency.

Happy parents, happy nursery, happy children!

More nurseries than ever are making the most of ParentMail to share news, request data, collect payments, plan meetings and more, every day. Providing parents with a convenient, free mobile App to stay in touch with their child’s nursery adds that extra special touch to your business to make you stand out against the crowd.

Take control of your parent communications with ParentMail! Get in touch today to arrange a free demo to see how our flexible, modular system can meet your needs today.

Parent / School Communications – 22 Years On

As we have previously touched on, the 1997 White Paper ‘Excellence in Schools’ highlighted the importance of parent / school relationships and acknowledged that – “Parents play a crucial role in helping their children learn. Family learning is a powerful tool for reaching some of the most disadvantaged in our society, helping build strong local communities and widening participation in learning.”

In January 2010, BECTA published a report which stated “The support and involvement of families can make a crucial difference to learners’ success. Technology offers practical, effective ways to engage families, keeping them in touch with a learner’s progress and encouraging learning beyond the classroom.!

It touched on some key facts and figures relating to social grades and access to internet at home, but the key findings we will look at today relate to the section ‘Communicate better with online reporting.’

‘Every school in England is now expected to offer online access to information for parents to support their children’s progress: all secondary schools by September 2010, and primary schools by 2012.’

Here are some key facts and figures from this report:

• 80% of parents say they see the benefit of regular parent-school contact
• 60% of teachers think that parents believe their job stops at the school gate
• 58% of school leaders believe ICT has improved the school’s ability to involve parents in their children’s attendance.
• 48% of teaching staff say ‘invisible’ parents lack the confidence to approach them to discuss their child
• 67% of parents would like schools to use technologies such as text messaging and the internet to communicate with them more often
• 8% of parents surveyed in 2008 were kept informed through online reporting

So, 22 years on, how has parent / school communications evolved?

There is a wide range of school communication software on the market, and there is no doubt that it can support school-home engagements with the wide range of features they offer. Access to software can be via a website or in some cases, via a mobile App, providing more flexibility for the parent to stay in touch.

We know that parental engagement is a powerful factor in driving pupil progress right from early years education through to post-16 study. However, research shows that the nature of engagement changes over the course of a child’s school journey, which is why schools need a clearly defined strategy to determine how parental engagement will be led and carried out.

ParentMail bringing schools and parents closer together

Many schools encounter barriers to parental engagement, so by using a system that puts information directly into the hands of parents and tailoring their communications to meet the needs of their communities, schools are finding ways to break down these barriers and help parents support their child.

There will always be parents who are harder to reach, and technology has a part to play in engaging this group. Some schools are focusing on sending out positive messages about pupils to their parents which helps to counter negativity and builds fruitful dialogues – building bridges not walls between home and school.

Today, schools are embracing technology to communicate with parents, and email, text messages and mobile apps are all part of the toolkit. Schools need to ensure they get the most from these tools so that messages can be sent out quickly without adding to staff workload.

Parental engagement has moved on from the days when the annual report and parents’ evening were the only point of reference. The time has come for schools to reach out to parents using the technology they live with every day, so they can build up a positive working relationship to support pupils through the school years.

ParentMail provides schools with the technology they need to communicate with parents, all through one platform. If you’d like to discuss further, please don’t hesitate to get in touch by reaching us on 01733 595959 or email info@parentmail.co.uk

Introducing our new and improved School Help Site

We’re excited to announce the launch of our new School Help Site, now live and ready to answer any questions you may have about using ParentMail! The new site includes lots of improvements which make finding guidance and instructions easier than ever before.

Finding answers has never been easier

Powered by Google, the new search function instantly finds the answer to your question! You can search for an answer by typing in a keyword or question to quickly find the information you need to complete the task at hand.

In addition to step-by-step instructions, our new range of videos provide easy-to-follow guidance for completing a variety of tasks, from registering parents and creating invoices to downloading reports and editing user permissions.

Keep an eye out for system updates

We include news and details of our latest system updates on the school help site so that you can make the most of new enhancements and functionality. Notes on our latest update (our biggest release yet!) are available on the help site now, including details on updates to Online Forms, improved payment functionality and lots of handy fixes! We always take feedback and requests from schools into account when updating the ParentMail system and our latest release includes many updates that you specifically asked for – take a look at the notes to find out more!

What do you think?

We want to hear what you think of our new help site. Click the ‘We need your feedback’ button at the bottom of the homepage to let us know of any additional improvements we can make or FAQs you’d like us to add.

A look back at the year just gone…

As we welcome in the New Year, we’re taking the opportunity to look back over the year just gone, our biggest and best year yet!

2018 saw us welcome hundreds of new primary, secondary schools, nurseries and Academies to the ParentMail fold; we sent more messages, emails and online forms than ever before, supporting schools across the country to improve parental engagement and save time and money.

During 2018, we supported schools to send over:

• 18 million texts
• 285 million emails
• 5 million Online Forms
• We also processed over 4 million orders for trips, events and other School Shop items!

The past 12 months also saw schools planning almost 9,000 parents’ evenings; you were also busy arranging almost 3,600 events!

2018 saw us celebrate 2.5 million App downloads; that’s 2.5 million parents using the free ParentMail App to stay up to date with school news, book appointments, respond to forms and make payments, all from one account!

As we continue to support schools to go paperless with the very best in EdTech, we know how important it is to stay ahead with the latest innovations in software and technology, which is why we’re working hard on new functionality to help make life easier for schools and parents. Last year saw us update the free ParentMail App for both Android and iOS, making lots of handy improvements to make it even easier for parents to keep on top of school communications. We also released our biggest system update yet, which was jam-packed with improvements, new functionality and handy fixes, many of which were specifically requested by our schools.

Following our biggest and best year yet, our New Year’s Resolution for 2019 is the same as always – to continue supporting schools to improve parental engagement with innovative software and exciting new developments. What’s yours?

IRIS Software Group acquires BioStore

IRIS Software Group, the UK’s business critical software provider has announced the acquisition of BioStore LTD, a principle provider of identity management and cashless catering solutions to UK schools and businesses.

BioStore’s identity management and cashless catering solutions are used by over 3,000 UK schools and sixth form colleges to improve and streamline access control and how catering services are delivered. The acquisition further extends the IRIS education software portfolio and its ability to deliver a step-change in school efficiency – a prime objective of many Academy and Academy Trusts.

BioStore will sit within the IRIS Education Division which includes PS Financials financial management; Results Squared asset management and communications; ParentMail online payment and parent engagement, and The Contact Group which includes the prominent messaging apps, Looked After Call and Truancy Call.

Over 11,000 education organisations use IRIS solutions, which provide essential software to 60% of UK academies and 82% of large multi-academy Trusts. IRIS also connects schools with over four million parents and guardians and sends over 300 million messages each year from schools to parents and guardians, helping to keep them informed and process payments for dinner money and other school items.

Kevin Dady, CEO of IRIS Software Group says, “BioStore has developed some game-changing technology for the education sector and I’m delighted to welcome the business to IRIS. Our mission is to help all education establishments become more efficient and productive by reducing administration and delivering services that benefit schools, colleges, students and parents. This acquisition is yet another step in helping us achieve this goal.”

Nigel Walker, managing director of BioStore says, “BioStore is a leader in providing innovative identity management and cashless catering solutions to schools and businesses for many years. We’re delighted to be part of IRIS Software Group where we can create even tighter integrations between our respective award-winning portfolios and innovate further. Together with IRIS we can offer schools and businesses an end to end solution, which creates value by making budgets go further.”

A paper(less) New Year’s resolution

Tighter budgets see a call for efficiency and an ‘all hands-on-deck’ approach to searching out cost-cutting opportunities. In the hunt for financial savings, however, it’s important to remember that, often, it’s the small changes that deliver big results.

It is estimated that the average secondary school pupil produces 22kg of waste a year, with primary school pupils more than doubling that at 45kg. Much of this waste is paper and card; today, one million sheets of paper are being used per school, per year; on average, schools can spend up to £60,000 on photocopying annually! With pupils still relying on books and pens in the classroom, school leaders are questioning: what are the true costs and implications of paper in schools?

Taking a step back from paper can be tricky – a widespread movement towards modern technology in the classroom appears far off. Children still complete exams on paper and handwriting remains an important step in every child’s education. While it may be difficult to reduce reliance on traditional methods in the classroom, a move towards paperless-office environments may be easier (and more beneficial!) than you think.

An online system such as ParentMail supports your team to take the easy step towards a paperless environment – and it’s a step well worth taking! A commitment to going paperless results in both time and financial savings; your school could save up to £65,000 a year on print alone, not to mention the additional paper and postage costs.

Without paper letters, forms and registers to manage, manual admin tasks are replaced by efficient, reliable and simple online processes. Paperless-school staff don’t need to invest valuable time in chasing trip and dinner payments; instead, parents can make timely, cashless payments through our mobile App, reducing dinner debt and eliminating any need for cash on school grounds. From the same online account, parents receive notifications about parents’ evening, school trips and clubs, and can complete and return school forms at a time convenient for them. Paperless schools also enjoy the benefits of having important information at their fingertips, with access to customisable reports and data to support student learning.

By removing paper-based obstacles from daily tasks, your school can streamline processes, protect important data and achieve amazing cost savings. Equally, empower parents to engage with your school with a convenient, socially inclusive platform and watch home/school partnerships go from strength to strength!

Paperless schools never look back! Get in touch to find out how ParentMail can support your school to save time and money this new year. Call the team on 01733 595959 or email info@parentmail.co.uk.

WhatsApp – Pros, cons and managing it for your school

Instant messaging service, WhatsApp, has become an integral part of staying in touch with friends and family for adults across the UK. Many parents also use WhatsApp groups to share information about their child’s school with other parents.

Earlier this year, we wrote an article on our blog, What’s up with WhatsApp? after a Mumsnet thread hit the headlines when a post referring to the different types of mum found in ‘every’ school WhatsApp group struck a chord with parents across the country.

Parents were quick to state that the WhatsApp group created at the beginning of the school year is a handy way of staying up to date with the latest classroom news. However, the sheer quantity of messages sent by the 20+ parents all part of the same group can be quite overwhelming and ‘fear of missing out’ often warrants us incapable of turning notifications to silent.

Sometimes WhatsApp groups for parents may not share accurate information, and details about children may be shared with little thought for privacy. In this video, Sue Atkins – parenting expert and ex- deputy head – gives her views on how parental engagement software can keep communication between school and parent clear, whilst keeping all data safe.

If you want to find our more about ParentMail’s communication applications, and what else it can do to help your office staff save time and money, get in touch on info@parentmail.co.uk or give the team a call on 01733 595959.

Christmas is hectic, but technology can make life easier!

Christmas can be a very busy time for parents, particularly with all the extra events going on in school! The run up to the school nativity or end of year performance can include lots of rehearsals, not to mention booking and paying for tickets, choosing seats and making sure they know the correct dates and times for everything that is going on!

Technology can help make life just that bit easier!

With the ParentMail mobile app, for example, parents can receive messages instantly straight to their phone, including last minute changes or reminders. What’s more, they can manage events, make online payments and even complete forms all from one account, making a hectic time of year easier for parents to manage.

Watch  our video below to see why parenting expert Sue Atkins recommends using technology in school to help make life just a little bit easier for parents.

The benefits of breakfast clubs – ParentMail’s top picks!

Last month, Children and Families Minister, Nadhim Zahawi announced that thousands more children across the country were receiving a healthy and nutritious breakfast at school breakfast clubs. In part, this is thanks to a government-funded programme worth nearly £26 million.

Here are some of our favourite ways breakfast clubs can benefit children, parents and schools.

Breakfast clubs improve school performance

Research shows that a good breakfast can help improve children’s reading, writing and maths performance. KidsHealth.org reports that breakfasts high in protein and fibre, and low in sugar, helps to boost children’s attention span, concentration and memory, essential for good performance at school.

Affordable and safe pre-school childcare

Parents are increasingly busy juggling childcare with working, often having to opt for pre- and post-school care. Breakfast clubs offer them some respite, both financially, and from the chaos of the morning school run. On average, breakfast clubs in England cost just £1.68 per day to attend. Moreover, about a quarter of breakfast clubs are completely free for all children to attend!

Time to socialise, or get active

Many schools use their breakfast club to get children moving. The Daily Mile is a relatively new initiative to get children running or jogging one mile every day. Who knows, the next Mo Farah might be hidden amongst your breakfast club! For other schools, children can play board games, draw or colour, or use computers to research and complete their homework.

Better attendance and behaviour

By reducing the stress of the morning routine for families and children, breakfast clubs can help improve behaviour and attendance. Children have up to an hour before school starts so they can relax, play, eat, exercise and socialise, all without the rush of getting to school. In this article from the Guardian, Sam Bailey, Headteacher of the Forest Academy in Barnsley, said “Pupil behaviour has improved dramatically and attitudes to learning are the best they have ever been.”

ParentMail helps schools successfully run breakfast clubs

Thanks to our brand-new multiple registers feature, schools with our +Pay (online payments) package can now easily set up additional registers. This lets them track registrations and payments for breakfast clubs, alongside other registers, such as school dinners and after-school clubs. Therefore, administrative work is reduced, too. The feature also allows for multiple running balances, which helps reduce arrears with low-balance reminders for parents.

This is one of our most-requested improvements!

For existing online payments users, you can add new registers from the Registers tab in ParentMail. If you’re not a ParentMail user, but want to know more about Multiple Registers and other applications that can help improve parental engagement and online payments management, give the team a call on 01733 595959 or email info@parentmail.co.uk.

Meet Abbey Catholic Primary School’s ‘ParentMail King’!

Since September, Abbey Catholic Primary School have been on a campaign to register parents to ParentMail and their efforts have received a fantastic response!

As ParentMail Co-ordinator, Deputy Headteacher, Joe McTernan, has worked closely with the staff team to make the most of their complete ParentMail package to improve parental engagement.

In a recent survey, 87% of our customers agreed that the key to the success of a new communications system is strong parent uptake. Since the launch of ParentMail a few months ago, Abbey Catholic Primary School saw parent registration increase slowly; following a campaign to get all parents registered, today 99% of parents are signed up and 80% are using the App!

The school is committed to adopting a paperless environment and ParentMail has been key to achieving this. They now send out all newsletters, competition and club communications via ParentMail, making it very important for parents to register. Although ‘playground chatter’ has been key, the team made the most of a recent parents’ evening to help parents make the most of the ParentMail App.

“We had our first parents’ evening since the introduction of ParentMail and it seemed like the perfect opportunity to answer any questions parents had about using their accounts.” Says Deputy Headteacher, Joe. “So, I was coronated with the title of ‘ParentMail King’ for the evening, complete with paper crown! I was on hand to answer questions and have a chat. Most parents who stopped by to ask questions just needed some support to get used to using their account. I mainly dealt with teething problems, but I also sat with two of the three families yet to register with ParentMail and helped them to set up their accounts there and then! It was a great idea and a huge success.”

The primary school also have a great social media presence and tweeted about their ‘ParentMail king’ during the evening to let parents know that support was available if they needed it – another brilliant way of sharing news and improving parental engagement!

“Although we’re at the end of our ParentMail roll-up now, we’ve worked hard to get to this point and made it a priority since September to get parents registered on the system.” Says Joe. “We have played hardball with a few parents who weren’t signing up. For example, we chose not to send paper copies of communications home with students. Instead, we sent a message to parents to let them know that there was a letter in the school office for them to collect. This worked really well, as our office staff took the opportunity to encourage parents to download the App and many families registered with ParentMail as a result. It’s far more convenient for them – sometimes people just need that extra push to give something new a go!”

Parents at Abbey Catholic Primary School can now manage communications with ease and stay up to date with school news, events, competitions and payments, which supports school staff as a result! In particular, organising PE and after-school clubs has been far smoother and easier for everyone involved, with all parents responding to forms and event information quickly and efficiently online. And, should parents ever have a question about using their account, they know help is at hand at the school!

Deputy Headteacher and ‘ParentMail King’, Joe McTernan, ready to answer questions and give advice on parents’ evening!

If you’re a school looking to improve parental engagement get in touch today! Call us on 01733 595959 or email enquire@parentmail.co.uk.

Top Tips for productive parents’ evening appointments!

Parents’ evening is a very important part of the relationship that parents develop with the school and their child’s teacher, whether it is their first experience, or they have attended before.

Here are a few pointers to how parents may be feeling and how you can ensure that the meeting is productive, for the child, for parents and also for the school.

• Children can be rather uncommunicative about their life at school, which can be frustrating for parents, so for them, this is a great chance to get to know their child’s teacher and learn more about how their time is spent in class, what they are studying, how they are progressing and if they need any extra support at home.
• There can be a lot that parents want to cover in their ten-minute slot and some will come prepared with all of the questions that they want to ask, whereas others will wait to be led by the teacher, but there is no doubt that they are expecting a ‘full picture’ of the progress their child is making and also any challenges they are facing.
• Remember also that parents want to be reassured that their child is important and is being cared for and engaged with during lessons. There is nothing worse than being a parent sitting with a teacher and wondering if this teacher has spent time in getting to know your child. A good pointer is to have some of the child’s work to hand for the parents to review and some prepared notes on what they have achieved – i.e. a celebration, and then where needed, to discuss the focus on where their child needs more support and how they can help.
• Parents generally want to be involved in their child’s education, to ensure that they have the best chances and to be ‘part of the process’ and to develop a positive relationship with their child’s teacher or teachers.
• Depending on the parent’s own experience with school, they may feel intimidated and it is the teacher’s role to put them at ease and start to build on the foundations of the relationship between school and home. They will be looking for guidance and how they can support their child, so although time is limited, a top tip is to have a prepared plan that they can take away, highlighting the areas of focus where they can support; not only will this help them to become involved in their child’s schooling but will also provide a point of reference for the next meeting, so progress can be charted and further plans can be developed.
• It is also essential to remember that this is a two-way conversation and that parents may have their own concerns about the child’s school life that they want to share with you, whether this is related to the actual school work or other aspects, such as their relationships with other children and staff, this is important to them, so ensure that facts are established if they have concerns and actions are agreed and followed up.

Parents’ Evening Manager allows school to manage parents’ evening with ease, and even has the functionality to allow parents to leave notes in advance of their appointment. With this, teachers can run off their appointments the day before and quickly see what each parent would like to discuss, ensuring both parties feel organised ahead of the appointment.

For more information on Parents’ Evening Manager, email info@parentmail.co.uk or call us on 01733 595959.

School dinner money debt is on the rise

The BBC recently reported on the astonishing debts accumulated by Welsh schools as a result of unpaid school dinner money. It’s a common problem for thousands of primary and secondary schools across the country, and figures show dinner money related debts are on the rise.

The BBC found that at the end of last year parents in Wales owed more than £400,000* in unpaid school dinner debts; in seven Welsh authorities, the debt has increased by a staggering 90% in just five years.

What do parents say about dinner money debt?

We took to social media to see what parents had to say about increasing school dinner money debts and the feedback was very interesting –

“Often the debt is over £1000 owed and considering the younger years get free school meals I think it’s outrageous.”

“Our school displays the debt in the weekly newsletter/website. It’s low at the minute, about £600, but it is creeping up…”

“It’s not a case of “can’t pay, won’t pay” just an easy mistake of not drawing cash out on Sunday night, how many people actually carry cash these days…”

“Maybe if all schools could accept standing orders or online payments it would make parents lives easier and less stress on school chasing dinner money debt.”

“Ours is done through ParentMail; so, so easy and you can see exactly what they chosen and what time.”

What’s the solution?

The cause of dinner money debt is different for all schools and parents. A number of parents on social media argued of the inconvenience of having to find cash and coins every week, stating that they rarely have cause to withdraw cash these days. For this reason, many parents spoke in favour of online systems, stating cashless school payments are far more convenient for everyone involved.

However, even with online payment systems, with busy lives, parents can still occasionally forget to top up their child’s dinner account because many online payment providers do not provide the functionality to send automatic alerts to parents when it’s time to top up – some systems even require parents to pay extra for this service!

Not only does +Pay support schools to become cashless, our Online Payments system also allows schools to input a low dinner money balance limit; when a student’s dinner money reaches the pre-selected amount, their parent automatically receives a handy alert to top up, even if that’s just half an hour before dinner time!

