Although the Government is yet to make an announcement closing all schools, the probability that many schools will close over the coming weeks is likely.

Therefore preparing as best you can before this announcement is made is crucial. We’ve put together some tips to ensure you’re using your Connect App in the best way possible to communicate with parents at this unusual time.

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Get inactive parents onboard now

This is your chance to encourage parents to download and engage with your communication app. The app will become a vital tool of communication for your school over the weeks and months to come.

Making sure all parents are aware of the instant communication benefits of the app is essential and will make your communication strategy much smoother and efficient.

Start sending important information out

Making sure you’re keeping parents updated throughout the coronavirus outbreak is crucial. They will need information about what they need to do should the school close and the procedures your school has in place for this possibility.

Use the app to keep parents fully-updated on the status of the school and assure them they will be informed immediately if this status changes.

Health and safety tips

You can use the Connect App to remind parents of the NHS tips and advice regards washing hands regularly and other tips to keep the virus at bay and to stop it spreading.

Make sure all staff are set up remotely

Now might be a good time to make sure individual staff members can access our portal remotely without issue. This means they can effectively work from home and know how to operate the platform before your school faces closure.

Utilise the app to send out homework and other bits

Our app can be used to send out homework for children and questionnaires and surveys for parents. These allow parents to respond to anything the school requires a reply for.

What is in place at Parentapps?

With the possibility of upcoming school & nursery closures, Parentapps have planned for several scenarios. We wish to reassure you that we are well prepared to continue our service during this time.

Parentapps Connect is cloud-based, and you will continue to have access to the platform throughout this viral outbreak.

We have plans in place to enable our team to work remotely should self-isolation, imposed quarantine or office closures become necessary.

Important information

We have email and SMS functionality built into our platform. Our email facility is entirely free to use, but you will need to have a sufficient number of SMS credits to send text messages to your inactive parents.

If your current SMS credits are running low and you wish to top up your account, then please email finance@parentapps.co.uk with the number of SMS credits you want to add. We understand effective communication with parents is crucial should you need to close your school or nursery, so we are adding an extra 10% off app credits to all of our SMS bundles for the next two months. 

Rest assured we will do all we can to help support all of our customers during this challenging period.

We will continue to monitor the situation as the UK Government releases more information and guidance and will provide further updates as and when necessary.