Finding better ways to communicate between staff, pupils and parents has become a key area for most schools. The perennial question has always been how heads and managers increase engagement while at the same time reduce those important admin costs.
With the development of modern technology, mobile apps for schools are becoming increasingly popular. In the past, schools would need to spend a sizeable amount of their budget to hire a developer and work with them to produce anything like this.
Today, it’s a lot easier and certainly a lot cheaper. There are numerous benefits from creating a dedicated mobile app for your school:
It is easy to do
First, developing your own app is very simple. You choose the functions that you want to include, add your school’s branding and you are almost ready to go. For parents, an app provides an easy way to stay in touch with school activities – they can check what their child is up to, get notifications for future events or advice about potential problems and access a lot more information at the touch of a button than they ever could before.
It reduces admin
Contacting parent’s and pupils always used to be a drain on admin resources. Whether that was picking up the phone and calling individual parents or creating mailshots to inform them of future activities, admin staff would largely have to carry most of that burden. Because a school mobile app has a much quicker and automated reach, it can take just one person to send out an important message or update the system for everyone.
It increases engagement
Because it sends messages and information out to pupils and parents via their smart devices, this generally means people are more likely to engage. Even with websites, users actively have to visit and log onto a site to browse for the information they want. With mobile technology, all this is done automatically. You can create block notifications of various vital information or send individual messages, depending on the design of your app and your school’s needs.
It widens what you can communicate
Because the overall cost is lower, having a school mobile app has also encouraged many heads to widen the scope of their communication. That again leads to better engagement and makes parents feel a bigger part of the school community. You can add value with school documentation or even upload images for events such as sports days. During the summer months, you can send notifications to parents to remind them when term starts or invite them to the school play at Christmas. The possibilities are practically endless.
All this can be achieved in real time. You send a message out to parents and you can be confident that they have all received it at the same time. That also leaves your admin staff with extra time to do more important things.
At Parent Apps, our mobile apps for schools are a fantastic way to create a better level of communication with parents and pupils. You can create apps that work across all devices including iPhones and android phones, get a tailored solution for your needs and it’s all extremely affordable. If you want to learn how a mobile app for your school can change the way you operate, contact the team at Parent Apps today for a free demonstration.