+Pay works for schools with or without cashless catering systems and saves hours of time in the school office; no more clunky cash payments to process or reminders to be sent out to parents! The socially inclusive platform allows parents to pay via whichever method suits them, be that credit or debit card, PayPoint or PayCash.

Thousands of schools are using +Pay every day to collect cashless dinner money payments and are enjoying reduced dinner money debt as a result. With 97%** of adults now accessing the internet on-the-go from their mobile phone, online payments are the way to go!

To find out more about +Pay, call 01733 59599 or email info@parentmail.co.uk.

Useful Links

https://www.parentmail.co.uk/services/online-payments/dinner-money

*https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-45895567

**
https://bit.ly/2nw9rcy

Budget 2018 – What you need to know

This week, the chancellor delivered his 2018 Budget in which he announced an extra £400 million capital funding for schools this year, effective immediately.

This money will amount to a pay out of roughly £10,000 per primary school, and £50,000 per secondary school.

However, the extra cash injection cannot be used for revenue outlay, such as staff salaries, and can only be spent on capital projects, for example purchasing sports and technology equipment, or building maintenance.

Every year, the Budget sparks conversations and debates across industries, and this year has been no different. Whilst many in the education sector argue that this capital investment is not enough, Jonathan Simons, Education policy commentator and former government adviser, suggests that any extra funding into schools is a ‘good announcement’.

Funding of UK schools and education continues to be a hot topic, both across the teaching profession and in Whitehall.

Limited staff numbers, both in classrooms and the office, puts pressure on school operations. With increasing regulations and more reporting and paperwork to complete, along with increased pupil numbers, teachers’ to-do lists are continually increasing.

Many schools are looking to technology to help ease staff workload, improve efficiency and maximise return on investment, choosing ParentMail to increase parental engagement. ParentMail allows schools to send messages, collect forms, collect payments, organise events and organise parents’ evening digitally. This saves staff time printing and distributing forms to pupils, eliminates the risk of lost communications, and can save schools thousands of pounds per year on resources like paper, postage and printing toner and make school budgets go further.

If you are already using ParentMail and would like to find out more about the other services which could benefit your school, or if you’re looking to implement a brand-new parental engagement system, get in touch with the ParentMail team and start to improve efficiency, reduce costs and work smarter within your school. Call 01733 595959 to speak to our specialist team or email info@parentmail.co.uk

The challenges of organising Parents’ Evening

With school now in full swing, routines are established, children are settled in their new classes – and so the next big milestone is Parents’ Evening and organising it successfully is no mean feat!

Parents’ Evenings are an extremely important event in the school calendar, as they provide the opportunity for parents to speak with teachers to get an insight into how their child/children are progressing, whilst for the teachers it is an opportunity to strengthen the parental relationship with the school and to develop their support in a child’s learning.

For the school staff, it is a huge task to ensure that all the parents are informed of the date(s), which provides them with the opportunity for booking a convenient slot with their child’s teacher. We all live in a busy, hectic world so juggling diaries can be complicated and stressful.

Then there are the logistics to consider; is it best for the meetings to take place in the child’s classroom or in a larger space such as the school hall or gym? All of this can be further complicated when parents have more than one child at the school, as appointments will need to be coordinated; further complications can arise when the parents are separated, and both parents want separate appointments.

Further support is needed from the office staff in supporting the teachers in collating reports, records and other documentation that they need for each meeting.

With regular communications with parents, they should all be aware of the date, and hopefully, have organised their personal diaries to attend. However, inevitably there will always be a case where this information has been overlooked by the parents, they have prior commitments or may have just forgotten! This then falls to the school staff to assist with organising alternative dates/times for the important meeting.

Traditionally, letters inviting parents to make appointments were sent home with the pupils which were then (hopefully) returned to the school via the same channel with the parent’s availability to attend to be processed and an appointment allocated. In some schools this is still the case, but as school communications evolve, online methods and booking systems are being introduced to ease the burden.

Whichever method your school uses, there is no doubt that the organisation and logistics still mainly fall under the School Administrators to ensure that everything is in order, all the small details are considered and that the event runs smoothly.

Are you making plans for Parents’ Evening? Parents’ Evening Manager could save your school hours of time, as well as ensuring a smooth and organised event! Email enquire@parentmail.co.uk or call us on 01733 595959 to find out more.

Casterton College switch to +Pay and are thrilled with the results!

Casterton College in Rutland is in the top 100 schools of the UK. With a growing student population, the academy places great emphasis on not only academic achievement but the care and support of every student throughout their school journey.

As such, the staff team recognise the importance of parental engagement. With the introduction of ParentMail at the start of the new school year, staff are pleased to have a huge 92% of families already signed up and using ParentMail to manage school communications and payments. They are also thrilled with the valuable time and cost savings the system is helping the team to achieve!

Until this year, the school had been using an alternative online payments solution which, five years after its introduction, was unable to deliver the extra demands and functionality required to support the school. With the aim of being completely cashless, the team found that the service offered to parents was quite poor in terms of functionality; there was no parent application or payment reminders available and the website was difficult to use from a mobile device, causing a bad experience for parents trying to top up dinner money.

Parents also needed to pay extra to receive automated low dinner money reminders. In the office, staff also found the service hard to use. What should have made daily tasks easier actually caused more issues. The reports were unclear, resulting in staff investing extra time reformatting data. Overall, the school required a more professional service for both internal use and parents.

Director of Finance, Tina Green, was a great supporter of ParentMail before it was introduced to the school office. She has been using ParentMail as a parent to manage school communications for a number of years and knows firsthand the benefits ParentMail can have for parents, students and schools.

“We needed a more robust, reliable system; looking into alternatives, ParentMail stood out for its suite of applications. We use +Pay, Online Forms, Email and messaging; utilising multiple systems from one provider has resulted in great cost savings. We’re a small and very busy team so managing payments and parent communications through one system is incredibly efficient. We want to be a paperless, cashless school and ParentMail enables us to achieve this.”

“We are thrilled with the amount of time we’re saving on a daily basis and we’ve only been using the system for a few months. We can already see how ParentMail will support us over the next year. Almost all the parents are paying for school dinners with +Pay; we’ve set up payments for locker rentals, trips and revision guides, and all have been a huge success. Setting up payment items is user-friendly and fast; parents receive an alert when a payment is due and payments come through quickly as a result, meaning we don’t have to chase students for overdue payments. We particularly like the payment reports we receive; they’re clear, reliable and easy to analyse.”

“This year we welcomed a large year seven group to the school. Many parents were already using ParentMail from primary school so onboarding them to our ParentMail system was straight-forward for both staff and parents. And for those parents new to the system, the SIMS auto-link made it quick and easy! The system was set up before the start of term, so parents were able to purchase items in advance of their child’s first day. We were used to a manual onboarding system before ParentMail and it took days – with ParentMail, it was easy!”

“Feedback from parents has been great. Once they’re registered, they’re pleased with how easy it is to perform all the tasks required from them; from topping up dinner money, purchasing study guides to filling in and returning forms, parent communications have never been stronger.”

If you’re a school looking for a way to simplify and streamline your communications or introduce Online Payments, ParentMail could be the answer. Get in touch today through email (enquire@parentmail.co.uk) or call us on 01733 595959 and we’ll be more than happy to discuss further!

Top tips for parental engagement success!

It’s the start of a new school year, meaning there’s a lot of information to send out and share with parents. How you decide you will be communicating with the pupil’s families is a matter of preference. Traditionally, letters were sent home with the pupil with the expectation that these would be passed on by the pupil to the parent. However, this method has been seen as a weak link and often leads to many parents discovering out of date letters shoved at the bottom of school bags.

With the development of technology, we have seen the introduction of social media groups such as closed Facebook groups, WhatsApp chat groups etc, for information to be shared between schools and parents. This method is fine for general information, but not ideal for specific information regarding a child or for a parent to communicate any questions or concerns about their child.

So what is the solution?

Here are a few of my top hints and tips for managing school communications, sure to support your staff team, parents and students in the long run!

1. Starting out from the beginning: Establish with the parent how they would like to receive information about their child, school events, news and updates. Not all parents are ‘tech-savvy’ so you may still have to resort to posting out direct mailers to some of them.
2. Explain what you will be sending: Be clear on the types of communications parents can expect and the frequency – i.e. if there is a parent’s evening coming up, how they can book an appointment with their child’s teacher/teachers to discuss their progress.
3. Gathering information: You are required to hold an increasing amount of information on a child aside from their academic progress – i.e. medical information, details of home life that may affect their performance in school, who are the regular carers and if communications need to be sent separately in the case of divorced parents. Ensure that you clearly explain that this information is required to support the child and who it will be shared with, that parents have the right to view what is being held in their child’s records and how they can apply to see this and the process.
4. Provide information: Ensure that you provide details of how the parents can contact the school, who they can speak to, the times that this person is available and how they can make appointments with the various staff who look after their child etc.
5. Child’s schoolwork: Are you able to provide regular updates to parents on their children’s studies? For example, what are the subjects their children are studying, how parents can help and become involved in supporting these? Evidence supports that children are more engaged and successful in their studies with strong parental partnerships between the school and home.
6. Progress reports: Can you provide regular progress reports – i.e. homework handed in or outstanding, spelling test results, feedback from the child’s key teacher/worker so that parents are fully informed of their child’s progress and can celebrate successes or address areas of concern rather than wait for a Parents’ Evening to be provided with this information.
7. School events: Send out timely information on school events, term dates, inset days and regular reminders so that the parents are fully aware of everything that is happening in school.
8. Celebrating success: Does your school have a scheme where children are given awards for good work, behaviour or attendance? It could be an idea to include these ‘Rolls of Excellence’ report in any communications, but if sending photographs, please ensure that you have consent from the parent if their child is featured.

Parenting expert, author and TV presenter, Sue Atkins, has 22 years experience in the teaching profession making her an expert on all things parental engagement! We are thrilled to join forces with Sue to share best practice on school/parent communications.

Getting it right from the start for schools and parents

Parenting expert, author and TV presenter, Sue Atkins, has 22 years experience in the teaching profession making her an expert on all things parental engagement! In this blog, Sue discusses the importance of starting the year off right in terms of school communications and building a relationship between the school and parents from day one of the new school term…

Well that’s it – the long hot Summer holidays are officially over and September has seen thousands of young children stepping through the school gates, many for the first time, in their pristine shiny new shoes, slightly oversized new school uniforms and clutching their brand-new pencil cases.

It is an exciting day for some children, looking forward to seeing their old friends after a long summer and starting the new academic year with all it’s exciting new possibilities and experiences.

For parents, it can be a time of mixed emotions and concerns; these cover a wide range, for example, wondering how their child will cope in their new environment if they are starting a new school, will their child make friends, how they will get on with the school work, who are their new teachers, how will they find out how their child is progressing etc. Establishing an open and informative line of communication between the school and home is essential at this stage and it will be the foundation of a strong relationship for the rest of the year.

Evidence supports that the more involved parents are in their child’s education, the better the pupil performs at school. Parents are the first teachers and role models that a child has and there have been many papers written by academics about the way a child’s classroom performance and academic achievements are significantly influenced by the extent to which parents become involved in school life and the interest they take in their child’s education.

So right from the start of the academic year, it is the role of the office staff to establish a regular and reliable stream of communication and sharing of information. It is a busy time in the office, as all of the personal data of the pupils, their families and also staff must be collated accurately to form the confidential records that will support the essential and varied administrative tasks throughout the year. With the introduction of GDPR in May 2018, there is also the added pressures that the collection and storing of this data is compliant and only available to those who need access in order to carry out their role.

Strategies and Policies

The Government first set out a strategy for securing parental engagement in a White Paper, ‘Excellence in Schools’ which was published in 1997. This paper suggested that there are three key aspects to improving a school-home relationship:

• Providing parents with information
• Giving parents a voice
• Encouraging parental partnerships with schools

The publication of the annual Ofsted Report in 2016 saw a great deal of importance placed on effective communication between the school and home, with examples of poor and good communication, and while the following excerpt may not relate to the age group in your school, the keyword is partnerships – it is a clear implication that the best schools communicate regularly with parents…

 “Highly effective partnerships with parents mean that the parents are clear about their child’s strengths, next steps and progress towards being ready for school.”

There have been a number of strategies and policies devised over the years since the publishing of ‘Excellence in Schools’ to bridge the gap between schools and pupil’s families to create an inclusive community to share information, but there is no doubt that the real success of any relationship is down to regular communications and updates.

What type of communication?

It would be easy to fall into the trap of sending out information on school initiatives, up and coming dates and events, but in order to engage with families, it is essential that clear and concise information is provided in relation to how and who to communicate with in regard to the individual child; parents want to know that their child is important to the school and they are therefore more interested in news relating to specific individuals, accompanied by the more general notices.

Start of the school year

At the start of the school year, it is essential that the first communications layout in detail how the school will be communicating with the parent throughout the year – i.e. how often this will be, what form it will take and stressing that information and questions from the parents to the school will be valued.

Many parents, especially as a child moves into secondary education, have real concerns that they will not be aware of what is happening in the school and what their child is encountering; according to a recent claim by Scottish Tory Leader, Ruth Davidson that only seven per cent of schools provide parents with the required information and parents are being left ‘in the dark’ about what happens inside their children’s schools

If you can get it right from the start, plan your communications to the parents and the form that they will take, then you are on the right road to building the essential bridge and supporting the teachers, staff, pupils and families within your school.

[Source: TES 13 September 2018: https://www.tes.com/news/parents-dark-about-what-happens-school]

Parental engagement – a strategy for success

We talk about the importance of parental engagement a lot. The term has become a ‘buzzword’ in our offices and in schools across the country. When ParentMail first came into being over 15 years ago, parental engagement was the priority, sitting at the heart of our technology and ambitions. To this day, the subject remains the driving force behind our brand and a hot topic of discussion in the education sector.

Just a few weeks ago, Education Secretary Damien Hinds called for an “educational revolution” [1], in part to reduce the burden of, and time spent on, ‘non-teaching’ tasks. Those daily tasks carried out in the school office, from data collection and management to parent payment processing, take up hours of time every day as well as having a direct impact on the school budget.

Under pressure 

Pressure on schools, be it primary, secondary or Multi-Academy Trust, increases every year. Under scrutiny to evidence and improve efficiencies, maintain a good reputation and Ofsted rating, as well as staying ahead in the league tables with student academic success takes time, planning and prioritisation. These key aspects of every educational organisation often rely heavily on resource in terms of time, people and budget. Pressure in the education sector shows no sign of slowing; forecasts indicate that by the year 2027, secondary school pupil numbers are expected to rise by almost 15% [2]. That means there will be over 400,000 more pupils in England’s state schools than today. Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers states the figures present a challenge, stating that schools are being asked to do so much more now than they were a decade ago. As pupil numbers increase, so too does the daily pressure on school management.

With such pressure we can become distracted from the topic of parental engagement. Attention strays to other issues; the upcoming Ofsted inspection, the ever-busier school calendar, GDPR, staffing and recruitment, suppliers and upcoming exams, to name a few. Every school holds their student’s academic achievement as their highest priority and school staff invest their days in supporting pupils to succeed; parental engagement, then, needs to remain a persistent topic of discussion. Rather than a time-consuming hindrance, engaging parents in their child’s schooling should be considered a beacon of support for teachers, staff and students

All parents as partners

A 2011 government review [3] investigated best practice in parental engagement. Research evidenced that not only do children perform better when parents are involved in their schooling, but also placed emphasis on the fact that schools that ‘improve and sustain improvement engage the community and build strong links with parents. Where schools build positive relationships with parents (…) evidence of sustained school improvement can be found.’ The benefits go beyond GCSE and A Level grades.

When it comes to parental engagement, the subject of social inclusivity is never far behind. Even for those schools with an effective and successful communications plan in place, there will be a segment of the parent community who it is almost impossible to engage with. Whether their responses to letters and forms are scarce or they fail to make an appearance on parents’ evening, engaging with these parents is an ongoing and difficult task. However, they cannot be allowed to fall by the wayside; evidence from Ofsted suggests that a critical element of learning and teaching is the relationship between the teacher, parent and student. Every parent deserves the right to be involved in their child’s learning, regardless of boundaries, be it availability, language barriers or more. As such, schools are tasked with thinking outside the box to identify the best methods of engaging with all parents.

Communications methods should be scrutinised to ensure they don’t contribute to the difficulty in building parent/school relationships. Traditional methods of school communications need to be reconsidered. Whether it’s print, paper and postage costs, missing pupil-post, data protection or environmental concerns, the number of schools fast realising the countless problems associated with paper communications is on the rise. In its place, where do we turn?

The tech revolution

According to the ‘Review of best practice in parental engagement’, ‘Information and communication technology ICT can contribute to improved parental engagement by providing a convenient means for parents to access up-to-date information about their child’s learning.’ The paper school newsletter which occasionally finds its way into the hands of parents can be out of date within days. Technology offers a reliable, timely alternative and supports a more flexible arrangement for busy staff and modern parents.

Becta 2008 [4] identified a number of ways in which ICT can improve parental engagement by enabling new channels of communication between parents and schools. Benefits included allowing parents to be more involved, better methods of capturing information and supporting flexible working methods for staff. However, at the time of this study, the Office of National Statistics reported that only 73% of households in the UK had internet access. Back to the subject of social inclusivity, almost 10 years ago ICT and technology in the school raised as many questions at it answered.

Fast forward to 2018 and the numbers speak for themselves. According to the Office of National Statistics statistical bulletin on Internet Access: 2018 [5], 9 out of 10 households now have internet access. Daily internet use in adults has increased from 25% in 2006 to 86% today. Mobile phones and smartphones remain the most popular device to access the internet with 97% of adults aged between 24 to 34 accessing the internet ‘on the go’. With parents performing most tasks from the device in their hands (internet banking, booking train tickets, arranging grocery deliveries etc) why would they expect any different when it comes to school communications?

Evidence tells us that adults want to use familiar technology (i.e. their smartphones) to perform daily tasks; it is convenient, easy and reliable. Our years of experience tells us that when parents are provided with a user-friendly and convenient method of managing school communications, schools receive a better response; before you know it, parental engagement is on the up, parent responses increase and student academic success is improving as a result.

These technology-driven successes aren’t only restricted to the classroom. With GDPR now in place, schools have a greater responsibility for protecting data. Loose-leaf filing systems and paper forms propose risk, as well as headaches when trying to keep information updated. A digital system from which multiple staff can manage data collection, consent forms, school dinner money and payments reduces the time spent on manual tasks and implements consistency – not to mention the comfort of knowing data is safe and secure.

The start of a new school year is the perfect opportunity to reflect on your school communications, parental engagement and objectives for the year ahead. With pressure on the education sector increasing, technology should no longer be considered an unnecessary or inconvenient expense. Instead, consider the opportunities tech in the office offers and the successes it can bring for your staff, parents and students.

Our modular range of applications is being utilised by thousands of schools across the country who are enjoying the benefits of improved parental engagement alongside welcome time and cost savings. We are proud leaders in the EdTech community and the provider of the UK’s favourite parental engagement system. We want to support more schools to make the most of modern technology – find out how we can help you.

To find out more about how ParentMail can support parental engagement at your school, enquire on our website, call us on 01733 595959 or email enquire@parentmail.co.uk for more information.

[1] – https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/aug/07/uk-schools-silicon-valley-tech-industry-urged-foster-education-revolution

[2] – https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-44809258

[3] – https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/182508/DFE-RR156.pdf

[4] – http://dera.ioe.ac.uk/1549/1/becta_2008_htssanalysis_report.pdf

[5] – https://bit.ly/2nw9rcy

What’s up with WhatsApp?

Last month a Mumsnet thread hit the headlines when a post referring to the different types of mum found in ‘every’ school WhatsApp group struck a chord with parents across the country.

Ranging from ‘the wind-up merchant’ to ‘the informer’ to ‘the school can do no wrong brigade’, the mum invited others to add their own characters that she may have missed; and other mums were quick to follow up with their own suggestions!

It seems the school WhatsApp group is a source of information and frustration in equal measure for many parents. Parents are quick to state that the WhatsApp group created at the beginning of the school year is a handy way of staying up to date with the latest classroom news. However, the sheer quantity of messages sent by the 20+ parents all part of the same group can be quite overwhelming and ‘fear of missing out’ often warrants us incapable of turning notifications to silent.

