witch Posted January 8, 2015 Posted January 8, 2015 I have been asked by the head to look at an online method whereby parents can book teacher consultations. We do not administer our own website - I will be asking PrimarySite if there is anything they can offer us but I wondered if there is any mileage in Office 365 as we are about to make the jump to it? I could arrange a link on our website but is there any easy way to do this with Office 365 or am I opening up a world of pain?
dobsonl Posted January 8, 2015 Posted January 8, 2015 We use Parents Evening System here and have got to say our parents really love using it It also pulls all of its data out of the schools MIS so you don't have to keep on updating it every time somebody changes classes The staff were not as keen to begin with as it means they are being tracked a little more than the old pen and paper.... 2
Steve21 Posted January 8, 2015 Posted January 8, 2015 We use Parents Evening System - Online Parents Evening Booking Software currently, links into SIMs for teachers/students details etc, and is all done by parents online so removes need for students involvement etc, but guess it depends if you're after free methods only? In regards to using 365 unless you're going to start setting up workflows within the sharepoint section, or making an excel sheet with macros for locking cells etc I can't think of an easy way to do the timetables without others being able to overwrite it. Or a lot of manual work if you're doing manual updating of the timetables etc Steve 2
witch Posted January 8, 2015 Author Posted January 8, 2015 There could be some thing at Bett There could - and I will be there for this school I think the head was hoping to avoid spending any money. We do have ParentMail and I know they have some sort of system. I think it comes down to price
BKGarry Posted January 8, 2015 Posted January 8, 2015 +1 for Parents Evening System, started using it last year here and haven't looked back since, and the prices are very competitive. 1
Steve21 Posted January 8, 2015 Posted January 8, 2015 There could - and I will be there for this school I think the head was hoping to avoid spending any money. We do have ParentMail and I know they have some sort of system. I think it comes down to price Pretty sure they still do the first parent evening is free trial thingy, so might be worth testing it once and see how they like it Always easier to get some wonga if they've seen it work and enjoy it Steve
BKGarry Posted January 8, 2015 Posted January 8, 2015 @Steve21 Parents Evening System does have a free trial, where you get all the functionality and it stays open until you have completed your first evening. Thats what allowed us to test it out. Was great. @witch Do you have less than 250 students or less than 500 at this school?
crc-ict Posted January 8, 2015 Posted January 8, 2015 I've used Parents Evening System at a previous school, and my children's school use it - it goes down well with parents and is kind to admins too. The developers are also great people to deal with. At my current school, we are looking into this too - we are considering Parents Evening System and the new offering from ParentMail. We already use ParentMail for comms, although the parents evening bookings is on their new platform. Parents Evening System are the leaders on this one, as their product has been around for at least 3 years so is tried and tested and at an advanced stage of development. The PM system is the new kid on the block, I don't think it's even on general release yet. But for an existing PM school, it makes sense to look at, and their pricing is quite compelling for existing users. 1
witch Posted January 8, 2015 Author Posted January 8, 2015 We have around 400 pupils. We do have ParentMail so their new platform may be a contender and it is around £70 a year cheaper than Parents Evening System. But I was concerned about it being new and to some extent unknown
crc-ict Posted January 8, 2015 Posted January 8, 2015 We have around 400 pupils. We do have ParentMail so their new platform may be a contender and it is around £70 a year cheaper than Parents Evening System. But I was concerned about it being new and to some extent unknown I share the same concerns. Unfortunately for us, we are just over the 500 pupils threshold, so have to look at their pricing for 1000 pupils, which makes them considerably more expensive than ParentMail's offering. We are also concerned about giving our parents another different system to have to work with, whereas they are already using ParentMail. The functionality appears to be very similar, although there are a couple of significant differences.
jmak Posted January 8, 2015 Posted January 8, 2015 Any more for any more? Test, test, test............ Yes, I should know better and yes I let a "trial" plough ahead and got burnt. All MIS systems have their quirks - you'll probably need to make some tweaks to some records. +1 for Parents evening system and their support. We had an issue in our MIS data, their system warned us about it and one call to PES sorted the issue. Reporting was great and they use it at my kids' school and I like it as a parent. Other systems we tried, not so much. 3
Oaktech Posted January 8, 2015 Posted January 8, 2015 +1 for Parents Evening System. It just worked. Also, I was able to delegate the set up to one of the Deputy Heads. Easy life. 1
witch Posted January 8, 2015 Author Posted January 8, 2015 I can't test it at it will be on the Admin network and I have no access to that Shame....
SchoolCloudSystems Posted January 11, 2015 Posted January 11, 2015 Thanks everyone for the recommendations, appreciated! I'd encourage getting a demo of all systems you're considering and ask to speak with some local schools using the systems to get an idea how well they work. 1
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