Going paperfree

[WayTooTricky]

I am looking for a better way to

 

 

1. Produce a daily digital bulletin for staff - At the mo, we are using the SIMS one on the home page but, quite frankly, it's a bit of a faff remembering to update it if there's a change and some teacher aren't logging out of sims so don't see the latest.
   
2. Get responses to trips and activities electronically without resorting to tearing off, even if the trips are free (tried ParentPay but it doesn't like free!)
   

 

Any tips and hints gratefully received. TIA

[asc]

I am looking for a better way to

 

 

1. Produce a daily digital bulletin for staff - At the mo, we are using the SIMS one on the home page but, quite frankly, it's a bit of a faff remembering to update it if there's a change and some teacher aren't logging out of sims so don't see the latest.
   
2. Get responses to trips and activities electronically without resorting to tearing off, even if the trips are free (tried ParentPay but it doesn't like free!)
   

 

Any tips and hints gratefully received. TIA

 

Not sure about the second one but my solution to the first one would either be to have reception/head's PA collate notices and send out each AM. But a better solution which I would probably use myself would be to setup a small web server (or use your existing intranet if you have one) to host the notices and push the link via GPO to the desktop of every PC.

 

If you want to keep it simple, someone with reasonable competency (or through the use of a WYSIWYG editor) can update it as necessary

OR

you could build something in PHP/MySQL with a form that lets staff submit their own notices. This is a bit more complex but I'm sure you can find an open source project online where someone has already done this.

 

The best of both worlds would be to have a web based system as described above that ALSO sends email digests to staff.

 

Think I quite fancy developing this now!... [emoji23]

[elsiegee40]

I am looking for a better way to

 

 

• Get responses to trips and activities electronically without resorting to tearing off, even if the trips are free (tried ParentPay but it doesn't like free!)
  

 

The problem with this is proving that it is actually the legal parent/guardian giving the permission. You would need a verified "parent account" of some sort to do it.

 

A piece of paper with a parents' signature is forgeable and readily lost in transit, but at least the school is reasonably certain that the parent has consented.

 

Unless you're very careful with how you manage the electronic permissions, the school could find itself open to accusations (and worse) of allowing a student to partake in (or avoid) something that the parent didn't consent to.

 

Having been on the other end of the paper slips in the school office, we settled in the end for allowing parents to scan/photograph a signed slip and email it to a specified trips account, as an alternative to sending the slip in to school, which at least gave us a clearer audit trail.

 

Just tagging @GrumbleDook as I know he has opinions on this

Edited June 29, 2017 by elsiegee40

[bobsmith]

For the permissions we use RS ConnectED and it handles permissions brilliantly. As the parents contact details are used we can be reasonably (legally) sure that the parent is the one providing permission. (unless their offspring is an accomplished hacker and has got into their parent's email)

[colly72]

For our staff notices/bulletins, we use a Wordpress based intranet, that has a graphical slider that is able to display custom notices. It's simple then for a member of staff to add a notice to the slider and all staff have the intranet as their home page, so they will hopefully see it!

[GrumbleDook]

If you are using O365 or G Suite, then look at these to have your intranet / daily bulletin.

 

For parental permissions ... you can only receive them electronically if you are sure the sender is actually the parent. Things like ParentPay, where only the parents have the account, would work well and I am sure that if you spoke with ParentPay they will see if they can sort something for free trips.

 

Even accepting emails from parents is questionable ... after all, how many parents have smart phones with mail on there ... and then let their kids play on their phones, never mind shared computers.

[WayTooTricky]

Thanks all for the suggestions.

 

I'm pretty sure that any electronic permission will be better that the paper version - we have lots of responses that the students fake their parent signature on.