For schools, the parent WhatsApp group can result in inaccurate information circulated quickly to a large number of parents. Classroom politics leak through the school gates and into the digital world where staff have little to no control over the content shared. For those teachers who use WhatsApp to communicate with parents, there can be serious privacy issues (i.e. messages intended for one parent mistakenly sent to another or to a group).

Of course, WhatsApp groups are a particularly handy source of news and information for those parents unable to socialise with fellow mums and dads in the school playground. However, it is easy to forget those parents without access to new technology. These are the parents who miss out on the news and information that many parents take for granted.

Social inclusivity has been at the heart of ParentMail’s technology since we started up over 17 years ago. We recognise the benefits of modern technology for schools, however, we ensure those parents who prefer a traditional method of communication have the same access to school news and information as those parents using our free App. No parent is forgotten or left out because we believe every parent deserves to be kept up to date with their child’s education.

With ParentMail, schools can send news and information without fear of privacy breaches, knowing their data is up to date and protected. Digital communications warrant loose pieces of paper and hardcopy consent forms redundant; online forms and responses are easily received, analysed, managed and stored.

And, of course, schools have total control over the information circulated. No fear of Chinese whispers interfering or editing important school-related messages. Whether it’s term dates, school closures, after-school-club cancellations or trip payments, the information is wholly in the hands of school staff, ensuring parents receive only accurate information and can respond appropriately.

When it comes to parental engagement, ParentMail ensures quality, consistent and reliable school communications that both schools and parents can rely on. Let’s keep WhatsApp groups for birthday parties and leave school communications to the experts!

To find out more about how ParentMail can improve parental engagement at your school, call us on 01733 595959 or email enquire@parentmail.co.uk for more information.

The EdTech revolution happening outside of the classroom

Last month Education Secretary, Damien Hinds, challenged the tech industry to launch an edtech revolution for schools, colleges and universities across the UK.

EdTech has an increasingly valuable place in the classroom; 3D technology is quite literally bringing lessons to life and coding is becoming a prevalent lesson for students of all ages, whilst encouraging inclusion and opening eyes to the possibilities of the industry. With only a minority of schools able to fully embrace these technologies today, however, it may take some time before the opportunity to embed state-of-the-art EdTech in the classroom is available to the majority of schools across the UK.

But tech doesn’t only deliver benefits to students inside the classroom. One of the five opportunities discussed by the Education Secretary was the important role of technology in reducing time spent on non-teaching related tasks and teacher workload.

Since the earliest days of ParentMail, we have recognised and evidenced the important role that EdTech plays outside of the classroom. Investment in technology in the school office serves to encourage parental engagement and improve student academic outcomes as a result.

While technology continues to evolve outside of the school gates, parent habits are changing. Alongside the evolution of technology, schools are under increasing pressure to demonstrate efficiencies and save money at every turn. Protecting the school budget remains a priority for schools across the country this September, so how does cost efficiency and investment in EdTech fit together?

With the new school year nearly upon us, now begins the task of onboarding new students, communicating term dates, planning parents’ evening and updating student, parent and teacher data. Gone are the days when these tasks took hours of time to plan, implement and manage. Thousands of schools are making the most of modern technology with ParentMail, saving time and money whilst performing day-to-day admin tasks and enjoying the huge benefits of improved parent responses as a result. Whether circulating the school newsletter, requesting updated parent contact details, collecting school dinner payments or arranging parents meetings – Multi-Academy Trusts, Primary and Secondary schools across the country are saving time and money with digital communications and managing important data safely and efficiently like never before!

Last month we released our innovative and improved Android App to the Google Play Store. With the help of feedback from parent testers, we have improved the user experience to ensure schools continue to receive a great response to their communications. We’ve also very recently completed our annual Customer Satisfaction Survey, gathering feedback from schools to continue the improvement of our software and services for your benefit. We’re proud to be the UK’s leading parental engagement system; our commitment to staying on top of the latest EdTech trends whilst listening to customer feedback ensures our product will continue to support schools in building fantastic parent/school relationships for years to come.

Since 2001, ParentMail have been investing in technology for the benefit of thousands of schools across the UK. To find out more about how our software could support parental engagement in your school, email enquire@parentmail.co.uk or call us on 01733 595959.

Forms, forms and more forms…

With September upon us, schools are now busy collecting and managing all new starter data – from students, to staff, to parents! With paper-based communications, the cost of print, paper and sometimes postage can be surprisingly high, not to mention time-consuming and cumbersome to manage when letters and forms are returned.

So why not manage it electronically with our Online Form collection App?

Building your online form is easy with ParentMail. Whether you’re collecting trip consents, meal selections, parent surveys, data, student medical information or more, you can create your own from scratch or choose from our collection of ready-built forms. Our Forms App provides total flexibility in terms of formatting and managing responses; you can set an expiry date for your form and even set automatic reminders to encourage parents to complete and return it by the deadline.

Once you’ve created your form, simply click send… and watch the responses arrive!

Parents receive a notification and can complete the form via the free ParentMail App on a mobile, tablet or desktop. For parents who prefer a traditional option, a paper copy can be generated.

Monitoring responses is easy – you can download reports and CSV files, send out messages to all respondents, as well as those who haven’t responded, and more.

Our Online Forms App is proven to improve parent responses for our customers. Since introducing the App, Hemingbrough Community Primary have gone from receiving a trickle of responses to more than 60% of parents now completing and responding the very same day. Many of the forms now receive a 100% response rate within 48 hours!

Business Manager, Sarah Read, said, “We send dinner menus each week, permissions for photographs or walking home, club forms and more, and usually within minutes of them being sent we see the responses coming back in. Now that we’ve allowed parents to complete forms on their smartphone, the turnaround time is quicker than ever before!”

With GDPR now in force, our Online Forms App provides peace of mind that parent data is safe and secure, for both your school and your parents.

Streamline your communications in time for September! To find out more about how ParentMail can improve parental engagement at your school, call us on 01733 595959 or email enquire@parentmail.co.uk for more information.

Introducing our innovated Android App

We are delighted to announce our new and improved Android App!

Experience tells us that when parents are happy with their ParentMail experience, Primary and Secondary schools, and MATS, receive a great response to their communications. So over the past few months, we have been working hard to improve our Android App!

We invited parents to download and try out our Beta app and to feedback to us about their experiences. Thank you to all the parents who took part in our Beta test! Over 2000 parents downloaded the app and sent their feedback to us, and our developers took all the comments and suggestions into account in order to innovate and enhance the application for your benefit!

We’re very excited to announce that our new and improved Android App is now available to download in the Google Play Store! To download the App, go to the Google Play Store and search ‘ParentMail’ and click ‘Install’ or ‘Update’ to start using the new and improved App!

What’s new?

Our new and improved app includes many enhancements sure to improve a parent’s experience on Android devices –

• Login details will now be saved, allowing easy access to the account with just a few taps
• Improved notifications
• A ‘Select all’ button has been added for the email, SMS and Online Forms folders, allowing the user to easily mark all items as read/unread with just one action
• There’s a new ‘Unread’ folder, where the user can find all your unread items in one place
• Email attachments will open in an appropriate application available on the device
• When entering a pin, the numbers are no longer visible, ensuring better security and privacy
• We’ve made a number of improvements to our Online Payments application, enabling parents to make quick and easy payments with just a few taps.

…and much more! For full details of the improvements made to our Android App, please visit the School Help Site.

Schools, encourage your parents to download the new and improved Android App! Simply visit the Google Play Store, search ‘ParentMail’ and select to either install or download the App!

We hope you’re as pleased with the new App as we are!

ParentMail makes the most of modern technology, supporting thousands of schools to save time and money, and ensuring students benefit from improved parental engagement. To find out more or to book a free demonstration of ParentMail, simply email info@parentmail.co.uk

Leading the way in GDPR compliance

We understand the importance of protecting the data of your parents, students and staff. That’s why the ParentMail team have been working hard to lead the way in GDPR compliance!

Over the past few months, we have implemented a number of system updates and enhanced our services where necessary so that your school can be confident in our compliance with the new regulations.

Although your school were already legally obliged to keep data safe and secure (whether that’s staff and student information, paper files or an electronic database) the GDPR mean your school now has even greater responsibility for protecting data.

The enhancements and updates we have put in place supports you in this task, protecting your organisational reputation and helping you to comply with the new regulations. Schools and businesses who are not GDPR compliant could see fines of up to 4% of their turnover or €20 million imposed from the Information Commissioners Office, not to mention the impact on Ofsted ratings.

So, what have we been doing? Visit our School Help Site, System Updates page (accessed through your ParentMail account, ‘Help’ > ‘School Help’ menu option) to learn all about the system updates and enhancements we have released to support your school in complying with the GDPR.

ParentMail GDPR documentation

ParentMail’s GDPR statement is available on our retail site – www.parentmail.co.uk/gdpr

This page includes a library of resources to support ParentMail’s GDPR compliance:

• IRIS Software group Security policy
• ParentMail Data protection statement
• ParentMail GDPR and Data protection overview
• ParentMail Data Processing Agreement

Instant messaging is fast replacing the humble text message

Just over 25 years ago, 1992 marked an era which saw the world of internet technology boom! Just one year after the Internet Browser was created, and two years after the World Wide Web put a face to the internet we recognise today, 1992 saw the rise of another communication technology which we are all familiar with; the text message!

New technology is hot on the heels of the humble text with the growing market of instant messaging services such as WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger. In fact, in 2015, WhatsApp founder Jan Kroum reported that the application handled more than 30 billion messages a day – that’s a huge 10.95 trillion a year! As instant messaging rates increase, the number of text messages sent is rapidly decreasing; in the UK, text messaging declined by almost 5% from 2012-2013.

Habits are changing at home and in work

Instant messaging apps allow us to send messages for free, without character limitations, meaning lots of people are opting to use these applications over test messaging every day! When you need to send school or club information out to hundreds of parents, text messaging can cost a lot and limits what you can send. Print and paper costs are an expensive alternative, and pupil post is unreliable!

Our Messaging App gives schools the best combination of flexibility and functionality. That’s why ParentMail offer a modular range of services, allowing you to add applications as and when your needs change! Our system links with your school database to keep data in sync and, unlike many other school communication systems, we offer a free parent app, ensuring your messages reach parents instantly and reliably, even if their contact details change!

Smart and safe

Research finds that four out of five UK adults have a smart phone. More than one million parents in the UK are already benefiting from the ParentMail app today, receiving important school messages instantly. With recent cyber-crime and phishing scandals impacting schools across the UK, the security benefits offered by ParentMail for both your school and parents are huge, too. When parents receive communications through the ParentMail App, they know to ignore any suspicious emails appearing in their inbox purporting to be from your school.

You can do more with our messaging app than you think –

• Email your school newsletter in seconds
• Send a text to tell parents an after-school club is cancelled
• Quickly inform parents about school closures
• Create templates for messages used regularly, saving admin time
• Send messages to individuals, a group or all parents
• View a history of messages sent and received and analyse the results of who has opened your messages with our handy reporting suite
• Print paper copies of communications for unregistered parents – ParentMail value social inclusivity and believe every parent has the right to stay up to date with their school, whether they have online access or not!

ParentMail make the most of modern technology, supporting thousands of schools to save time and money, and ensuring students benefit from improved parental engagement. To find out more or to book a free demonstration of ParentMail, simply email info@parentmail.co.uk

Sell more with your own Online School Shop

Pens, pencils, uniform and backpacks; items that support student learning and strengthen your school brand!

All of these items are available to buy from your school shop, but do you sell as much as you would like?

Our Online School Shop is the perfect solution for selling your school products! Parents can browse and buy all the traditional school items available at the click of a button; total flexibility allows parents to order from the comfort of their own home or while out and about, thanks to the free ParentMail app!

When an order is processed, your staff team are automatically alerted, allowing you to gather the items to pass onto the student or parent. Our handy reporting suite allows you to track orders and keep an eye on stock levels, and fulfilment tracking provides a complete electronic trail for easier record keeping.

The flexible service makes it easy to import your shop items and allows you to assign size options and stock quantities to limit the number that any one parent can order of a particular item.

No more time-consuming paperwork or clunky cash payments!

We all recognise the issues caused by cash in schools; everything from bullying and extortion, to lost change or money misspent. So cut out the cash with an online shop; parents can pay for items online by card, PayPal or PayPoint, reducing the amount of cash in school and saving your team hours of time usually spent collecting, counting and banking money.

Introduce your own Online Shop in advance of summer and make it easy for parents to order all the school items students need for the school year ahead!

The School Shop is free to use with our Online Payments package. It’s no surprise that more and more school are switching to ParentMail when it comes to improving parental engagement and going cashless!

Would you like to know about our Online Payments application? Get in touch today by calling 01733 595959 or email enquire@parentmail.co.uk and we’ll get a free demonstration booked in!

GDPR – Are you ready?

Whether your school is a primary or secondary school, nursery, academy or part of a multi-academy trust, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will apply to you from 25 May 2018.

This means that the way you manage data and information within your school will likely need to change. Although your school is already legally obliged to keep data safe and secure (whether that’s staff and student information, paper files or an electronic database) the GDPR will mean your school has greater responsibility for protecting data.

GDPR replaces the current Data Protection Act and ensuring a good understanding of these regulations across school staff is very important for ongoing compliance. Schools and businesses who are not GDPR compliant could see fines of up to 4% of their turnover or €20 million imposed from the Information Commissioners Office, not to mention the impact on Ofsted ratings.

Here are a few things to consider when it comes to GDPR and your school –

• You must be able to evidence that your Data Processors hold the minimum competencies and accreditations; for more information on these, click here
• Ensure the appropriate people in your team understand GDPR and the implications the new legislation has. Consider introducing a Data Protection Officer, someone who is responsible for data protection compliance and communicating information about GDPR
• Conduct an audit of the information you currently hold in school; document the information held for both staff and students, detail where it is held, who has access to it and where it came from
• Develop and communicate procedures on how to respond appropriately to a data breach; these procedures should include processes for detecting, reporting and investigating a data breach
• Review your current privacy policy and make any necessary changes in line with the GDPR
• Review and document policies for gathering, maintaining, communicating (electronically) and deleting student data
• Consider how you will gain and maintain parental/guardian consent for any changes made to current policies as a result of implementing GDPR
• Consider when to start implementing Privacy Impact Assessments in your school
• Implement an e-safety policy to ensure your staff understand what needs to be done to be compliant with GDPR, as well as keeping your school safe against phishing attacks,

More information for preparing for the GDPR can be found here.

Preparing for the new GDPR is key; it’s always better to be safe than sorry! By considering the implications of the new regulations in advance of 25^th May, you can be confident that your school are safe from any nasty fines or reputational damage.

If you would like to know more about ParentMail, contact us today on 01733 595959 or email enquire@parentmail.co.uk.

IRIS Software Group acquires Contact Group

IRIS Software Group, the UK’s business critical software provider is today announcing the acquisition of Contact Group, a leading provider of parental engagement and truancy management software to UK schools. The acquisition extends IRIS’ education portfolio providing solutions to manage all aspects of school finance, including income, assets and communications.

Contact Group’s multi-award-winning parent engagement software is used by 2,000 UK schools, nurseries and sixth form colleges to help improve school-home communications.

The acquisition further extends the IRIS education software portfolio and its ability to deliver a step-change in school efficiency – a prime objective of many Academy and Academy Trusts. The Contact Group will be integrated into IRIS’ Education Division which includes PS Financials financial management, Results Squared asset management and communications, and ParentMail online payment and parent engagement.

The IRIS Education Division now provides solutions for nearly 11,000 schools, over 60% of UK Academies and 82% of large Multi-Academy Trusts.

Kevin Dady, CEO of IRIS Software Group says, “I’m delighted to welcome such a successful business to IRIS Software Group and extend the breadth and depth of software services we offer schools. Our mission is to become the leading partner in school management, helping deliver the best possible outcomes for children by maximising value from facilities. This acquisition is another key step in helping us achieve this goal.”

James Harrison, managing director of Contact Group, says, “IRIS Software Group has brought together best-in-breed school software providers and Contact Group is delighted to be part of its Education Division. Schools are under increasing financial pressure and as more become academies or join Trusts, they need to ensure they make the most out of all budgets. IRIS’ Education Division is extremely well placed to deliver exceptional, high value services.”

Helping you to increase parent uptake with ParentMail

Feel the benefits of 100% parent uptake with ParentMail!

Just a few months ago, we released an update to your ParentMail dashboard which included lots of handy new information and functionality – but are you making the most of it?

We’re here to help!

The more parents registered with ParentMail, the more your school will benefit from reduced admin time, print costs and more. It can seem like quite a daunting task to get all of your parents registered but we are here to help make the process easier.

Your ParentMail dashboard includes lots of handy information and functionality to help encourage parents to register so you can start feeling the benefits of improved parental engagement. If you haven’t explored this area of your dashboard, read on to learn more!

Your Stats

The ‘Your Stats’ section of your dashboard shows a breakdown of your parent uptake with ParentMail, including how many families have a ParentMail account, how many families are using the ParentMail app and how many families are receiving email and SMS communications.

You should aim to see all green bars here – this would mean that you are highly engaged with your parents! But if not, don’t worry, there’s help available so you can identify and target unregistered parents; just click ‘Improve your Stats’ to get started!

Letters to parents

Although you may have already sent letters home to encourage parents to register with ParentMail, we all know what can happen to pupil post! It doesn’t hurt to resend these letters if you are struggling with parent uptake – remember you can also use the content of the letters to send emails if you would prefer.

You can download letter templates from the ‘Boost Registration’ section of your dashboard. Simply select the letter and click ‘Download Letter’.

Check your data

Did you know that the Rejected Records Report will list the information which has not been imported into your ParentMail account? For guidance on how to run this report, download the Rejected Records Guide.

Reports

There are three reports available to help with data maintenance and parent recruitment –

• Parents with Missing Contact Information – This report shows all parents, which child they are linked to and whether or not you have a mobile number or email address for them – this report is particularly useful if you are looking to fill gaps in contact information!
• Parent Connection Status Report – This report will show all parents and their account status. This can be used to identify a list of parents who would benefit from another registration invitation.
• Paper Copy Families – This is as simple as it sounds! The report will show all students who will receive paper copy communications rather than emails, and the reason why.

Resend Verification Messages

This is a really easy way to resend verification messages, either by email or text, to prompt your parents to register.

Remember, the ParentMail School Help Site includes step-by-step guidance on the parent registration process which you can send to your parents for extra help.

Making the most of ParentMail

These tools are available to help increase the uptake of your parents with ParentMail. When your parents are registered with ParentMail, you can truly make the most of your applications and benefit from improved parental engagement!

If you are a school looking to improve parental engagement, get in touch to learn how ParentMail can help you. To find out more or to book a free demonstration of ParentMail, simply email info@parentmail.co.uk!

Introducing Rob Brown, Operations Manager at ParentMail

A huge 90% of our customers say they are happy with their customer support experience, but we’re sure a few wonder who they are talking to when they seek the help of our agents. Introducing ParentMail’s Operations Manager, Rob Brown – a name we’re sure many of you are familiar with!

We sat down with Rob to chat about his role as Operations Manager…

How long have you been with ParentMail?

“I joined ParentMail just over 3 years ago as a telephone trainer and quickly moved into a Team Leader role, in which I was responsible for managing a project moving schools from our legacy systems on to the current ParentMail service. Today, I am Operations Manager, managing the ParentMail Support Team. I am responsible for all post-sale customer engagement; I love my role because I’m passionate about helping schools develop a strong relationship with their parent community by using ParentMail.”

Tell us a little about what you do?

“My day to day workload varies hugely, as I am not only responsible for customer support. I also work closely with our Development Team to prioritise system enhancements based on the knowledge I have gained speaking to customers; we always aim to ensure the services we deliver are consistent with what customers need. In addition, I am the company’s Data Protection Officer meaning I am the first point of contact for all things data protection. I am currently highly involved in the new GDPR scheduled for May 2018. Being a Manager at ParentMail doesn’t mean that you don’t get your hands dirty! I am very much on the front lines when it comes to our customers’ needs – building strong relationships with customers is very important to me.”

What values do you prioritise and encourage in your team?

“I train my team to seek first to understand the customers’ needs before attempting to provide a solution. It might be that there is a simple way we can provide support to what initially seems like a very complex issue. My team are also keen to seek out any opportunities to develop their own skillsets and add further value to the business.”

What do you enjoy most about your role?

“The people I work with at ParentMail are the most passionate, hard-working team I have ever had the pleasure of working with. They adapt to change without argument and thrive off of challenging situations, viewing them as a chance to learn something new and expand their comfort zone.”

