Sending text messages home to parents

[BatchFile]

I've been asked to look into a system to send text messages home to parents. I've never really researched it (as we only got phone signal round here a couple of years ago!) So basically what do you use, how much does it cost and would you recommend it?

[rh91uk]

Well, our head isn't too keen on the idea but we had a presentation at a network managers meeting from SIMS InTouch and it looks good enough .... SIMS InTouch

[Jon]

I have just setup schoolcomms here, very easy to install and fully integrates with sims.

Schoolcomms

[FN-GM]

They use truancy call at our place. It has the facility to text parents and staff. It also fully integrates with SIMS

[GREED]

+1 for schoolcomms. Contact Frances or the team there, very nice people and helpful. Can organise a visit for you to a local school or facility for a demo. faultless software, easy to use, good price structure, integrates with SIMS well.

[maark]

we use truancy call/ call parents - seems to work pretty well.

[AngryITGuy]

They use truancy call at our place. It has the facility to text parents and staff. It also fully integrates with SIMS

 

+1 for Truancy Call and Call Parents. Works a treat we used to contact parents and staff during the recent bad weather you can use it within the school network environment or upload your data to their servers and run it from the web anywhere.

[6Foot2]

We are using ParentMail. I don't have much to do with it but for those who are involved with it they seem happy enough and it seems to work fine. All you can ask really.

[Edu-IT]

We use KKS here.

 

Keep Kids Safe Communication Project – By schools for schools

[mdrabble]

+1 for Truancy Call and Call Parents. Works a treat we used to contact parents and staff during the recent bad weather you can use it within the school network environment or upload your data to their servers and run it from the web anywhere.

 

Ditto..... easy to install and use

[flyinghaggis]

We use a service called BulkSMS and run CSV exports from our MIS system to populate the lists when we need to send out a text to parents

 

BulkSMS.com - #1 Internet Bulk SMS Gateway

 

We looked at some of the options mentioned above but none of them tied into our MIS system (WCBS PASS) so the above worked out cheaper and was just as effective. If you have an MIS system that does integrate directly into one of the above systems that might be a neater, albeit more expensive, option though

 

Edit: Just to add we're currently paying 4p per text message sent out (so about £50 every time we text all the parents in the school). At the moment we generally only use it for sending out school closure/etc emergency texts though there are discussions to use it more frequently. How does the cost compare with what other systems on here cost? Would be nice to have a comparision as many of the others seems based on a subscription (which they never give you figures for on the website!) rather than paying per text?

Edited December 20, 2010 by flyinghaggis

[Sylv3r]

We use Schoolcomms - we spent around £1,000 a couple of weeks ago just sending TXT messages when the school was closed for the week. 1450 Students + 150 staff but we also sent TXT's to both parents so in total we were sending around 2,000 TXT's per day.

[jonnykewell1]

we use KKS - Keep Kids Safe Keep Kids Safe Communication Project – By schools for schools

[BatchFile]

we use KKS - Keep Kids Safe Keep Kids Safe Communication Project – By schools for schools

 

Anyone have any idea what this costs? their website gives nothing away

[jonnykewell1]

Not sure on costs, but give them a call, only a standard uk landline num.

[nadeem]

We use edutxt edutxt - txt messaging for education and have used Janet txt in the past

[sionide]

Just adding another name into the hat: we had a presentation from txttools - txt messaging for education, healthcare and business TXT Tools recently, not sure if we'll be going with them or not at this stage.

[flyinghaggis]

edutxt - txt messaging for education

 

txttools - txt messaging for education, healthcare and business

 

The above 2 are actually the same company! I thought the website was similar

[jamesreedersmith]

try txtaround

[quietriot1983]

Teachers 2 Parents

 

We use this at our school, AFAIK it integrates with SIMS and is so simple in fact, that I've never used it, the office staff know all the ins and outs of it.

[plexer]

Does the school see any tangible benifit in spending soo much money sending out text messages? £1000 just to tell parents the school is closed? don't they have radio stations that broadcast that for you?

 

Ben

[Max_Power]

We use schoolcomms as well - works really well along side SIMS. Pricing is decent enough and its easy to use software is good news as well!

 

Sims are bringing out intouch but I cant say im keen, it doesnt have the functionality of schoolcomms although im sure itll get there one day.

[Sylv3r]

Does the school see any tangible benifit in spending soo much money sending out text messages? £1000 just to tell parents the school is closed? don't they have radio stations that broadcast that for you?

 

Ben

 

As we bus a lot of students into school - the majority of the time a late decision is made from the bus company whether they can get the buses on the road etc. If a lot of schools are off, it is quite possible that there could be a long list of schools given out over the radio which may get missed.

 

I agree the TXT system is expensive but it hits our target audiance immediately. We also utilise it to remind parents of events such as parents evenings, student exams etc which is another benefit of the system. I am going to investigate costs of similar systems to see if there is a cost saving from another provider.

[flyinghaggis]

Yeah, I cant see us ever going for the full subscription unlimited text model as most companies seem to be charging around £5000 per year for it. We'll probably just stick with 4p per text when we require it for emergencies and use Email Bulletin's/Website updates for the rest of the information. When you send out a text you only get 160 characters so most of the time it's just a one line messge saying x,y,z is cancelled. Please see the website or conact the school for additional information.

[AngryTechnician]

We use Clarion Call. No idea how much it costs as I'm only involved in syncing the details via a push update from our MIS server. As well as the rare closure message, we use it regularly to update on match fixture changes which might require pupils to be picked up earlier than anticipated. We also use them for bulk mailing our weekly newsletter to ease load on our own mail server.