Wheatfield Primary School

What goals were you hoping to achieve when you decided that an engagement system would be a good fit for your school?

We were looking at three main areas that we wanted a parent app to address:

• To reduce the amount of cash paid through the school office with a view to eventually becoming a cashless school. Our local bank had closed and banking cash was becoming more difficult.
• A cost-effective messaging system to improve parent-school communication.
• An easy-to-use booking system for our Breakfast & After-School Club

Why did Wheatfield Primary School decide that Schoolcomms could help them reach these goals?

We looked at a number of different systems and sought advice from schools in the local area before deciding that Schoolcomms was the best fit for our needs. Schoolcomms offered a near-perfect integration of all aspects we were needing for our school.

Were there any advantages to using Schoolcomms that you hadn’t considered when originally looking?

We have found that Schoolcomms offers even more than we initially thought we needed! We particularly like the attendance messaging, which can be initiated by the school or by a parent.

We have also added the Parents Evening bolt on, which has made the administration of our school parents’ evenings pain-free!

What has parent and staff reaction been to School Gateway?

Parents love the easy-to-use format of the app. Receiving messages directly to their phone, booking clubs, and paying for trips and dinner money is, they tell us, now so easy.

From an office point of view, it has streamlined many of our old paper systems, and the fact we are now a completely cashless school is amazing.

What challenges were you concerned about and how did you overcome them?

We were initially concerned that it might be difficult to get parents to sign up and our early take-up was a little slow but by using the letter templates and guides that Schoolcomms provided, it was easy to send these out to parents explaining how to download the app and use the system.

We advertised the introduction of the app widely before the Summer break and began using the system at the start of the new academic year. We then notified parents that future text messages would soon only be sent via the app to save the school money and that they may miss important information if they didn’t sign up.

Using the app for the payment and booking of popular events has also encouraged parents to sign up.

What has been the impact of adopting Schoolcomms?

As most parents now pay online for school dinners, trips, clubs, etc., the payments system has had a huge impact on the way we work in the office. It has reduced the amount of cash handling by a significant amount. This has led to great cost savings as we no longer need to release and pay for a member of staff to drive to the bank.

The communication system is also very easy to use and we have found it to be a quick and uncomplicated way to maintain two-way communication between parents and the school.

Download the PDF version of Wheatfield Primary School’s journey with Schoolcomms.