Outside of work, what do you get up to?

“I have recently become a new dad and I am quickly beginning to understand the challenges (but also the joy!) of being a parent. Between ParentMail and my new family there’s not much time left for me, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. I am a keen foodie fan and have in the past been known for my gaming skills (reaching number 1 in the UK on Halo some years ago!)”

Thank you, Rob, for taking the time from your busy role to chat with us!

Should you require any support, our team are waiting to help!

Live Chat can be accessed from your ParentMail account. Simply click the ‘Help’ button, located on the right-hand side of the top navigation bar, followed by ‘Live Chat’, and you are just a few moments away from talking to a friendly Support Advisor!

Should you experience any issues accessing Live Chat, please visit click here.

If you would like to know more about ParentMail, contact us today on 01733 595959 or email enquire@parentmail.co.uk.

Do your school communications reflect the changing habits of parents?

Parent habits are changing.  No longer are parents digging through school bags to discover out of date, crumpled newsletters; receiving a poor response to your school communications is a thing of the past, too!

The death of text messages

Before the era of smartphones, text messaging allowed schools to send important messages directly into the hands of parents. However, with the introduction of smarter mobile technology schools are realising there are limitations with text messaging; texts are limited by character restrictions meaning often one isn’t enough! Not to mention that texts can’t include attachments, resulting in print and paper costs.

Times are changing and ParentMail are leading the way with innovative services to improve parental engagement.

With three times as many smartphones in the world than computers, it isn’t surprising that the majority of parents use their mobile phones to receive and respond to school communications. In fact, more than 1.2 million parents use ParentMail’s app to engage with their school every day!

In place of limited and expensive text messaging, digital communications such as instant messaging, email, online payments and forms are fast becoming the method of choice for improving parental engagement for thousands of schools across the UK.

Parents are still receiving school messages directly to their phones but without the limitations. Emails can be accompanied by attachments, reducing the need for print-outs, and instant messages are not limited by the number of characters. Receiving school messages through the ParentMail app is easy and convenient for parents, allowing them to stay up to date with school messages anytime, anywhere.

“The biggest benefit to ParentMail is being able to reach, and receive responses, from busy working parents, who pick it all up on their smartphones.”
Linda Flynn from Copthill Independent School

We make things easier for parents so schools get a better response

“Because parents can complete forms and surveys on their mobile phones or tablets, it’s much easier for them to respond.”
Alison Tanner from Halterworth Primary School

Whether parents are booking parents’ evening appointments, paying for trips, choosing school dinners or reading the school newsletter, managing school life easily on their smartphones means schools can expect a better response from parents.

ParentMail make the most of modern technology, helping schools to save time and money and ensuring students benefit from improved parental engagement. To find out more or to book a free demonstration of ParentMail, simply email info@parentmail.co.uk

ParentMail ensures 100% parental engagement at Wistow CE Primary School

Emails and Texts, Parents’ Evening Manager and Online Form Collection ensure 100% parental engagement at Wistow CE Primary School!

Wistow Primary School have introduced three of ParentMail’s services into their school over the past two years, initially launching Emails and Texts, followed by Online Forms and Parents’ Evening Manager. With each new app, they have seen parental engagement improve; and they love sharing their ParentMail experience with other schools!

“Once we had experienced the benefits of texts and emails with ParentMail, we were very eager to give the online forms a go – and what a huge time saver they are!” says School Business Manager, Angela Dethridge. “I particularly like knowing that our communications have reached 100% of our parents and carers, most of whom love using the ParentMail App to respond and communicate with us. However, we appreciate there are a number of parents and carers who prefer traditional methods of communication, and ParentMail make it incredibly easy to produce paper copies of all newsletters and forms to be sent out by hand. It’s a completely socially inclusive service, allowing us to communicate with everybody!”

With Online Forms a huge success amongst school staff and parents, Parents’ Evening Manager was the next application to be introduced at the school.

“We set up a Parents’ Evening, press ‘send’, and sit back and watch the responses come in!” says Angela. “ParentMail has changed the way we work, day to day. We save so much admin time in the office. I would recommend ParentMail to any school that are looking to improve parental engagement, whether at particular times of the year, with Parents’ Evening Manager, or all year round. It’s fantastic being able to guarantee 100% engagement with all school communications!”

If you’re a school looking to improve parental engagement get in touch today! Call us on 01733 595959 or email enquire@parentmail.co.uk

Help is at hand in under 60 seconds with our Live Chat support service

The days of waiting on the phone for a customer service advisor to take your call are long gone at ParentMail. Help is at hand almost instantly with our fantastic and friendly Live Chat service!

In a recent survey of ParentMail customers, a huge 90% said they were happy with their customer support experience; of these, 34% felt their support experience had improved and 55% said support has been consistently good – that’s a thumbs up for Live Chat!

With ParentMail’s Live Chat service, schools wait no longer than sixty seconds on average for assistance. Our Customer Support team receives regular training, ensuring fantastic product knowledge and friendly service; no matter how big or small the query, they are happy to help, delivering in-depth training and on-going support for all ParentMail schools.

On the rare occasions that an issue cannot be resolved over Live Chat, the team will arrange for a call to be made within 24-48 hours. All calls are made in the order they are received, ensuring queries aren’t lost amongst others and support is provided in a timely manner.

Feedback gathered from Live Chat sessions allows us to tailor the future development of ParentMail services, ensuring they always meet your needs.

Our School Help Site is regularly updated and holds a wealth of information, including tips for getting started and helping parents, as well as information regarding our services, marketing items and details of system updates.

Live Chat can be accessed from your ParentMail account. Simply click the ‘Help’ button, located on the right hand side of the top navigation bar, followed by ‘Live Chat’, and you are just a few moments away from talking to a friendly Support Advisor!

Should you experience any issues accessing Live Chat, please visit click here.

If you would like to know more about ParentMail, contact us today on 01733 595959 or email enquire@parentmail.co.uk.

More schools are choosing to go cashless with an Online Payments system

With thousands of nurseries, primary and secondary schools now using our cashless Online Payment System to receive and process payments, experience tells us that parents are only too happy to make payments online!

Cash in schools can cause a variety of issues. Consider the time school administration invests into collecting and managing cash from students! Alongside swallowed-up time, there’s also the issue of lost money, money spent where it is not intended to be spent, hunting high and low for spare change or the cheque book on busy mornings and the potential of bullying or extortion – there must be a better solution!

There is – and ParentMail has it!

In today’s cashless world, online payment collection is the safest method for processing school payments for all involved.

In a recent survey of over 6000 parents, a huge 70% think a mobile app makes it easier to pay; 82% said they were very satisfied with ParentMail’s Online Payments service!

Safe, secure and efficient

ParentMail complies with Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards and PCI DSS Level 1. We do not store credit or debit card details, ensuring parents can pay online for school trips, dinners and more with the security of knowing their payment is safe.

Our Online Payment service includes a full reporting suite, allowing schools to see the full picture of incoming payments; whether you want to view outstanding payments, monitor payment instalments or keep up to date on payments as they are made – you can do all of this and more at the click of a button.

Parents keep up to date with payments due (reducing school debt) and they can even top up and monitor dinner money. Payments can be made instantly from a mobile, tablet or desktop, eliminating the need for cash and cheques.

Everyone is a winner with a cashless system – what are you waiting for?

If you’re a school looking to consolidate all your systems into one, or if you’d like to use a reliable Online Payments system which allows your parents to top up on a mobile app, get in touch today! Call us on 01733 595959 or email enquire@parentmail.co.uk

Internet safety – top tips for young people

The internet is a fantastic tool and one which many of us couldn’t live without – particularly younger generations!

We are no longer naïve to the threats posed by the online world. However, they are becoming increasingly sophisticated and unfortunately those who are most at risk are young people.

Although a brilliant resource for education, creativity and communications, it is increasingly important that we teach young people how to use the internet safely and responsibly.

With Safer Internet Day 2018 just around the corner, celebrated globally on Tuesday 6^th February, this is a fantastic opportunity to talk about and better understand the dangers posed by the internet, in order to learn how to help our young people stay safe online.

Here are our checklists for safer internet use!

Younger children (ages 5-13) –

• Be safe – set parental controls on any devices your child has access to (mobile, tablet, games console or computer); settings are often trickier to change once the device is in use, so remember to set these controls on any new devices before your child has access to them.
• Be open – discuss what is safe and appropriate to share online, such as photos and videos.
• Be honest – talk with your child about what they are looking at or using online, and encourage them to share their activities with you.
• Be aware – remember that social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter have minimum age limits of 13. These age restrictions exist for a reason, no matter how much pressure you receive from your child to allow them to have a profile; consider discussing social media with your school and parents.
• Be smart – approach the tricky subject of online stranger-danger openly but carefully. The intention isn’t to frighten a child into fearing the internet, but to make sure they know never to share photos/videos of themselves with people online, or to agree to meet up with them.

Teenagers (ages 13-18) –

• Be involved – stay interested in your teenager’s online activities and keep discussing it with them.
• Be responsible – communicating online and communicating face to face often feel like very different things for teenagers. Ensure they understand the repercussions of their internet activity in terms of what they say and send to others online.
• Be open – discuss what is and isn’t okay to share online and don’t be afraid of approaching tricky subjects such as cyberbullying.
• Be safe – most public places now offer open-access WiFi, and while this can be very handy when out and about, it also poses a security threat. Many public WiFi services do not include filters to block inappropriate content; keep an eye out for family friendly WiFi schemes including Mumsnet Family Friendly WiFi and RDI Friendly WiFi.
• Be firm – consider adjusting parental controls on their devices to match your teenager’s level of maturity.

For more information, visit www.saferinternet.org.uk.

How important is security in your school?

Cyber security has never been more important than in today’s digital world. Only a few weeks ago, The Telegraph reported a huge number of cyber hackers targeting UK private schools with poor online security, leaving many schools questioning, ‘How safe are we?’

For those private schools with unsecure IT systems, cyber-crime is becoming an increasingly likely occurrence. Cyber criminals are able to access the school’s IT system and launch phishing campaigns, some aimed at parents.

What is a phishing campaign?

Phishing is the practice of sending fraudulent emails with the intent of persuading the recipient into revealing personal information, such as credit card details or passwords. To the untrained eye, these communications are difficult to identify, resulting in victims being tricked into providing personal information without a second thought.

Typically, phishing attacks will impersonate a school and target parents, requesting payment details to update their system. Although many parents will reply to the email, requesting more information, they are of course only replying to the cyber-criminal who will reassure them that the email is legitimate. Therefore it is important for organisations, including private schools, to recognise the dangers of, and become more discerning on the topic of cyber-crime.

Fortunately there are a number of controls that schools can put in place to protect their organisation against phishing attacks –

• Educate your staff and parents! Tell your parents that if in doubt, they should always call your organisation directly to avoid being tricked by emails supposedly signed off from your school.
• Install a spam filter to identify any suspicious emails or viruses before they hit accounts.
• Ensure all systems are current with the latest security updates and patches.
• Implement a security policy which improves password security, expiration and complexity.
• Encrypt all sensitive organisational information.

Protecting parents from phishing attacks is vitally important for your school’s reputation. By utilising ParentMail’s communications services, parents are far more vigilant and wary of suspicious emails which appear in their email inbox purporting to be from your school. If parents understand they will only receive communications and make payments through ParentMail, they are far less likely to be tricked into providing financial and personal information in response to a phishing campaign.

ParentMail’s messaging and online payments systems are entirely safe and secure; we already have an outstanding reputation with parents! Improve your organisation’s security today – call 01733 595959 or email enquire@parentmail.co.uk and we’ll arrange for a free demonstration to be booked in.

Parents’ Evening Manager saves time for schools and parents

Parents’ Evening – it’s a stressful event for any school, big or small.

Staff at Wadhurst Primary School were all too familiar with the issues surrounding parents’ evening. Staff and teachers set aside hours to sift through paper forms, organise teacher diaries, rebook and assign appointments – time that neither admin staff or teachers could afford to give up.

Fortunately, Parents’ Evening Manager by ParentMail provides an ideal solution, making booking appointments easy for both schools and parents. Wadhurst Primary School was eager to give it a go!

With 96% of their parents already registered to ParentMail, staff were delighted to receive a fantastic response from parents. Less than a week left before Parents’ Evening, two thirds of parents had already responded!

Not only were parents responding in time, their feedback to the school was extremely positive; one father stopped by the school to express how thrilled he was at being able to book all of his appointments in less than five minutes!

With Parents’ Evening Manager, set-up is incredibly quick, easy and flexible, allowing schools to invite particular year and registration groups, the option to include a location, parent comments, subject tutors and booking windows, and the ability to set reminders.

For parents, the process is short and simple – after receiving the notification from their school, they select the teachers they wish to see and an available slot to meet with them, all from their ParentMail account.

With Parents’ Evening just around the corner, now is the time to introduce Parents’ Evening Manager!

Invest in saving time at your school and enjoy a smooth and organised Parents’ Evening this year. Email enquire@parentmail.co.uk and we’ll be in touch.

The future is now!

We are living in a world driven by technology. Our lives are operated from a mobile device permanently held in hand, and many of us have welcomed new house guests named Alexa and Siri into our homes.

The past 20 years have seen technology advance at a startling rate, driven by a population wanting more. Thanks to the internet, everything is at our finger tips; if you need to order shopping, there’s no need to leave the house; if you want to speak to a friend on the other side of the world, you can do so instantly, and for free; if you need to check your bank statement or make a transfer, simply log onto your online banking app, and you’re away!

We are all connected – and communications have never been stronger. The question is, how does your school utilise these new technologies to strengthen school/parent engagement?

Paper communications are a thing of the past. No longer do parents need to search through school bags to find out of date letters. Instead, they can receive electronic newsletters, forms and messages directly to their phones, saving schools time and money – not to mention the fantastic environmental factors!

In return, schools are receiving a better response from parents than ever before. Whether it’s returned forms, booked appointments or payments made on time for dinner money, uniform or trips, parents are more engaged in their children’s schooling than ever before, and they can do it all from our free app.

Designed with parents and schools in mind

ParentMail services are designed to make every process easy for parents to complete, ensuring a truly positive user experience. As a result, schools receive a great response from their parents, reducing the time spent fielding phone calls or responding to individual emails into school. Parents love ParentMail because it makes managing school life easier – and when parents are happy, so too are schools and students.

Our services have already improved parental engagement for 5,000 nurseries, clubs, primary and secondary schools across the country. Unlike other school communication services, our systems are designed with both schools and parents in mind. We prioritise the development of our products for the benefit of all and as a result, we are proud of our fantastic reputation.

As technologies continue to improve and evolve, so too will our services. Put your faith in ParentMail and watch parental engagement improve for the benefit of your staff and students!

If you’d like to know more about ParentMail and how we can help with any of the above, get in touch today on 01733 595959 or email enquire@parentmail.co.uk and we’ll be happy to discuss!

Kesgrave and ParentMail partner to deliver first-class parental engagement!

With over 1800 students and 99% of parents registered on ParentMail, Kesgrave High School collect on average £15,000 online each week, have sent over 700,000 emails home and had a 97% response rate to their first online form! All in all, it’s fair to say the school and ParentMail have formed a very successful partnership when it comes to parental engagement!

We spoke to the Head Teacher’s PA, Julie Garnett, who told us why ParentMail has been such a triumph…

Over 700,000 messages sent since they began using PMX!

“The majority of parents use our branded mobile app, which means messages are sent home as free in-app notifications, popping up to alert parents of important school communications. As a result, we have saved on text credits as we are no longer sending any SMS and instead send all our communications through email which arrive in one single, school branded feed rather than a busy email inbox, improving our parental engagement as a result!   

Collecting £15,000 weekly through Online Payments

“With over 70% of parents regularly topping up and paying online through ParentMail, we’re collecting on average £15,000 each week for payment items and with dinner money top ups going straight into the cashless account system with no work required from our school office, the Online Payments application from ParentMail is a huge time saver for both staff and parents.

What’s more, the weekly settlement report makes it very easy for the auditors within school to keep on top of what amount needs to go to which cost centre – of which there are hundreds. This allows us to easily track what has been paid for within each cost centre, which in a secondary school is very important to keep on top of!

85% of bookings made through Parents’ Evening Manager

“Parents Evening Manager has been fantastic; the most recent evening saw 85% of bookings made through ParentMail and with lots of positive feedback from parents. Previously, students would book their appointments with teachers, which meant they could easily avoid the meetings they didn’t want! Now invitations are sent through ParentMail, the control is with the parents and teachers are far busier on parents’ evenings than they used to be!”

97% response rate to their first online Form

“Form collection is going really well, with the first form sent through ParentMail receiving a 97% response rate! The reporting functionality within this application makes it far easier to keep on top of the administration required for trips, requiring data or gathering information about allergies, for example and has been a fantastic benefit for the school.”

We have to say, if schools were students, we’d have to give Kesgrave High School an A* for how well they’re using the ParentMail system to communicate with their parents!

If you’re a school looking for a way to simplify and streamline your communications, introduce Online Payments, Online Form Collections or more, ParentMail could be the answer. Get in touch today through email (enquire@parentmail.co.uk) or call us on 01733 595959 and we’ll be more than happy to discuss further!

Our founder leaves and takes a look back

After 16 years at ParentMail, our founder and CEO Paul Hughes will be leaving early 2018 to begin new adventures and ahead of his departure, has been looking back and reflecting on how the company has grown since day one…

As I come to the end of my time at ParentMail, I can’t help but look back at the journey from the original school gates where the idea was conceived 16 years ago.

All that time ago we wanted to help our children’s school to reach their parents a little more easily and reliably and we knew that big savings in time, postage and printing ought to be enough for them to pay us a small amount for the service while still saving lots of money… we hadn’t even called it ParentMail at that time!

As it became clearer that schools all over the UK and millions of parents could benefit, we thought perhaps a closer look at the market and potential competitors was worthwhile.  We spent days on the then ‘very young’ internet, even scouring the US to see whether someone else had thought of the idea, and couldn’t find anyone … it simply had to be a terrible idea!

But the overpowering sense of rightness prevailed and persuaded us to continue and to blaze a trail that many others would eventually follow.

16 years later and simply communicating with parents has turned into a broader parental engagement spectrum where it is now normal for parents to engage with school electronically using mobile technology. ParentMail has typically led the way with innovating in this sector, first with communications, then encompassing online payments,  booking Parents Evening, completing forms and now of course it can all be done on school branded mobile Apps.

There’s no doubt that a lot has changed, not least in terms of technology which has now become omnipresent but there have been some noticeable highs on the journey.

I’ll never forget a lady from a school in Oxford calling me one day to tell me that “ParentMail had literally changed her life, and that she didn’t know what she would do without it!” I was truly grateful that someone would take the time to tell me that and I’ve been fortunate over the years to receive a number of similar calls and emails. 

There have been some lows too, mainly that software at times simply hasn’t been good enough, and as the product suite has become larger, those problems can take longer to fix than I’d like.  But the lows have been hugely outweighed by the highs, and I hope that we’ve changed something rather important over the years, that somehow we’ve pulled schools and parents together, and that as a result we’ve helped children too, because their parents are now a little closer to what’s going on in school.

As I move on, I leave the company in great shape, with new owners and part of something even bigger, and just as exciting.  I will miss the people tremendously and the absence of ParentMail will leave a huge hole in my life, but I can’t wait to see where this wonderful business goes next and wish them all the success they deserve.

70% of parents think a mobile app makes it easier to pay!

We took to social media to ask parents their views on school Online Payments systems and the results were very interesting…

Over 6500 parents took part in our survey and we had feedback from people using almost every type of payment system, which meant we could see if some systems were more reliable and ‘liked’ by parents, than others! It seems that systems which allow parents to do everything within one account and through a mobile app came out on top – which was great news for us here at ParentMail!

Here’s a look at some of the key things parents told us:

• Of those who used an online payments system, 77% are very satisfied with it.
• For those using ParentMail for Online Payments, 82% are very satisfied.
• 70% said they thought paying on a mobile app was the easiest way.
• Only 40% of those asked were able to do everything school related from just one account.
• And yet, 80% of parents said they would prefer to be able to access it all from one.
• We were shocked to hear that 5% of people said their schools use more than 5 systems to communicate with them!

What can schools do to make improvements for their parents?

