Digital school attendance and exams, from the morning register to report cards
A practical walk through daily registers, same-day absence follow-up, marks entry, locking, publishing results and printing report cards.
School management
How to improve parent communication in your school
Channels, timing and tone for school notices and for conversations about one child, plus the habits that cause most parent complaints.
When parents complain about a school, the complaint is often about communication. They heard about the sports day the evening before, or learned of a fee increase from another parent at the gate. A message about their child's reading went unanswered for a week. None of these is about teaching, and a few routines agreed between the office and the teachers fix most of them.
As an example, take a fictional school, Greenwood Primary School. It has 380 children from kindergarten to Grade 5 in 14 sections, and one office assistant who also answers the phone. Every message Greenwood sends has to be worth the time it takes, for the school and for the parent reading it. The figures are illustrative, and the routines suit a school of any size.
Match the channel to the message
Many schools use several channels for the same thing, or one channel for everything. Sort your messages by who they are for and whether the parent has to do something.
| Kind of message | Example | Who sends it | Where it goes |
|---|---|---|---|
| For the whole school | Holiday dates, a change to school hours | Principal or office | A school announcement |
| For one grade or class | A Grade 3 trip, a class assembly | Class teacher | An announcement to that grade or section |
| About one child | Reading progress, a concern about behaviour | Class teacher | A private message to that child's parents |
| Information parents look up | Attendance, timetable, homework, results, fees | Nobody needs to send it | The parent portal |
| Urgent | The school closing early | Principal | Every channel you have, with phone calls if needed |
For Greenwood's office, the information parents can look up matters most. Every parent who checks homework or a fee balance in a portal is one less call to a busy office assistant. A portal only cuts calls when the information in it is correct and current, so open it once attendance, homework and fees are kept up to date every day.
Messages about one child need a private channel. A worry about a child's behaviour posted where other families can read it does lasting damage to the school's relationship with that family.
Timing: when parents should hear
Parents judge a school partly by whether news reaches them in time to do something about it. These timings work for most schools:
- Absence: the same day, by mid-morning. A parent who thought their child was at school needs to know at once.
- Events that need something from parents, such as a trip form or a costume: at least two weeks ahead, with one reminder a few days before.
- Fees: when the invoice is ready, and again a few days before the due date.
- Exam dates: as soon as they are set, so families can plan around them.
- Results: on the day they are published, with the report card available at the same time.
- Replies to a parent's message: within two school days, even if the reply is "I will look into this and come back to you on Friday".
Write the reply rule down and share it with teachers. It protects them as well. Once parents know when to expect an answer, fewer of them write again at nine in the evening.
Tone: write like a person at the school
School notices drift into official language that sounds cold, or into long paragraphs that hide the one thing parents need to do. Put the action and the date first, and sign the notice with a name. A notice Greenwood used to send read like this:
It is hereby notified to all parents that the institution shall remain closed on account of the annual staff development programme and normal classes will resume thereafter as per schedule.
The same notice, rewritten:
School is closed this Friday for staff training. Classes start again as normal on Monday. Ms Rivera, school office
Messages about one child need more care. Say what you have noticed, with facts, and suggest a next step. "Amara has been late four times this month, mostly on Mondays. Is there anything we can help with? I am free after school on Wednesday if you would like to talk." A parent who receives that is far more likely to reply than one who is told their child's punctuality is unsatisfactory.
Good news deserves a message too. A short note when a quiet child reads aloud in assembly costs a teacher one minute, and it makes the harder conversations later much easier.
What to stop doing
- Teachers sharing personal phone numbers with parents. Conversations about a child end up on a private phone, outside the school's records, and the teacher can be reached at any hour.
- Large chat groups for whole classes. They fill with off-topic messages, and a complaint about one child can be read by thirty families.
- Paper notes in school bags as the only copy. Many never reach home.
- Sending the same notice on four channels. Choose one place parents can rely on and use the others only for urgent news.
- Answering fee questions from memory. The answer should come from the fee record, and ideally the parent can see it without asking.
How SkoolBro supports this
SkoolBro puts the channels from the table above in one place. Announcements can go to the whole organization, one school, a campus, a grade or a single section. Staff and parents can message each other about a particular student, and those conversations stay in the school's account. The parent portal shows each child's attendance, timetable, exam dates, homework, results, fees, library books and transport, and one login covers all of a parent's children at the school.
When a teacher marks a child absent, the parents hear the same day. Notices and messages go out by email and in the app today. SMS and WhatsApp delivery is coming and is not available yet. There is no daily diary, but homework is set per section and parents see it in the portal. Our guides to digital attendance and exams and simpler school fee collection explain how the information behind the portal gets there, and the features overview shows the portal and messages. The 14-day free trial needs no card.
Questions
Should teachers give parents their personal phone numbers?
It is safer for both sides if they do not. Use a school channel, so conversations about a child stay with the school and can carry on when a teacher is away or leaves.
How often should a school send notices to parents?
Send what parents need to act on when they need it, and gather everything else into one weekly or fortnightly round-up. Parents who get several notices a day stop reading them.
Does SkoolBro send SMS or WhatsApp messages to parents?
Not yet. Notices and messages go out by email and in the app today. SMS and WhatsApp delivery is coming.