Teachers messaging home - specifically 'Well done', positive messages

[Bev]

We currently send postcards home to parents when pupils do something great. We would like to move to sending home a text message.

 

We use Schoolcomms and the plan was to give all staff access to school comms so they could send home positive texts, but then I read this thread.

http://www.edugeek.net/forums/how-do-you-do/188547-schools-using-schoolcomms-question.html

 

which I raised with SLT as it raises concerns about staff having access to the inbox.

 

They have come back to me and asked if I have another suggestion.

 

We have used classcharts in the past, but we no longer use that.

We also have Seesaw, I don't know if that offers the option? We don't currently use it to communicate with parents.

It would need to be reasonably cheap and easy for staff to use.

[FN-GM]

Is there a email to SMS service with SchoolComms? If so there could be something made to send the messages without them having access to read the inbox?

[clareq]

We ask staff to make positive phone calls home. Parents love it, and staff report that they enjoy the conversations.

[LeMarchand]

My Junior has been using https://marvellousme.com/ for a few years and seems very happy with it. Presumably fits the easy for staff as I never get asked about it. No idea on the cost, but the school isn't rolling in it.

[Bev]

My Junior has been using https://marvellousme.com/ for a few years and seems very happy with it. Presumably fits the easy for staff as I never get asked about it. No idea on the cost, but the school isn't rolling in it.

 

That looks really good, I'm just not sure about getting parents to install another app, as there will be some parents that don't install it and then those kids will miss out on those messages.

[jthompson]

You could maybe set something up using ClickSend. You can create sub accounts on there with different privileges, so you might be able to craft something suitable.

[Brimstone]

We currently send postcards home to parents when pupils do something great. We would like to move to sending home a text message.

 

We use Schoolcomms and the plan was to give all staff access to school comms so they could send home positive texts, but then I read this thread.

http://www.edugeek.net/forums/how-do-you-do/188547-schools-using-schoolcomms-question.html

 

which I raised with SLT as it raises concerns about staff having access to the inbox.

 

They have come back to me and asked if I have another suggestion.

 

We have used classcharts in the past, but we no longer use that.

We also have Seesaw, I don't know if that offers the option? We don't currently use it to communicate with parents.

It would need to be reasonably cheap and easy for staff to use.

Why on earth would you not use Seesaw for this? And what makes you think parents don't want to see the work their children are doing in school?

[Bev]

Some teachers use Seesaw to set / collect in work, and others use Google Classroom but I wouldn't say Seesaw was currently fully embeded in school, it was something we tried during lockdown.

It sounds like maybe it could do the trick.

[Bev]

I've just setup a test family member on Seesaw and I was able to receive a text notification.

 

But who is paying for the texts?

It comes from an international number.

[pete]

One of our schools uses ePraise, which appears to work well for the students and their parents.

 

Another is a bit more ad-hoc (email from form tutor or subject teacher, postcards occasionally) depending on where the praise originates from.

 

The others put "Bob in Class $whatever did something awesome (proceeds to describe the awesome thing)" in their weekly newsletter. Assumingly reasonably well behaved and diligent students this won't scale past ~200 or so kids.

[LeMarchand]

One of our schools uses ePraise

 

Sounds more like something a more tech savvy church would use!