Those who told us they don’t have access to an Online Payments System, voiced concerns over security, reliability and how convenient paying online is…however, those who do use an online payments system gave an average score of 8.5 out of 10 for reliability, security, ease of use and convenience. If you’re thinking of launching a new Online Payments System within school, make sure you know how secure, reliable and easy to use it will be, so that you can reassure your parents ahead of time!

66% of parents also told us they prefer to pay by debit card, making it the most popular payment method. However, almost 50% also told us that they would like the option to pay through PayPal – when looking at new payment systems, make sure you find out in advance what payment options are available so that you can give parents what they want!

The results of this survey have been extremely useful and we’ll be using these stats in our future marketing materials and to help schools who are thinking about using ParentMail for Online Payments to understand their potential parent concerns and wants! Thank you to all who took part!

If you’re a school looking to consolidate all your systems into one, or if you’d like to use a reliable Online Payments system which allows your parents to top up on a mobile app, get in touch today and we’ll be more than happy to help! Call us on 01733 595959 or email enquire@parentmail.co.uk

Activate Learning save thousands of pounds monthly with ParentMail

With all communications coming from a single department supporting five different campuses, previously all communications from Activate Learning were sent out via paper and postage. With over 5,000 students across all campuses, this was not only a time consuming task but also incredibly expensive for the business!

Group Administration Manager, David Chatterley, told us, “In the last two months we’ve sent over 9,500 messages through ParentMail, which would previously have gone home as printed letters, posted home. We have the ability to ‘frank’ our own post which helped cut the costs a bit, but for each second class stamp we would pay 35p, for envelopes we’d pay roughly 3.5p each and let’s say 5p for paper and printing costs. As a rough estimation, for all the messages we’ve sent in just the last 2 months, this would total over £4000.”

As well as substantial cost savings, ParentMail has also allowed Activate Learning to save hours of time each week, previously spent printing, collating, stuffing into envelopes, franking and sending home – now it’s all done online and takes a fraction of the time it once did!

Activate Learning is a pioneering education group. Based in Oxford, with a global reach, the group comprises of secondary, further and higher education, apprenticeship and business training.

ParentMail is recognised by nurseries, schools and clubs for helping improve parental engagement from early years right up till sixth form – but also works with colleges and multi academy groups. Activate Learning is a fantastic example of how larger organisations can improve communications but also save thousands of pounds monthly and hours upon hours of administration time!

With roughly 70% of learners under 18, Activate Learning send a variety of messages home, such as information about work experience placements or online courses, subject specific project work, updates on trips, attendance and behaviour updates, meetings updates etc. Managing communications for both college and school divisions means they are reaching both the parents of students and sometimes the student directly.

David told us, “We’ve noticed a real difference in how responsive parents and learners are to the messages we send home now we’re sending them via ParentMail – a good example of this is our recent parent – teacher meetings. Previously, we would send letters home and request calls in and manually input meeting times into a spreadsheet. This year, we sent a message via ParentMail and received calls within minutes – so soon in fact that we hadn’t even begun to set up our spreadsheets yet; it was almost too efficient!”

Now the College group are looking forward to using the Parents’ Evening Manager application within ParentMail to allow the administration to look after itself, freeing up even more time for the team!

David said, “Almost overnight ParentMail has made a considerable difference to how things are done here – not only with the obvious time and cost savings we have made but with the engagement with parents and learners. We’ve been able to improve our communication simply because of how easy it is to do now!”

“With so many students, moving from paper based to digital communications was a risk, but the ParentMail team have worked with us since day one in order to ensure a smooth transition and we’ve had nothing but fantastic feedback from all our campus sites. I would highly recommend other colleges/ college groups to consider a system like this – I’m sure they’ll thank me later!”  

If you’re a college, part of a college group or a secondary school looking for a way to simplify and streamline your communications, ParentMail could be the answer. Get in touch today through email (enquire@parentmail.co.uk) or call us on 01733 595959 and we’ll be more than happy to discuss further!

Top Tips for going Cashless!

For parents, it’s nearly always a hassle trying to find cash or the cheque book to pay for school items; it’s also time consuming for office staff to collect, count, audit, keep secure and physically bank money.

With school lunches, trips, uniforms and everyday school items, many schools collect thousands of pounds each term, which is why more and more schools are going cashless to make life easier for all involved.

With a socially inclusive online payment system like ParentMail, parents can pay in a way that suits them which increases take up – for example, the option to pay on their mobile App, through their computer or paying through PayPal, which allows parents to pay securely and conveniently simply by entering a password. For others who may not have access to a smartphone or computer, PayPoint allows parents to make payments offline, taking the barcode to their nearest PayPoint retailer to make the payment with cash.

Ready to go cashless? Here are our Top Tips…

• Involve parents early on

The sooner you let parents know you’re going cashless, the better! Send them a letter and make sure you highlight the benefits for them. For those who are concerned about going digital, make sure they know you’re there to support them – once parents are set up and registered, they’ll be topping up and making payments in minutes with ease! Don’t just take our word for it; see feedback from parents about paying on a mobile app here.

• One system for messages AND payments

The more systems you use, the more confused parents will be, so if you’re thinking of going cashless, think about what other applications you may want in place, such as communications, online forms or a parents’ evening booking system – once you know, you’ll be able to find one system that meets all your requirements which makes life much easier for your parents and in turn, your school.

• Launch your school shop

There are no limits to what you can sell through ParentMail, so start thinking about whether you want to sell tickets to school performances, stationery, text books, donations, fees, computer equipment and much more! With built-in functionality to monitor stock, fulfil orders and keep on top of reconciliation, it couldn’t be easier!

• Remember why you’re doing this!

As well as making it easier for your parents to pay for school items, you should also notice time savings for your office staff, so if you find you still have parents coming in to pay through the school office, make sure you tell them how much easier it can be for them and for you by paying online!

It’s no surprise that more and more school are switching to ParentMail when it comes to improving parental engagement and going cashless, with a reliable system that schools and parents can trust. Would you like to know about our Online Payments application? Get in touch today by calling 01733 595959 or email enquire@parentmail.co.uk and we’ll get a free demonstration booked in!

Dinner money top up revolutionised at Leicester Grammar School Trust!

With over 1200 students ranging from the ages 3 to 18, Leicester Grammar School Trust now manages all parent communications from one single system; sending messages, collecting payments, consent forms and surveys online, as well as recording student absences and all far easier than ever before.

Since August 2017, ParentMail has helped the school professionalise its communications and as a result they have noticed an increase in responses and attendance at events, with messages being delivered directly into the hands of parents.

The way in which dinner money is topped up however has been the main benefit for staff and parents at the Leicester Grammar School Trust. The school use Cunningham’s as their Cashless Till Provider and before they used ParentMail the only way for parents to know their balance was running low or empty, was by their children telling them, or calling the Finance Department.

Head of Marketing & Admissions, Natalie Hunt told us, “Having to rely on students to remind parents when their balance was low was a flawed system as they often forgot to do it and would consequently continually go overdrawn. It was also frustrating for parents as they had no easy way of keeping on top of what they owed (or what their children were purchasing) and would only hear about it once the Finance Department had chased them or their children remembered to ask them to top up their account. Now, they receive a notification on their mobile with a reminder that the balance is running low and can top up there and then.”

“What’s more, even if parents forget to top up, they can do it instantly on the App and it’s ready for lunchtime – no more children being nagged to top up their accounts, and no more frustrated parents! I think a large majority of our parents would say this has been the biggest benefit for them!”

Sending everything through ParentMail has proven to greatly improve how engaged parents are with school communications. Natalie said, “We previously used a messaging only system which was very easy for parents to ignore and didn’t seem to add any real improvement in comparison to paper communications. A large majority of our parents simply didn’t pay attention to it. Now, they have one account where they can view messages, receive information about events, top up dinner money or pay for school items or complete consent forms, parents are completely invested and parental engagement has flourished as a result.”

School absence reporting has also improved thanks to the absence reporting tool available to parents. Previously, the school struggled to get parents to contact them to let them know of absences and this often resulted in attendance officers having to chase parents. Now, parents can record this in seconds on the app and as a result the school has dropped the time spent chasing absences by 50%!

With a combination of one account for all school communications, a mobile app to keep on top of it all and a massive improvement in the way they can now reach parents, the Trust is incredibly pleased with how well ParentMail has been adopted into school life and would recommend it to any other school or trust looking to reach parents with ease (and keep on top of dinner money payments!)

Would you like to know more about ParentMail and how it could help your school improve parental engagement or go completely cashless? Simply call us on 01733 595959 or email enquire@parentmail.co.uk

George Stephenson High School gets creative!

With 1298 students, George Stephenson High School has been using ParentMail to communicate with parents since 2012, but recently came up with a creative way to get all their parents registered and paying online!

The school set up a competition where all parents who registered by the end of September 2017 would be entered into a prize draw to win £100 school uniform vouchers.  Senior Administrator Lisa Marley told us, “The idea came from our Business Manager and so we thought we’d give it a go to see if it could help improve our parent uptake. We were surprised by just how many parents of the older students got involved (I suppose the element of competition helped!) and just how many parents were keen to win some uniform vouchers! As a result we now have over 90% of our parents registered on ParentMail.”

Now also using Online Payments to collect payments for school trips, revision guides etc. the admin team within the school office have noticed considerable benefits, as previously collecting payments by cash and cheque for 1298 students was an extremely time consuming task. With almost all of their parents now using the system, it’s made managing payments easier than ever.

It’s also allowed the school to keep better track of who has paid for what and when – Lisa told us, “Previously we would have students turn up for trips, who would tell us they had already paid but we had no record of it, so keeping track of this when the payment was manual was quite difficult! Now it’s all recorded on ParentMail we can very easily see who has paid simply by looking at the account!” 

One thing the school has noticed over the years is the improvements made to the ParentMail technology and the support available from the ParentMail Team. Lisa told us, “With so many students you might expect a few teething problems, but we have really noticed the improvements the ParentMail team have made both to the registration process for parents and to the functionality available for us school side – it’s great when you give feedback and then see that you’re being listened to! The system is clearly designed with schools and parents in mind!”

“I also have to say that the Support Team at ParentMail are fantastic – when I first took on the role of looking after ParentMail I would use Live Chat quite regularly and the team have always been so helpful and responsive. It really helped me feel comfortable using the system knowing I had the team there if I needed them for anything!”

Now communicating with their parents regularly and collecting online payments with ease, George Stephenson High School would highly recommend ParentMail to any Secondary School looking to simplify how they engage with parents – and they’re even happy to share their secret for driving parent registration!

Want to know more about ParentMail and how it could work for your school? Get in touch today on 01733 595959 or email us at enquire@parentmail.co.uk

Ditch the paper and feel greater!

On Thursday 9^th November, organisations across the UK are being encouraged to support World Paper Free Day. For schools, this could mean holding a paper free day, week, month, or even cutting paper usage completely!

Despite the continual rise of digital technology, billions of trees are still cut down each year to supply paper and amongst the culprits using a large proportion of this are schools. Previous research has shown that on average, a primary school will use around 100,000 sheets of paper each year, whilst the average secondary school gets through 300,000 sheets in a year! As budget cuts continue to affect schools, cutting paper, whether that’s just for communicating with parents or reducing its use completely in school, seems like a quick and easy way to cut back on costs.

Most of the paper being used often won’t make it home, or will end up filed or thrown away, often without being recycled. This means that as well as failing to make savings, some schools are also failing to lead by example when it comes to teaching students about ‘going green’ and the importance of sustainability.

It’s hard to believe that in 2017, so many of us are still so reliant on paper, especially when it comes to communication. It is slow, inefficient and terrible for the environment. There are much better options available, with more and more technology dedicated to reducing use of paper.

This is particularly pertinent for schools, as online home-school communication systems can provide numerous benefits including reducing paper and printing costs, increasing staff resource and improving efficiency.

Save the paper and go digital

It’s likely that you’re already using digital communications as the primary method of contact between school and home. In-app notifications can be used to notify parents instantly of a new message, newsletter, emergency updates or last minute reminders – without the cost that comes with SMS. Unlike paper-based communication, digital systems allow schools to see whether messages have been received and opened and give a much faster response rate, as parents are able to react immediately rather than having to rely on students bringing letters home.

Going completely paperless

Now, schools are looking beyond basic communications and beginning to realise the benefits of sending permission forms, parent surveys, parents’ evening invitations etc. digitally, meaning paper communications will soon become extinct when it comes to parental engagement. For parents, this means they can expect to receive anything school related in an online account or better yet, through their mobile app.

Indeed, going digital has numerous financial and ethical benefits for schools, and World Paper Free Day should be the perfect excuse to reassess your requirements and reap the rewards that digital systems provide.

Will you be celebrating World Paper Free Day this November? Let us know how and share your tips for going paperless in the comments section below! Want to know more about how ParentMail can help your school could go completely paperless? Simply email us at enquire@parentmail.co.uk or call 01733 595959.

Switch to ParentMail and reap the benefits, says John Hanson School!

From a dinner money and restricted trip money collection system to improving parental engagement; John Hanson switched to ParentMail in 2016 and has never looked back!

Previously using a very restricted system which only allowed them to record dinner money payments, John Hanson Community School have been using ParentMail for over a year and now have over 96% of parents receiving messages, topping up dinner money, paying for school trips, completing forms, booking parents evenings and recording absences all from one account!

We spoke to Finance Officer, Natalie Bush, to find out if the move to ParentMail has been a good one…

“Having just one account which parents can do everything from is so invaluable and is exactly why I would recommend ParentMail to other schools.

“With our previous payments system, the main issue we had was that parents had a separate account for each child, which in a secondary school setting isn’t ideal as we have quite a few parents with multiple children and therefore doing something simple like topping up dinner money was actually quite complex and time consuming.

 With ParentMail, parents can top up their dinner accounts and pay for trips for all their children in one quick transaction and that has been a huge benefit which we’ve received lots of positive feedback on!

“ParentMail is a lot more flexible than other systems we’ve used and if there is something we can’t do, we feed it back and they actually listen! A good example is a request I made to change some of the reporting functionality within Online Payments. I fed this back to the ParentMail Team and the updates (plus more!) were made – the reports now give me exactly the information I need and are fantastically easy to keep on top of. We’re so pleased and grateful that they actually listen and create a system that’s easy for us and parents to use!

“Another fantastic benefit of the Online Payments application is that you can cater for all parents – so some can pay upfront, others can choose to pay in instalments, some can pay in advance, others can wait for reminders to pay the day before it’s due. I can’t stress enough that the flexibility of the system is so valuable for us!

“As well as Online Payments, which we’re clearly very happy with, we’re also using ParentMail for Forms, organising Parents’ Evenings and sending general communications. So as well as parents receiving all this information in one account, we’re able to send it from one system, which means everything is linked! For a trip, for example, we can send a message to let parents know about it, we may then send a form to see who would like to attend and can then then ask them to pay through Online Payments! Easy, flexible and straightforward for everyone involved.

“With regard to Parents Evenings’, ParentMail has offered us huge benefits allowing parents to schedule appointments and leave notes for teachers  – each teacher now knows exactly who will be arriving to see them and can be fully prepared with data, books and folders leading to a constructive conversation, thus supporting student progress.”

“With 96% coverage of our parents, our communication home has been transformed. Parents are getting all the information we send through our personalised JHCS mobile app and are therefore able to support their child’s education more effectively.”

“We’re very happy with every aspect of ParentMail and the fact that parents can access it all through a mobile app is just an added bonus. I would, and regularly do, recommend ParentMail to any school I speak with – it’s the way forward to become a cashless school, whilst also increasing  parental engagement and supporting student progress.”

Are you looking to consolidate your systems and switch to one system which lets you do it all? Get in touch today and we’ll arrange your free demonstration! Simply email enquire@parentmail.co.uk or call us on 01733 595959.

Paperless parents’ evening booked in less than 24 hours for Whiteabbey

Within 48 hours of launching ParentMail in Whiteabbey Primary School, 80% of parents were able to receive messages, make payments, complete forms and book parents evening appointments online!

Now with 97% of parents registered, the school sends almost all of their communications digitally, bringing with it considerable time and cost savings!

Principal Keith Wysner used ParentMail at his former primary school in Northern Ireland and felt it was perfect in a small school setting. When he moved to Whiteabbey Primary, he was keen to bring ParentMail with him knowing it would be as beneficial, if not more so, in a larger primary school setting.

Now at Whiteabbey, with just over 400 students, he was amazed to see that 174 parents booked their parents’ evening appointments within the first hour!

Keith told us, “We sent out the invitations at 8.30pm on a Tuesday evening and by the following afternoon 88% of our students had a parents’ evening appointment, of their choosing, confirmed!”

Previously the school sent paper letters to tell parents what time their allocated appointments would be – now with Parents’ Evening Manager they can put control in parents’ hands and allow them to book the appointments at the times they want. The majority of parents use the mobile app to book their appointments which means they receive a notification and can book their appointments instantly.

Feedback from parents has been fantastic, with some taking to the school Facebook page to say “Just booked the appointments for parent teacher interviews on ParentMail. So easy and convenient!” and “I had written in my diary re: the upcoming appointments, then my ParentMail pinged about it – I was straight in there.”

The school had previously looked at other parents’ evening booking and online payments systems, but felt that nothing worked as efficiently as having it all under one roof – and with a mobile app for parents!

Keith said “The admin and teaching teams here in Whiteabbey have really embraced using technology to improve our parental engagement and ParentMail has been a real success as a result. Parents’ Evening Manager in particular is one of the most efficient digital tools I’ve used for managing Parent Teacher Meetings and I would recommend the system to other schools to use as it offers choice whilst reducing admin time and costs.”

Want to know more about our Parents Evening Manager application and how it could simplify processes in our school? Get in touch today on 01733 595959 or email enquire@parentmail.co.uk

A highly successful start to the year for the ParentMail Team

September is a notoriously busy month here at ParentMail and of course for those working in the education sector too, as schools welcome their new intake and settle back into school life after the summer holidays!

This year has seen our most successful start to a new school term, with the highest ever number of parents downloading our mobile app and a new record of parent payments made in a single day. Our support wait time has averaged just one minute and despite the amount of usage, our systems remained active and reliable even through our highest peaks of activity!

We’re always keen to see how many parents use our App; earlier this year we celebrated 1 million downloads and due to such a busy September this has soared to 1,250,000 million!  As a result, during September the App reached number 5 in the App store, making it one of the top App’s available in the Education sector.

In addition, our Online Payments application saw a record number of transactions during September as well as more cashless schools joining us! What’s more, we saw more schools opening up their school shops selling several items such as uniform, stationery and trips through ParentMail and even more parents paying through the mobile app! Despite the high volume using the system, it didn’t crash once – meaning parents could top up morning, noon and night without any problems!

September is always a busy month for support and we’re pleased that with our Live Chat system now recognised by schools as the fastest way to reach us, we were able to respond to schools instantly, with just an average wait time of 1 minute. Our help sites were also updated over the summer and again, we saw more schools and parents visiting these pages than ever before, to find the answer to their queries quickly and easily!

The feedback we’ve received from schools and parents as a result of all of the above has been fantastic (take a look at our Facebook and Twitter pages!) and we’re really pleased we’ve been able to start the year on such a high! Onwards and upwards for the ParentMail Team and all our schools…

15 Creative Halloween Ideas For Kids

It’s nearly Halloween which means it’s time to get out the sweet bowls and dust off those old costumes. It’s also the time of year that you can get creative with your kids. Whether you are planning a spooky themed party or just want to celebrate this autumnal holiday we’ve got some great ideas for you. From pumpkin painting to hand-made decorations, here are some fun creative Halloween ideas you can make with your kids. Time to get crafty!

1. Hand Decorated Masks

Image from parents.com

This one is a really simple and fun idea that you can do with your kids one afternoon. All you need is to head to your local arts and crafts store and grab some cheap materials. You buy a cheap blank masks from Hobbycraft from £1.20. Then you can get creative! Just use whatever your kids can get their hands on. Paint, felt tips, markers, glitter, whatever you like. Go mad or go for something more traditional. Either way, your kids are sure going to have a fun time with this one.

Woolly Spider

Another easy one. All you need is some black wool, a foam ball, a few pipe-cleaners and some googly eyes. Wrap the wool around the foam ball until is completely covered. Then attach the pipe-cleaners and googly eyes. And voila, you have your own little spider.

Illuminated Haunted House

Image from parents.com

This is definitely one to do with the kids. Grab some old cardboard, an old juice carton will do. You then want to cover it in black card. You then need to cut out the windows and doors (to be done by an adult of course!) and then decorate with your favourite colour card, glitter, paint…whatever you like. Once you’re done don’t forget to add a battery operated tea light to make it look extra spooky.

Pumpkin Painting

Do you want a fun activity involving pumpkins that doesn’t involve sharp implements? Then, why not try pumpkin painting. Grab some acrylics and your paint brushes and get creative. This is a Halloween activity that the whole family can enjoy!

Pom-pom Spider, Ghost and Pumpkin

Make some adorable pom-pom decorations themed for Halloween. There is a great tutorial that you can follow for this one over on Live Craft Eat..

Yarn Pumpkin

Another simple one that can get a little messy but definitely lots of fun. Using a balloon and lots of yarn and glue you can make a very cool looking pumpkin decoration. .

Hand Print Bats

This one does what it says on the tin. Grab some black card, fold in half and trace around your hand or your kids hands or both for some different sizes. Then cut them out, unfold and see your spooky hand bats come to life. Stick them around the house to really get that Halloween atmosphere going. For a full tutorial check out the Reading Confetti blog.

Paint Swatch Crafts

Image from lizoncall.com

wFor this one you’re going to need to head to your local DIY store and pick up some different coloured paint swatches. Grab as many as you like in as many colours as you like and get the kids crafting. Make them into Frankenstein’s Monster or a spooky witch. You can find some great inspiration by Liz On Call, or come up with your own and see what you can make

Paper Ghost Garland

This might be one more aimed at the parents and it mostly involves cutting. But the kids can certainly help with the decorating later. You want to find a long piece of white paper that you can accordion fold. Draw your ghost shape and then cut around it, making sure to not cut around the arms (see example from Skip To My Lou if you aren’t certain). Once cut, unfold and then get the kids to draw on the faces of the ghosts. You could even add accessories as well if you were feeling extra creative.

Egg Carton Pumpkins (with secrets!)

Image from readingconfetti.com

You can follow the short tutorial from Reading Confetti for this one in order to make the pumpkins themselves. Cut up some egg cartons, paint them orange and draw on faces. Then, put whatever you like inside maybe a message or some nice treats.

Paper Craft Bats

Image from 4crazykings.blogspot.co.uk

This is an alternative to the hand print bats. Although it does require a few more materials, it also means having more fun. If you want to find out how to make them you can follow this really easy tutorial from 4crazykings.

Toilet Roll Tube Monsters

Something that is easy to get a hold of for crafting are toilet paper tubes. Instead of throwing them away, why not get the kids to make them into something spooky for Halloween. Turn these boring rolls into a witch or a ghost using whatever materials you can get your hands on. Card, paper, paint, glitter; whatever takes their fancy. The kids are sure to enjoy getting messy and making something they can be proud of.

Rice Krispies Pumpkins

Easy to make and doesn’t require an oven. This simple recipe from Food Family Finds will make some delicious rice krispie cakes that look just like pumpkins. Why not give it a try?

Halloween Themed Cookies

You could use whatever cookie recipe you like for this one but you’ll also need to invest in some Halloween themed cookie cutters. The BBC Good Food website has a really great recipe with some fun ideas. But, as always, you can make them look however you like. Let the kids go crazy and see what spooky creations they can come up with.

Cotton Wool Ghost Wall Hanger

Image from thechirpingmoms.com

Make yourself a spooky companion or two using some cardboard, paint and a bunch of cotton wool balls. Draw and cut out a ghost shape in your cardboard. Paint on where you want to eyes and mouth to be with black paint. Then start sticking on your cotton wool balls. Make one or many and stick them up around the house for a quick and fun little project for the kids. You could go even further and paint the cotton wool balls to make some different spooky mascots. Go ahead and give it a try.

If you try any of these out be sure to share with us on Facebook! Have any other great Halloween themed crafts you’d like to share with us? Why not leave a comment below.

IRIS Software Group Acquires ParentMail

Schools tell us their plans for 2017/18

We can’t quite believe a new school year is upon us once again – and with it comes new challenges for those working in schools!

We asked our Field Sales Team (who meet with schools every single day!) what schools tell them their focus is for the coming year, here’s what they said:

Consolidation of Systems – James Laver, National Sales Manager

“Due to more and more budget cuts hitting schools, I think a real focus this year will be consolidating the systems they’re using and finding one that allows them to do it all. It’s complicated for parents to have to remember several logins, or have several apps to keep on top of, so by consolidating into one system it’s a far better return on investment.  

It’s also costly for schools to use two, three or even four systems when they could pay for one which allows them to do everything they need. So I think many schools, and particularly business managers and bursars, will be looking to consolidate systems this year, and I’d urge them to do so. It’s the quickest way to save money and often results in better engagement with parents.”

Completely Paperless Communications – Gary Kemp, Senior Sales Manager

 “I think the big focus for schools this year will be going completely paperless – and by that I mean no  paper going home at all. I’m talking about forms, school surveys, permission slips, parents’ evening invitations – it’s far cheaper for schools to send this information home digitally and I think this year we will really see more schools embracing that, particularly with mobile apps becoming more prominent in school communication.”

Online payment systems and going cashless – Joe Kaniecki, Sales Manager

 “I think we’ll see all schools going cashless – it’s very rare to see a school office with lots of cash and cheques nowadays and it’s because schools can see the benefits of collecting payments online. It’s far more convenient for parents to be able to top up through a mobile app rather than having to find cash or write a cheque as well – people rarely carry cash anymore and I can’t remember the last time I wrote a cheque! By going cashless, parents receive a notification that payment is due, they go on the App and pay and it’s done! Simple as that.”

Something more than a one trick pony – Phil Perryman, Sales Manager

“Having previously worked for a company which focussed solely on online payments, I noticed more and more last year that schools wanted a system which would allow them to ‘do it all’. Yes, collecting payments online is great, but I also want to be able message my parents and send them forms and invite them to events and report on absences, all from the same system. The days of the one trick pony system are gone, and consolidation of multiple services will be a must for forward-thinking schools this year.” 

School Mobile Apps – Leonarda Rawcliffe, Sales Manager

 “School mobile apps really began taking off towards the end of last year and I think we’ll see even more of that this year – no school wants to be left behind and getting the school brand into the hands of parents will, I believe, become a main focus for SLT’s in schools this year. When I meet schools now to talk about their parent engagement it’s one of the first questions they ask – do you have a mobile app? I think by this time next year you’ll struggle to find a school that doesn’t have their own app!”

Going paperless or cashless, consolidating to one system for your school communications or getting your own school app – what will you be focussing on over the next school year? Let us know in the comments below!

If you’d like to know more about ParentMail and how we can help with any of the above, get in touch today on 01733 595959 or email enquire@parentmail.co.uk and we’ll be happy to discuss!

Top Tips: Parent uptake on ParentMail

Many of our schools have over 95% of parents registered and regularly using ParentMail; we’ve spoken to some to find out their top tips for making ParentMail a success!

Set ‘ParentMail’ as homework
Some schools set ParentMail registration as homework, meaning children go home and encourage their parents to take 5 minutes setting up their account and showing them how they can receive school communications on their computer, tablet or smart phone! (Bonus points for downloading the mobile App!)

To help with this, we’ve created a graphic for you to download from the help site under ‘Getting Started’. 

Target parents at open evenings/parents’ evening
If you’re holding an open evening/parents’ evening over the next few weeks, make sure you have a ParentMail stand or staff ambassador to promote the benefits of using the system to those parents who don’t know much about it! You can even help them get set up and registered while they are there.

Download and use promotional materials
On our help site you’ll find posters, website banners and newsletter graphics which are the perfect way to catch the attention of your parents. Put the posters up where parents are likely to see them, website banners up on your school website and newsletter graphics in your monthly/termly newsletter.

You’ll find promotional materials to download from the help site under ‘Posters and Graphics’. 

Hire “Eco Kids”
Choose children in your school who can be hired as your “Eco Kids” whose role is to drive registration to reduce paper and printing within school.

Update your school website
You’ll find that if parents are unsure of how they should be receiving communications from you, they’ll look to your school website first. Many schools have a ParentMail section on the main page of their website to ensure parents know where to login or find help.

To help with this, we’ve create a template for you to use on the Help Site under ‘Getting Started’.

Create some school competitions
Hold competitions within your school, for example – the class who has the most parents signed up will win a prize OR each parent that makes a payment within a date specified will be entered into a raffle and those selected at random will win a prize!

Hire your parents to promote ParentMail!
It may be that you have some parents who are keen supporters of ParentMail – use them to your advantage! Ask them to speak to other parents about the benefits of ParentMail and why they love it – the good news will spread and soon you’ll have 100% of parents signed up!

Make sure your staff are on board
Any project or idea will not work without support or commitment from your staff – get your teachers trained and educated on ParentMail so that they feel enthusiastic enough to talk to your parents and children about the benefits of registering.

Try some of our tips and let us know how you get on OR share with us some of your tips, by leaving a comment below or tweeting us @ParentMail.

Social inclusivity at the heart of technology!

In this mornings’ news, it was revealed that 85% of all adults now have a smartphone and in today’s environment it is easy to lose sight of those people who can’t afford or don’t want to utilise technology in their lives.

It’s especially relevant given the financial pressures on the Education system, where Schools and Academies are quite rightly looking to be careful with every penny, and systems like ParentMail provide significant savings in paper, postage, printing and time.

16 years ago when ParentMail was created, almost half of parents didn’t have email and therefore the ability to automatically produce printed correspondence was built into the service from the outset.  That same functionality still exists but feedback from sections of the parent community suggests that some schools no longer think to print out paper copies routinely as they once did.

It seems especially relevant therefore to raise social inclusivity back to the top of the agenda, as every parent should be aware of what’s going on and have the opportunity to have a good relationship with their school; at ParentMail this has always been really important to us.  Though we can’t guarantee this information won’t get left behind in book bags, we can ensure that those parents who aren’t online are being sent the same information as other parents.

The same can be said for our Online Payments application, where we offer a range of payment options and pride ourselves on being totally socially inclusive. Though Card and PayPal may be the most popular choice amongst parents, we also offer PayPoint for those parents who may feel anxious about paying online and prefer to go to their local shop and pay with cash.

For Brookside Primary, having this option was very important when choosing a payments system, with School Business Manager Julie Brennan telling us, “PayPoint has been really popular with those parents who don’t like to pay for things online, as it means they can take their barcode into their local shop and pay in a way that’s easiest for them” making the transition from cash and cheques to “digital payments” far smoother for those parents who weren’t ready to embrace paying online.

Though we’re seeing more and more schools switch to ParentMail because they recognise we are the leaders in innovative technology, we still remain as socially inclusive today as we were back in 2001 and our aim to improve parental engagement for all parents in the UK is still as important as it has ever been. Get in touch with us today if you’d like to know more. Leave a comment below or call us on 01733 595959.

The future is now – pay for petrol, bills and dinner money through apps!

As more and more companies begin to accept contactless payments or transactions through an App, consumers are beginning to expect this in every walk of life.

This year, we’ve seen many of the UK’s most innovative companies announce new ways in which customers can pay – making life easier for them by making the payments process slicker than ever before. Shell, for example, have announced a new touchscreen method of paying for petrol without leaving your car, whilst supermarket giant Tesco have launched their all new contactless Clubcard and upgraded Clubcard app.

What’s more, Britain’s well known pub chain Wetherspoon have launched their new app which allows people to pay from their table before their food arrives – meaning extra convenience for customers and time saved for staff.

Whether it’s paying for your parking, paying your energy bills or topping up your child’s dinner money, we all want these processes to be as simple as possible and with more and more companies launching mobile app’s to allow you to do it in minutes, it couldn’t be easier.

As well as convenience, being able to pay in this way means that you can keep better track of your spending, with all of your transactions tracked within your App’s. With cash, it’s easy to lose track of notes and coins, but by paying through your phone you’ve got it all to hand to check whenever you should need to. This makes budgeting and saving even easier and for families, this is a key benefit.

Here at ParentMail, we pride ourselves on staying at the front of innovation, which is why our mobile app allows parents to top up dinner money, pay for school trips or buy uniform through a few simple taps! This means they don’t need to have access to a computer, or wait till they’re at home to make a payment, as they can do it instantly wherever they are!

What does this mean for schools? It’s been proven that by making it easier for parents to pay, payments are made quicker and therefore schools can keep on top of their payments with minimal administration work. Our system has automatic reminders in place for when dinner money becomes low which means chasing parents for payments is a thing of the past!

 “ParentMail has really simplified how we accept payments from parents and staff; 80% of our parents are now topping up through the mobile app.” Carlton le Willows Academy in Nottinghamshire

More and more schools are switching to ParentMail to make the payments process easier than ever before – get in touch today to find out more about our Online Payments application and our mobile app! Simply call us on 01733 595959 or email enquire@parentmail.co.uk

The Winners of Our July Facebook Competition

Throughout the month of July we ran a competition on Facebook asking parents to send us in a video answering a specific question. That question was to tell us what they loved about ParentMail and we got some incredible replies! It was wonderful to hear all the kind words that people had to say about using the system.

At the end of the month we randomly chose 10 winners to win a £100 voucher for either Amazon or Marks & Spencers.

Here Are The Competition Winners

Rachel

A very creative and imaginative video from Rachel about how ParentMail helps to get rid of that pile of letters. There is nothing worse than having to sift through all that paper!

Angela

For Angela, ParentMail opened up the lines of communication with the school and allowed her to know everything that was going on. With electronic communication she never has to worry about losing important notices.

 Bex

Accessing ParentMail wherever you are is a great perk of the system for Bex. She is especially fond of the ParentMail app that sends notifications straight through, so you never miss a beat.

Tammy

If you are forgetful, like Tammy, then ParentMail is perfect! No more forgetting where letters are and you can easily pay for things such as dinner money or school trips.

Hailey

We love the fact that Hailey involved her kids in the making of this video. You and the kids will never forget when certain events are, such as sports day or dressing up day!

Kylie

If you ever need to find a letter last minute, ParentMail can store it for you so it is easy to find. This is what Kylie and her daughter loves about ParentMail.

Louise

Louise and her son managed to fit in lots of ways that they love ParentMail into their video!

Neill

Neill knows that you should never trust the kids with the letters and he loves how ParentMail delivers them straight to him.

Sarah

ParentMail makes sure you never forget the important details about your child’s school and is especially helpful for Sarah.

Sobia

And another entry from Sobia using paper to help her say how much they love ParentMail.

We want to say a special thank you to everyone who entered and we hope they are enjoying their prize for winning! If you want to be in with a chance next time, make sure you head on over and like our Facebook page, click here.

What does paying on a mobile App mean to parents?

Earlier this year, we took to social media to ask parents what they thought of the App and many mentioned just how much easier making school payments is now they can do it all on their phone, with many benefits mentioned. Here’s a look at what we found…

Easy, mobile payments!

“The app is great; it’s easily accessible from my phone which is always with me so I always know what’s going on at my daughter’s school with instant notifications. I can pay for school trips and dinner money easily through the app and I don’t even need to have my payment details as payments can be made via PayPal!! Can’t rate it highly enough!” F. Sullivan

No need to worry about having cash to hand

“I hardly ever have cash on me as you can pay on card for mostly everything now, so it’s easy to forget to take money in for certain trips or dinners or after school clubs. With the app you can pay when you have money and it’s done and dusted – no worrying about putting it to one side to take to school.”  L. Dee

Making payments instantly

“The app is so easy to use and the payments part is great – it only takes a couple of minutes to top up my daughters dinner money account.” S. Grundy

Keeping track of what you’ve spent

“I like that I can check on spends and easily top up on the app, paying for trips is so easy now.” K. Reynolds

“It’s good to keep track of what you have paid and when!” L. Dee

Fitting in to parents busy, working day

 “One of the greatest things about this app is the shop function and the ability to manage lunch money online. I can now keep an eye on the account and top up via PayPal when I need to. Fits brilliantly into my working schedule.” K. Lacey

Too busy to remember!

“If I forget to give my son money for his dinner I can just go on the app to put it on for him!” C. Preston

“The reminder when funds are getting low is really helpful – I can’t believe how easy it is to top up dinner money!” F. Banner

Want an online payments system your parents love to use with a mobile app that lets them top up in minutes? Get in touch today, call us on 01733 595959 or email enquire@parentmail.co.uk

Prepare Your Child to Start Reception

Children begin school in September already having had a massive range of experiences –  playgroups, nurseries, child minders, staying at home or a combination of all these. Even if your child has been to a full time Nursery the step up to full days in Reception can feel like a challenge for you both.

To help calm any anxieties we have put together some advice. This should help make the transition as smooth as possible.

Transitioning to Reception

Most schools organise days in the Summer term for the children to meet their new teachers. It allows them to spend time in their new learning environment. This is a good opportunity for your child to find out where the toilets/playground/coat pegs are. You can also meet all the adults who are going to be in the classes. There will always be questions which parents want to ask the teachers once the new term has begun. The staff there will be happy to answer them as they arise.

Rehearse the school routine

Over the summer holidays it can become easy to get out of the habit of getting up early enough to be ready for the school day. Also if your child has only been attending afternoon nursery sessions it is worth having a few practise days. Help them to get up, washed, dressed, eat breakfast and then take the actual journey to get to school to arrive in time.

If you have more than 1 child, please take a few moments to work out the dropping off/picking up order. It can be very stressful for children to be the last one to be picked up. If you know you are running late for a particular reason it is helpful to ring the school and let them know. The staff can then explain the reason to your child and allay their fears.

Encourage life skills

Children will be asked to do a lot of things independently which you may have been doing for them at home. Encouraging your child to dress and undress for themselves will help when they are changing for PE. Showing your child how to fold their clothes and keep them together will save hours looking for misplaced school jumpers. Make sure their clothes have simple fastenings which they can use confidently.

Encourage your child to put things away. They’ll be expected at school to put their pencils in a pot, put books back on the shelf, collect pieces of lego up and to know where their PE kit is. Every little bit of independence helps.

Lunches can be busy times and if your child is confident at using a knife and fork this will help them eat much more quickly. However, midday supervisors are there to help if anyone needs assistance cutting up food.

If your child prefers to bring their own cold lunches make sure they are able to open their boxes and drinks for themselves and that they know to eat the savoury pieces first. Have some practices at home before the new term starts.

Label their clothes

Label your child’s clothes and show your child where you’ve put their name, so they can check it themselves. There are special labels which you can buy but a pen is just as easy. Make sure you keep checking that the name hasn’t washed off after a while though. It is also a useful habit to check that your child has come home with their correct jumper on too!

School toilets and personal hygiene

It can be common for children to wet themselves at school, especially in the first few terms. Remind your child to ask to go to the toilet rather than wait until it’s too late. Make sure your child knows how to pull up their pants and wipe themselves properly. Teach them how to flush the chain and wash their hands, so they don’t pass on those awful tummy bugs that can take out whole families and classes.

 And finally…. Be Positive!!

Your child will be experiencing a whole range of emotions as you build up towards starting school. You can help make this a positive experience. I’m sure you will have just as many emotions and panics about leaving your child but it really isn’t helpful to pass these on – your child does not need to be reminded how much you are going to miss them. Keep those first day tears in check and only cry buckets once home!!

Is Sharenting The Right Thing To Do?

Sharenting, do you know what it is? The word is used to describe parents that tend to overshare everything they do with their family on social media. We probably all know someone like this or maybe you are that person. Recently, parents have started to question whether it is right to share photos of their children online for the world to see.

What does the public think about Sharenting?

Ofcom (https://www.ofcom.org.uk/research-and-data/multi-sector-research/cmr/cmr-2017) produced a report to see exactly how parents feel about sharenting and the results are in:

• 56% of the parents that were surveyed would not post any pictures of their children on social media.
• 70% don’t think it is acceptable to share images of others without their permission.
• 36% think that personal photos should be restricted to just friends or followers.
• 50% think that it is difficult to erase images from the internet after they have been posted.

It is clear to see from these statistics that there are definitely mixed feelings among parents, with 42% posting something about their children at least once a month. There is a definite split when it comes to what the children would want them to do. 38% of parents said their children wouldn’t want photos uploaded, whereas 52% thought their children are happy to have photos and videos uploaded.

What will the children think?

Uploading photos can seem innocent at the time. But it can be difficult to completely get rid of all traces from the internet. Parents have to remember that their children will grow up eventually and certain posts could come back to haunt them. Nobody likes to feel embarrassed.

With celebrities catching on to the trend and showing us pictures of their children on platforms like Instagram, it can make you want to do the same. However, some celebrities have often been criticised for posting photos that other parents themselves wouldn’t dream of doing. As a result, it can be easy to make a mistake. The general rule is that if you wouldn’t show it to your friends and family, it shouldn’t go on the internet.

Some quick tips before you enter the world of sharenting:

• Check your privacy settings. By making sure your posts and photos aren’t public, you are protecting your children from people who could hurt them in the future. Identity theft is a really issue in the world now and could make your child’s life difficult in the future.
• Talk to your child and see how they feel about you sharing images.
• Always check the terms and conditions to see who else has the right to share your image.

Parenting – Expectations VS Reality

The first thought I had when my daughter was born was that this is my moment to do something good. In that little crib, lies a child that I can mould and nurture. All these thoughts, plans and ideas spun in my head and I knew it was going to be an amazing journey. What I didn’t realise, was that expectations are SO FAR from reality when it comes to parenting!

Homemade Meals

Expectation – I did a lot of research and found that it was much healthier and easier to make all my daughters meals. Invest in a food processor, cook from scratch, it will help you bond with your child they said.

Reality – It is much healthier and it was kind of fun, but spending time in the kitchen lovingly preparing a meal for my daughter – and displaying it in an aesthetically pleasing way – meant nothing when she refused to eat it.

Going Out

Expectation – Another way to bond with your child is to clearly spend more time with them. I found a high number of mums were going to ‘mummy and me’ classes or arts and crafts with their children. I thought it would be fun to go for a walk on a sunny day, get an ice cream and feed the ducks! What could possibly go wrong?

Reality – Everything. It all starts well but soon she wants to get out of the pram and walk. Instead of feeding the ducks the stale bread, she decides she wants to eat it. Then, when I kindly tell her no, she has a complete meltdown in the middle of the park, with all the other parents staring at us. Only then do I remember the ice-cream! All goes well until she drops it on the floor and I call it a day.

Memory Books

Expectation – Even before I had a child, I knew I would always keep a memory book. So much happens in a day, let alone years. It makes sense to keep a record of it all and read back the lovely memories when the kids are older.

Reality -This is an amazing idea – if you remember to fill the books out. It’s been 2 years and the only things written down in her book, were all the expectations I had for when she is born. The irony! I couldn’t let a delightful book go to waste so I have made most of it up. She’ll never know?

There is a lesson to be learnt in all the above. No one is perfect and not everything goes to plan. In fact, all the unplanned moments are going to become the fondest memories you will have. Make meals with/for your children and laugh at the mess and fun that comes with it. Go out on day trips and when things don’t go to plan, learn from it and try again another day. Make memories every day and turn expectations into reality.

Reema Sabeen is a Retention Advisor working in the Support Team at ParentMail. She is a proud mummy to 2 year old Elayna and two cats, Dusty and Minnie! She has also published a book and loves to blog in her free time.

How To Prepare Your Child For The New School Year

Soon September will be upon us and with the beginning of Autumn comes the beginning of a new school year. Whether your child is moving up a year in primary or moving to secondary school, there are a few things you can do to help prepare them and make them feel less anxious.

Find out information about the school

If your child is moving to a new school that is unfamiliar be sure that you find out the basics. This will include:

• Learning what curriculum your child will be taught
• Seeing if the schedule and classes have already been decided, prepare the children by looking up the correct books they may need
• Visiting the school to familiarise yourself with where the reception is
• Finding out what time the school starts and finishes, as well as if there are any breakfast or after-school clubs for the children to attend

Is there a uniform? Does it need updating? Supplies?

Most schools will have a formal uniform that all students must follow. This information will be available on school websites and can be found at shops such as Uniform Direct.

Restore a routine before school starts

Sometimes the hardest part about going back to school for children is slipping into the routine of getting up early in the mornings. A great way to get around this is to start making sure they’re going to bed earlier and waking up earlier in the weeks leading up to that first day back.

How will they get to school?

Figuring out how your child will get to school will sometimes need to be arranged before school starts. If they are going to be getting the bus, will they need a bus pass? Check that the school has facilities that will be bicycles safe if that is your child’s mode of transport and ensure they have a bike lock and wear a helmet.

What will they do for Lunch?

Most schools will have canteens and lunch ladies who will prepare an array of lunch time dinners. If your child won’t be bringing a packed lunch to school, look in to paying for school lunches before the year starts. Using an app such as ours can make the transactions go through smoothly and you can monitor them. We will even send you alerts reminding you when a payment is due so your child never misses out!

Download ParentMail to make life easier

Here at ParentMail we want to make your lives easier, and with over 3000 schools and 3 millions parents already using our app you can be sure to receive a great service. Through us you can keep track of school updates, payments, school activities and most importantly your child’s education. For more information about what we can do for you, click here. Get ready for the new school year with us.

Get The Uniform Ready Before School Starts Again

We know that the school holidays have really only just begun, but they will be over before you know it. Soon the kids will be waking up early and heading off to school once more. Whether they are starting a brand new school or moving up a year, it is likely that they will need a new uniform. It’s amazing how quickly children can grow over the summer.

If your child is starting a brand new school you will need the school’s uniform list. When it comes to blazers, jumpers or PE kit, the school logo may need to be featured. It will be clearly stated by the school if this is the case and where you can find it. A lot of schools allow you to buy the uniform through them, but there are always companies like Uniform Direct. As for shirts and trousers, you can easily buy these from high street stores if you want a cheaper price or great deals.

Uniform Checklist

Here is a complete list of what your child will most likely need for the school year (buy enough to last a full week):

• Cardigans, sweatshirts or sweaters
• Polo shirts or shirts
• Trousers or skirts (shorts for the warmer months)
• A tie if the school requires one
• Socks
• PE Kit including shorts, t shirt, socks and plimsolls if needed
• School Shoes
• A book bag (if needed) or a school bag
• A school coat (some schools require them to be a specific colour so always check)

If you are worried about your child having a growth spurt, you can buy the next size up in shirts and trousers. Of course, there is always the option to buy more when it is needed, but you may need to do it online.

Uniform Tips

We have a few little extra tips to help you out:

• Always make sure you label everything clearly. Children are bound to lose things such as jumpers and PE kits, but with a name tag it will be much easier to find in the Lost Property box. You can even do the same for lunch boxes and bottles (those always get lost).
• Make sure your child has 2 coats, one for the warmer months and one for the summer months.
• When it comes to socks, always try to go for darker colours. We know how often children like to take their shoes off and they’ll be dirty before you know it!

We hope that all the children have a great start to the new school year when September rolls around!

Encourage Your Child to Start Reading With Our Help

Reading can be a fun way to pass the time. It is also critical for your child’s development in education. Thanks to technology, children would now rather watch a movie or play a video game than read a book. If you as a parent are looking for ways to motivate them to pick up a book, look no further.

Here at ParentMail we have come up with a few ways to help your child fall in love with reading.

Read to them:

If you want your child to have a passion for reading, it always helps to start them off young. A great way of doing this is to read a book to them. You can do this in the day or last thing at night. By listening to you they will understand how a book can have so much meaning and even learn how to master the art of holding a book. You can make the story more interesting to them by speaking in a different voice for each character and even act out the scenes.

Let them decide what book to read:

Nobody has ever loved a book that didn’t interest them and the same goes for children. Visit your local library or book store and let them decide what book to pick up. If you know what their interests are you can always help steer them in the right direction by offering them a choice of books. It doesn’t even have to be a traditional book! It can be a graphic novel or comic book, as long as they enjoy it, it doesn’t matter what form the words are in.

Always show an interest:

Always show an interest if you see your child with a book. Why not get them to explain a little bit about the story they are interested in. This will help your child to make connections and increase their comprehension skills when it comes to school reading. The best thing a child can hear is praise from you, especially if they are reading a book that would be considered difficult for them.

Join them:

Why not make reading a bonding experience and join them? If they see that you love reading, they will be more inclined to pick up their books too. Doing this together will also give you more things to talk about, as they will most likely be interested in what you are reading.

Bonus tip! Create their own special reading area:

This is something that they are bound to love! By creating a special reading area that is comfortable for your child, they will love reading their favourite books. A special nook, with shelves for their books and a couple of beanbags and pillows will allow them to escape to a fictional world. Struggling for creative ideas? Just check out Pinterest for some incredible and inventive nooks.

Get Out And Explore The Top 5 National Parks The UK Offers

With the start of the summer holidays officially upon us, what better time is there to explore the great outdoors. In total there are 15 National Parks throughout England, Scotland and Wales. To celebrate the start of National Parks Week, which runs from the 24^th to 30^th of July, we are choosing our top 5.

Do something different this summer. Venture out of the city and explore some of the beautiful mountains, lakes, waterways and wildlife that the UK has to offer. There are a lot of national parks to choose from so we have decided to help narrow them down for you. We have chosen 5 of what we think are the best the UK has to offer. Whether you want to strap on your hiking boots, paddle down a river on a canoe or take the bike out for a ride, there is something for you and all the family.

Up first, The Lake District National Park in England

Located in the county of Cumbria, the Lake District is England’s largest national park. As of 2017 it is a world heritage site that covers an astonishing 912 miles. In the past, the park has inspired many famous authors including William Wordsworth and Beatrix Potter, and has been a popular destination for holidays.

The Lake District is home to England’s highest mountain, Scafell Pike, with an elevation of 3,209 feet (978 meters). If you are feeling adventurous and fancy a challenge put your hiking skills to test on this! In total, the Lake District has 16 main lakes. The deepest being Wastwater at 243 feet (73 meters) and the longest lake being Windermere with a length of 10.5 miles!

You are guaranteed a great time if you decide to visit here, with a wide range of activities to keep everyone entertained. Try something new with the boat trips, sailing and canoeing that are on offer. You can also keep it more tame with a walk around the lakes or challenge yourself with high ridge walks.

Snowdonia National Park in Wales

Situated in a mountainous region of northwest Wales, Snowdonia is the largest national park in Wales covering 823 square miles. Not only is it home to Snowdon, the highest mountain in England and Wales at 3,560 feet (1,085 meters), but almost half the population speak Welsh. It is a national park that is bursting with culture and local history for you to immerse yourself in.

There are a vast array of activities that can be completed. Of course, the most popular is to hike up one of the six paths that Snowdon offers. It is not the easiest of feats and can sometimes become a challenge with steep and rocky paths. If you are looking for something a little easier why not try out the many bike trails. You can even attempt to see the sights on horseback!

Of course, you don’t have to be as active as this during your trip to Snowdonia National Park. There are many amazing castles to explore such as Conwy Castle, said to be the greatest example of a walled town in Britain, and Cymer Abbey, the only standing remains left of the Cistercians.  With so much to see and do, you can be sure that you will want to go back again.

New Forest National Park in England

There is a lot of history within New Forest National Park, which is located in Hampshire, southern England. Back in the 12^th century it used to be the royal hunting ground for King William I and his noblemen, with some of the trees being over a thousand years old! Nowadays, it is home to a multitude of wildlife that we are sure the children would love to see. You will be able to spot the wild ponies, donkeys and cattle roaming the woodland and sometimes even drifting into the streets of the villages. Shop owners have to be careful that they don’t wander inside! It really is a sight to see.

There are a number of walking and cycling routes for you to take in all the sites of New Forest, as well as a Walking Festival that will be taking place in the month of October. So if you want to take the family out to explore the wilderness and discover the amazing history hidden within, take a trip down south!

Cairngorms National Park in Scotland

This list wouldn’t be complete with one of Scotland’s National Parks and Cairngorms is definitely one to visit. Located in north east Scotland, it is one of two national parks that is on offer. It covers an amazing 1,748 square miles in Aberdeenshire, Moray, Highland, Angus, Perth and Kinross regions.

You won’t find the family uttering the phrase “I’m bored” when you take a trip up north. There there is so much to see and do. There are lots of walking and cycling trails for you to explore, as well as 12 golf courses to try out and an array of water sports. In Winter, why not try your hand at some of the snow sports on offer. They even have a funicular railway that will take you to the top of the Cairngorms ski resort.

Cairngorms is perfect for those who love hiking. There are 55 peaks that are over 900 meters tall. Not only does it have all this, the Cairngorms also boasts of having 4 of the 5 highest mountains in the UK! Ben Macdui is the highest at 1,309 meters, while the smallest of the four is Cairn Gorm at 1,244 feet. If you think you have what it takes to hike them, start planning your visit soon!

Last, but not least, Pembrokeshire Coast National Park in Wales

If you just can’t wait to be beside the sea this summer, then check out Pembrokeshire Coast in west Wales. It is Britain’s only fully coastal national park with an incredible 620 square kilometres of cliffs, beaches, harbours and coves. There is so much to explore with the family that you will be spoilt for choice.

Be on the lookout for the amazing wildlife that resides nearby. You may be able to see Atlantic grey seals lounging on the rocky shores. Maybe even some dolphins and porpoises in the water! There is something for everyone with lots of activities that include climbing, hiking, surfing, canoeing and so much more. Or maybe this will one of the more relaxing trips you take this summer. You can spend the days lying on the beach catching a tan whilst the kids play nearby.

Which of these National Parks will you visit this summer?

All of these National Parks have so much on offer, you will just have to take a trip to each one. The whole family is guaranteed to have a great time and learn something along the way.

#ShoutOutForTeachers – Celebrate your teachers!

Like any profession, when teachers feel appreciated and supported, schools and students thrive as a result.

With budget cuts, forced redundancies, longer hours with less support staff and larger class sizes, it’s no surprise that we’re in the midst of a recruitment and retention crisis. Many say that both teachers and school leadership staff are being driven out of teaching by increased workloads and unachievable expectations.

The statistics around the number of teachers leaving the profession are increasingly recognised and teacher wellbeing has become more of a concern particularly in the last few years. In fact, the Department of Education’s figures show the rate of qualified teachers entering teaching has fallen to its lowest in five years.

The expectations from schools, parents and the government are higher than ever and with that comes an amount of pressure set on teacher’s shoulders before they even enter the classroom. Of course, it’s right that we would want the very best people to be teaching our children, but with that should also come a level of support, encouragement and involvement.

Teachers come into schools ready and willing to make a difference to the lives of young people and so it is a responsibility of us all to ensure they feel supported.

That’s why we’ve recently launched our #ShoutOutForTeachers campaign in which we’ve asked people to take to social media and tell us about a teacher who has made a difference to them or their children. Our aim is to get a positive topic trending and reach people who deserve recognition for the great job they do every day.

As well as encouraging parents to get involved, we’re also asking schools to get behind this and encourage their students to take to Facebook or Twitter to let the world know about a teacher who has made a difference to them. For many teachers, just one single post saying thanks could be enough to turn a bad day, week or month into a good one – after all, for many teachers, improving the lives of the young people they teach is exactly the reason they do it every day.

If you have great memories of a teacher, or if you think highly of your children’s teachers, why not join us and celebrate them using their name, school and the hashtag #ShoutOutForTeachers.

Making the School Run Less Stressful

The school run can be very stressful. Keeping organised, calm and encouraged can make your morning so much easier for you…and your kids too!

Here are some simple tips on how you can make the school run less stressful.

Get Everything Ready the Night Before-

The last thing you want to be doing in the morning is running around trying to find what you need for the day. So get everything ready the night before. Be sure that their bags are packed, leave them near the door and make sure the uniforms are ready. Remember to always have a spare tie in case they lose it…again! Also, packing the kids lunch boxes before bed means that one job is crossed off your list.

But the number one rule of parenting is that everything takes three times longer in the morning. Make sure you stay patient and prepared.

Be Up Before the Kids-

Make sure you’re up before the kids, because if you aren’t up, they won’t get up. If you’re prepared, you’re allowing yourself more time for the day ahead. Taking 5 minutes for breakfast will make you so much happier leaving the house with food in your stomach. But it’s essential that you get a good night’s sleep too, or else it will make your morning school run so much harder.

Stick To a Daily Routine-

It’s important that your kids have a routine, sticking to it will really help you keep things in order. They will then know what to do every morning and when they’re used to it, it will make your life so much easier. And if they start helping a little bit more with the morning routine then you can reward them with some TV time. That’ll definitely work wonders!

Keep Calm-

The last thing you want to be doing is losing your temper. It’ll stress you out and the kids too, which means they’ll want to go against everything you say. You don’t need that when trying to have a stress-free school run. Keeping calm with the kids means that they are more likely to listen to what you’re saying and in return it will be easier for you. Making sure that you remain organised and calm will work hand in hand. The result is a less stressful school run for you.

Don’t Rush-

Don’t rush. You’re better off getting the kids to school 5 minutes late and having a less stressful school run, than rushing. Rushing means everything will go wrong and you will be even later than you wanted to be. Keeping relaxed and prepared always results in a better day. That’s what you want – a less stressful school run.

Hopefully from reading these 5 simple tips it’ll help some parents out, when finding the school run stressful, with what not to do and with what you should do to be stress-free

Secrets for stretching the school budget!

School budgets have always been a hot topic in the education world and business managers and bursars within schools have spent years finding ways to reduce costs and ensure money is being spent where it should be.

Today more than ever, schools find themselves struggling with funding cuts, with many requesting the support of parents to lobby local MP’s to ensure more money is put into education.

“School funding was a key issue on the doorstep during the election after a highly effective joint campaign between parents, teachers and unions to flag up the funding challenges facing schools in England.”

Many schools are getting smarter about how they spend their money and parent communications is a great place to start. Take a look below at our tips for ensuring your school budget is being spent efficiently…

• Consolidate systems

There’s a system for every type of communication schools need to send to parents and over time, many have bought several of these systems to meet their requirements. The consequence of this is several different contracts to pay for and increased complexity for schools and parents. Schools now realise they can consolidate their systems into one which offers it all – one payment rather than many, one system to learn and one place for parents to keep on top of their school communications!

• Going paperless

Microsoft’s article, Top 10 ICT Money Saving Tips – 7 – Stop printing so much, highlighted that schools can go through 1000 sheets of paper per pupil, per year and for Secondary Schools, 1 million sheets per year. From general letters to consent forms, school reports and homework, you can quickly see how it adds up, as well as printing and photocopying costs on top. Using an online system to communicate with parents means no more paper and huge costs savings for schools!

• Stop sending text messages

Astor College were previously spending over £2300 a year on a texting service, as well as continuing to send paper home for general letters, forms and parents’ evening. By switching to a service which allowed them to not only send all of this information electronically, but also reach parents through free in-app notifications, they’ve saved over £5000 within their first year.

• Instant online payments

Having to remember to bring in cash or remembering a separate login just to make a school payment makes parent’s lives even more complicated. By ensuring it’s easy for them to pay for school dinners, trips or uniform, payments are likely to be made quickly! This reduces office staff time by eliminating cash or cheque handling in the office and reducing the time spent chasing up payments! Using a trusted, reliable online payments system which allows parents to top up with ease through a mobile app, with  a range of socially inclusive payment options, means schools can easily keep on top of payments due (particularly if automatic payment reminders are in place!)
The good news is, we can help you with any or all of the above! We’re regularly speaking to Business Managers and Bursars about how we can help them cut down on their spend, and that’s why we design a system to be as cost effective as it can be. If you’d like to discuss further, simply call us on 01733 595959 or email us at enquire@parentmail.co.uk

The Best Ways to Keep Your Child Safe on the Internet

Living in the 21^st Century has it’s pros and cons, especially when it comes to the internet. Everything we’ve ever wanted to know is available with the touch of a button. However, that also means information we don’t want to see can be accessed and sometimes by mistake. This can be especially dangerous for children and it is important that as parents we make the internet a safe environment for them.

Children are naturally going to want to explore the internet and see what is happening in the world as they grow up. We have some tips to help you set some ground rules and ensure their safety is never compromised.

How much time are they allowed online?

The answer to this question will change depending on personal preference and how old your child is. Some parents would prefer that their child spent as little time as possible, whereas others don’t mind. Whatever you decide, make sure that the children understand the rules and the consequences for if they break them.

Learn about the internet with them

A great way to make sure that they are safe on the internet is to join them in browsing the web. Find out what kinds of websites they want to visit and keep an eye on them whilst they are on the computer. You don’t need to be with them all the time, but checking in on them every so often will help you feel assured that they are safe.

Teach them to be mindful of the dangers

While the internet can be fun and entertaining, it can also be dangerous to someone who doesn’t fully understand it. Make sure to teach them to protect their privacy at all times by never revealing their personal information, especially on social media where anyone can see it. They should never:

• Give their full name, phone number, address, emails or passwords to anyone online, even if they are a “friend”.
• Avoid opening emails from people they don’t know (it could be a virus).
• Never meet anyone in real life that they meet online, as not everyone is who they say they are.

Safety is the number one priority

While surfing the web, sometimes things can pop-up in windows that children wouldn’t want to see. This is where you can set up safe-surfing options that will automatically block any content that contains strong language, nudity or violence. By applying this to your computer you can rest easy knowing they are safe from damaging images. Most browsers will have an option built in to do this, but you can also buy more advanced software. Of course, it isn’t always possible to filter everything, so let your child know that they can come to you about anything they have seen or read.

Watch out for social media

With 2 billion people now using Facebook each month, it is more important than ever to keep your online identity safe. If you allow your child to have a twitter, Instagram or Facebook account, ensure they are using the security features offered to them, especially on Facebook where it can be easy for people to hack accounts.

We hope that these tips help you and your children enjoy the internet safely!

#ShoutOutForTeachers – One month on!

We launched our #ShoutOutForTeachers campaign over a month ago and have been overwhelmed with positive responses on social media! A teacher’s job can be immensely difficult and we wanted to encourage parents to #ShoutOutForTeachers  to provide some positive recognition for the great job they do every day.

Here’s a look at some of the fantastic comment’s we’ve seen:

“I’d like to give a special shout out to my daughter’s Year 2 teacher Mrs Young. She was an absolute rock to both me and my daughter during a very difficult year. She has 2 daughters of her own and yet you could see her passion for our school, Gretton Primary and the amount of time she put in it for her pupils and also their families.” Sarah Whitney

“I would absolutely love to say thank you to a wonderful TA….Mrs Nightingale from Highfields Primary. She always has a smile and a warm welcome in the mornings and I know that she cares about each and every one of the children she looks after including both of my children. I just think she is a wonderful asset to the school.” Sarah Louise Reardon

“My son’s teacher Ms Berryman in Year 2 at Fairway Infants in Copthorne. She is the most amazingly patient, insightful and dedicated teacher. She clearly has a wonderful rapport with her pupils and in turn they adore her. So do I. As a parent I can never thank her enough for how she’s helped my son.” Liz Griffiths

Some even tagged their teachers into their posts – and made their day!

“Jenny Carter, for always looking after and encouraging my Dom when he was small and not so keen on going to school…he still remembers you now!” Tash Manning – Parent

Jenny Carter responded, “Thank you so much, this actually made me tear up a little bit! Been having a hard time at work this year and this means a lot. Dom is a star and glad to always see such your posts about a happy little boy! It honestly means so much, the kids are the reason I’m in teaching and it’s such a great feeling to know that you’ve made an impact and helped shape them into the fab person they are growing up to be! 

One lady recognised that we were trying to create some positive recognition…

“Miss Walker of Woodlands Primary School Nursery in Carnoustie. She is a lovely lady who has helped my daughter overcome her anxiety and separation issues. My daughter will miss her greatly when she makes the move up to school. We are very quick to criticise, but not to compliment and praise.” Laura Wood

And some people looked back to teachers they had when they were in school:

“Mine was a lady by the name of Jean Quarmby. She was my very first Sunday school teacher and she just somehow made you feel loved, accepted and special and she taught me some Christian principles that have stuck with me through thick and thin. She may be gone and in heaven, but she will definitely be not forgotten.” Dan Shaw

Reading these comments has really made our day and we’re sure for those teachers it’s done the same! If you haven’t posted about a teacher who has made a difference to your child, or a teacher you remember from school, why not do it today on Facebook or Twitter? Don’t forget the hashtag, #ShoutOutForTeachers!

Schools and Social Media

Schools often have a love/hate relationship with Social Media, some refusing to consider using it and banning access to it from school, and others with their own Facebook, Twitter and even Instagram accounts!

It’s not difficult to understand why some schools may be cautious – the words ‘social media’ can be a cause of worry for those concerned about safeguarding and cyberbullying.

The irony is that most parents and many students use Social Media every day, and the absence of schools from this ecosystem may not be a good thing.  As someone recently pointed out, “parents will be chatting about the school by the school gates or on social media anyway; it’s a simple choice for the school as to whether they want to be involved in the discussion”.

For Sunbeams Day Nurseries, having an active social media presence was incredibly important and was the foundation of building a better relationship with parents. They introduced ParentMail to bring together their social media activity, their interactive website and important school messages – all driven into one account.

And it’s not just schools who are embracing social. Ofsted recently revealed plans of using Facebook and Twitter posts to analyse how schools are performing, using  the “frequency and content of social media posts about a particular school to help decide whether an inspector should visit sooner than planned.”

Done well, schools can strengthen relationships with the hardest to reach parents, building a ‘social’ relationship with the parent community in general and improving the quality of engagement with parents and wider community.

How else could schools use Social Media?

In 2015, it was reported that the number of UK consumers using social media to research what products are “best” had rocketed from 25% to 43%, according to the Adobe Digital Index (ADI) 2015 Holiday Shopping Prediction report.

Social Media is a great tool for schools to read reviews on products they are considering. Often, when looking for a new form of technology to help in the classroom or school office, they’ll consider a few options and make a decision based on cost or ease of use for staff or parents.

Though all are important, it’s also worth seeing what those who are already using the product think! Though most companies offer case studies and testimonials from their happiest customers, the best way to get an honest representation is to look on Twitter or Facebook and see real reviews from real consumers!

Some companies have a review section on their Facebook page, which is a great way for you to see what their customers rate them out of 5. Another way is to visit Twitter and simply search the supplier name or relevant hashtags to see what those who are already using the product think about it!

Are you thinking of a new #edtech product to launch in school? Take a look on social media today and see what you can find out!

Are you following us on social media? You’ll find us on Facebook and on Twitter.

Sources

(2015). Why social media reviews can make or break brands Read more at http://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/why-social-media-reviews-break-brands/1370711#7EFZqHjhCDYjDgKu.99. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/why-social-media-reviews-break-brands/1370711. [Last Accessed 07/06/2017].

Lucy Ward ( 2014). Talking to parents in 140 characters: how are schools using social media?. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.microsoft.com. [Last Accessed 07/06/2017].

Haroon Siddique ( 2017). Ofsted considers using social media to monitor schools. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2017/mar/31/ofsted-considers-using-social-media-to-monitor-schools. [Last Accessed 06/07/2017].

Our Top Tips For When You Travel With The Kids

When it comes to summer holidays, there is a lot of planning involved. Booking the flights and the hotels is the easiest part. Actually planning how you will travel to and from the destination is the tough part, especially when you have kids.

Don’t worry though, we’ve come up with some tips to help make everything run smoother and stop the kids from crying and asking “are we there yet?”

Are you going to travel with young children? These tips are for you:

• Take your time when you travel and never rush anywhere. The only way to make this a possibility is to thoroughly plan when you are going to leave. Ensure you have extra time in case of road accidents or diversions.
• It is almost guaranteed that the kids will get hungry on the journey. Make sure you pack some sweet snacks such as fruit and savoury foods like breadsticks, cheese and even bagels. Chocolate bars and sugary sweets are never a good idea as there is nothing worse than travelling with a child in the middle of a sugar rush.
• A great idea is to buy a disposable camera to keep the kids entertained for hours. It gives them the freedom to explore the world safely and they will keep those memories forever. Plus, there may even be a few worthy shots in there!
• Want to keep the children quiet for a long period of time? Bring a portable DVD player or tablet stocked with their favourite TV shows and movies that will last the length of the flight. Not only does this keep the kids preoccupied, it gives you time to relax and unwind too.

Keep the older Children Entertained too:

• While the young ones will likely fall asleep, older children are prone to getting bored on long journeys and that isn’t fun for anyone. Bring along something fun that is suitable for travelling such as word searches, puzzles and maybe even a colouring book or two.
• Find out what kind of activities the kids want to do when you get to your destination. Not only will this keep them from being bored, it will build their excitement and pass the time.
• As it is the 21^st Century, a great idea to keep the kids entertained are apps and games on tablets or phones. There are a wide range of free and paid apps that will distract them from the long journey ahead.

The most important tip of all is to have fun and enjoy all that a family holiday brings. Experiences and memories last a lifetime and it is something that your children will remember forever.

Payments made in minutes and forms completed instantly!

Brookside Primary School in Stockport recently moved from a basic text only system to ParentMail, in order to collect payments online, collect permissions and feedback in minutes and reach parents through their own school branded app!

Every child in school now has a parent using ParentMail to pick up important school messages, receive permissions forms and pay for school items. School Business Manager Julie Brennan told us, “We’ve really noticed an increase in responses from parents – whether that’s responding to information we’ve sent, completing a form or making a payment, it all happens instantly now we’re using ParentMail.

“It’s a really nice touch that we’re sending our information home to parents through our very own app, it makes our communications unique to us!”

Previously accepting cash and cheques for payments for school trips, Brookside Primary are now creating their trips on ParentMail and allowing parents to pay online through Debit/Credit Card, PayPal or PayPoint. Julie told us, “PayPoint has been really popular with those parents who don’t like to pay for things online, as it means they can take their barcode into their local shop and pay in a way that’s easiest for them.”

Another benefit for Brookside Primary School is that they have gone from sending paper forms and permission slips home to doing it all electronically through ParentMail – and has certainly noticed an improvement in response times as a result! Julie told us, “We usually see 50% of parents responding to a form now within the first hour, and this goes up to 100% within 24 hours, probably because it’s delivered to them instantly and they can complete it in just a few taps!”

Teachers are still just as involved in the process, simply sending their form needs to the school office, who build the template in ParentMail in minutes and get it sent out straight away. The responses are then collated in an easy to read report and the school can set automatic reminders for those last few parents who sometimes need an extra nudge!

Having gone from such a basic system to one which offers so much functionality, staff were concerned that it may take time for them to understand how it all works, but have been pleasantly surprised with how easy the user interface is for both school and parents; “The training was fantastic and tailored to our needs, and since then we’ve been able to pick it all up as we go. It’s clear that the system has been designed with schools and parents in mind.”

Brookside Primary are really thrilled with how they’re now engaging with parents and the difference it has made to staff in the school office, saving them hours each week. “We can’t imagine why any school would want to use anything else, when you can do it all, and so easily, through ParentMail.”

If you’re a UK school or college interested in using the leading online payments system, going completely paperless with our online forms application or reaching your parents through your own school branded app, get in touch today and we’ll show you how easy it could be! Contact us on 01733 595959 or email enquire@parentmail.co.uk

How to Prepare For Summer When The Kids Are Home

It is the last term of the school year and the summer holidays will soon be upon us.  The kids are probably already excited and talking about the plans they want to make with you. Summer is where the best memories are made, something I’m sure we all remember from when we were younger. It is our duty to offer our children the same experience. “I’m bored” is not a phrase that will be uttered this summer.

Get ready for Summer Fun

When it comes to deciding how to make the most of the time with the kids, ask for their opinions first. Is there a new movie coming out that they want to see? Do they fancy a trip to a theme park or maybe even the zoo? By doing this you can prioritise the events and find out how much money you will need for the activities.

Of course, there are smaller activities that you can do with the kids that cost much less than a big day out. We’ve come up with a list of activities that we’re sure everyone will love:

• Pack a picnic and head to the park! Get everyone to pick their favourite treats, crisps and sandwiches to put into the basket and find a great place to explore and relax in. And even if it rains, there’s nothing to say you can’t have an indoor picnic!
• Stock up on cooking supplies before they all finish school. While you’re at it, why not buy a couple of cook books that you and the children can rummage through, looking for that perfect cake to bake.
• Get the whole family over for a BBQ if the weather is good and enjoy the time together. It isn’t often when everyone can be in the same place and have some delicious food.
• A trip to the seaside is a must with the kids and they are sure to love the change of scenery! There is nothing better than listening to the waves, eating ice creams and helping them build sandcastles. Don’t forget the towels!
• Arts and crafts can be a great way to pass time when the weather is less than desirable. Make staying indoors fun by buying ceramic painting kits, paint by numbers, making dream catchers and so much more. The possibilities are endless!

These are just a few ideas that will keep the kids entertained for hours this summer. Make the most of the six weeks off with the kids before it’s time to pack the school lunches again.

Celebrating 1 Million App Downloads!

Over 1 million parents across the UK are loving the convenience of ParentMail’s mobile App, using it to pick up school communications, make payments, book parents evening appointments and more – all via their mobile phones.

Launched just two years ago, and now also available in school branded format, ParentMail’s App has gone from strength-to-strength. For busy parents, it means they can quickly and conveniently respond to school requests, whilst schools notice a better and faster response than ever before.

Hundreds of schools now have their own ‘school branded’ version of ParentMail’s App in the App Stores, extending their school image and identity into the hands of their parents. ParentMail CEO, Paul Hughes says, “We’re extremely proud of the App and thrilled that so many schools and parents find it useful for improving school-home communications. We know that when parents are engaged, students do better, and that’s why we’ve put so much resource into developing our mobile app.”

When parents download the App schools save money as in-app notifications can be sent for free instead of text messages. Schools also spend considerable time checking and updating parent email addresses and mobile numbers but when parents use the App, if mobile numbers or email addresses are changed the App keeps parents connected.

Here’s what parents say about ParentMail’s App:

“Less children getting told off for forgetting important messages from school, less clutter on the fridge and easy dinner money top up…this app is every parents dream!” – N Phillips

“I’m a total ParentMail fan and wonder how we ever communicated without it!” – K Lane

“Sometimes it can be challenging to juggle school, work, other children, house work and commitments and know what is going on and keep in tune with the latest news and events at school. This app is a godsend!” – L Mathieu

“This app maintains a great line of communication between school and home which is essential in today’s ever moving and changing society.” – R Boulton

We love talking about the App, so if you’d like to know more about how your school, club or nursery could use a mobile app to improve engagement with parents, simply give us a call on 01733 595959 or drop us an email at enquire@parentmail.co.uk and we’ll be more than happy to discuss further!

#ShoutOutForTeachers

Teachers are among the most important people in society, helping today’s children to shape the world for tomorrow, but following a recent parents’ evening, I found myself wondering whether teachers get the support from parents they deserve.

After attending my daughters parents evening recently, I found myself thinking for the most part that the teachers were great, but in one case I found myself sympathising with my daughter as she found a particular teacher very confusing … and so it turned out, did I.

Towards the end of my meeting with him, I realised I had switched off completely as my daughter was probably going to drop the subject anyway so why should I get too involved?  As I parted company with him, I saw just for a moment, the look on his face that said perhaps that he knew and I felt a moment of guilt at being less interested than I should have been. I wondered how many other parents had treated him the same way?

At home later I thought more about how difficult it is to be a teacher, about the wider crisis with teacher recruitment and about how in many cases parents can make life difficult for teachers just by being disinterested. Of course parents can make life much more difficult for teachers in many other ways, not least because many will side with their children even when they are plainly in the wrong, while some will physically or emotionally intimidate teachers they don’t agree with or even use social media to spread negative feedback.

Of course it’s a two way street and parents also have the ability to positively impact on teachers too, by getting involved in school initiatives, backing teachers when their children are wrong, and generally maintaining a good positive communication with the school. In fact the majority of parents do value teachers and most of us will remember a teacher or two from our own childhoods that really made a difference to us.  That said, most of us don’t go out of our way to say good things about good teachers, and whilst some teachers have the social media nouse to gather their own support, most don’t, and so we’ve decided to create a campaign that is designed to encourage parents to shout out for great teachers as often as they can.

Our business is founded on strengthening the connection between school and home and so the topic is very close to our hearts.  We feel that teachers are amongst the most important people in society with an incredibly important job to educate the next generation, hopefully to make the world a better, kinder, fairer place in the future.

We’ll be encouraging the 2.5 million parents that use ParentMail to #ShoutOutForTeachers on social media and we hope other Education and Parenting groups will join the campaign.  A teachers job can be immensely difficult and we really hope we can provide a motivational boost and some great positive recognition for ordinary teachers doing a great job every day.

If you have great memories of a teacher, or if you think highly of your children’s teachers, why not join us and celebrate them using their name, school and the hashtag #ShoutOutForTeachers.

This article is written by ParentMail CEO, Paul Hughes, who has been working in the Education Technology sector for the past 15 years.  

Carlton le Willows Academy takes control of their online payments

With 1400 students, Carlton le Willows Academy in Nottinghamshire recently moved from a local authority controlled online payments system to ParentMail’s +Pay platform, to take back control of their payments and offer parents a more complete service.

Previously, parents could pay for dinner money online via the council system, which meant the school had no visibility of what payments had been made. Other items such as trips and clubs still had to be paid for by cash or cheque and this meant the school were running two different systems.

Now they’ve switched to +Pay, 80% of parents and over 100 staff pay online, making quick, easy, payments for dinner money, trips, clubs, shop items and more through a free mobile App.

School Business Manager, Michael Davies told us, “With +Pay, we now have full control over the whole payments process, from setting up payment items to running off reports to keeping on top of administration. We’re now able to offer our parents a complete service in which they can top up dinner money or pay for school trips all through one system, with ease!”

In June each year, the school holds a “trip week” in which 40-50 events and trips take place. Michael told us, “Previously, managing this week was a struggle as we had paperwork, cash and cheques everywhere and trying to keep on top of who was attending what and who had or hadn’t paid was as chaotic as it sounds! Now, the trips are available to book through +Pay, payments are made almost instantly and the administration is all managed online.”

We asked Michael what advice he would offer to other secondary schools looking to simplify the way they take payments from parents: “For a successful launch, I would say to take your time getting set up and ensure that both staff and parents understand the benefits of going digital. In the initial few weeks you’ve got to dedicate time to getting everything ready and ensuring parents are registered, but once you’re using it regularly you’ll find you’re saving hours each week.”

Dinner Money Collection

Collecting dinner money from large numbers of students and staff could very easily become a complicated and time-consuming task, which is why Carlton le Willows wanted an online payments system to work alongside their cashless catering system; “+Pay integrates with our cashless catering provider which means we’ve really simplified how students and staff pay for school dinners. Our biometric system means they can verify who they are with their fingerprint and payment is taken through their ParentMail account – there’s no need for cash.

“Both staff and parents are notified automatically through ParentMail when their dinner money balance is running low and can top up in seconds using the App or on a computer.”

Simplifying the payments process for school staff

“Our office staff are extremely pleased with how much easier +Pay has made managing trips and events and they’ve saved hours as a result.

 “+Pay has really simplified how we accept payments from parents and staff, and we’re looking forward to using it even more in the future. We’d certainly recommend it to schools who want an easy way to manage regular payments from their parents or staff.”

Schools all over the UK are turning to ParentMail for easier, faster, friction free parent payments – if you’d like to know more, get in touch today by calling us on 01733 595959 or emailing enquire@parentmail.co.uk

National Walking Month Has Begun And It’s Time to Get Moving

The beginning of May signals the start of National Walking Month and it is the perfect time to start doing just a little bit of exercise each day. Walking is a fantastic way to become healthy. May is all about promoting the health benefits of walking with the hopes that more people will ditch their car.

Last year, the charity Living Streets set up the #Try20 campaign. This saw thousands of people sign up and pledge to walk for at least 20 minutes a day. Once again, they are asking that people do the same this year, except this time there is a change. They want all participants to also “Rate their walk” to help people find out how walk-able the streets are and what they can do to improve it.

Get The Kids Involved This May

From the 15^th to 19^th May it is ‘Walk To School Week’ where thousands of school children will walk every day if possible. Why don’t you join them in the mornings? Not only is it safer for your children if they are young but it is also a great way to bond with them. Have some fun exercising in the great outdoors.

Whilst the children are at school, you can even #Try20 in the workplace. Living Streets list a few fun ways to do this such as:

• Setting up a Food Exclusion Zone (FEZ) where employees are banned from buying food from shops within a 20 minute walk radius.
• Trying a walking meeting to get everybody in the office out in the fresh air, which they say will boost ‘energy and productivity.’
• Kill two birds with one stone by completing chores while out and about. You could visit the bank or grab some grocery’s.

What will you do to #Try20?