As of Monday 23 March, all UK schools have closed their doors to all children, except for those with parents who are key workers. Along with all non-essential shops and places including pubs, cafes and bars, schools have closed their doors in a bid to protect staff, pupils and parents from catching and spreading the Coronavirus disease – officially named COVID-19. Schools started to close following half-term when many cases of the virus were reported in northern Italy. Many families travel abroad for half-term and subsequently many returned from parts of northern Italy.

For all schools, keeping staff and pupils safe is a priority but science, culture and technology news website, Wired, thinks closing schools will only “help stem initial outbreaks” and believe it “won’t do much good in a full pandemic.”

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How a school app can help you amid the Coronavirus outbreak

During this high-unusual viral outbreak, communication between school and parents is vital.

As the epidemic of COVID-19 is an unexpected situation to find your school in, it can be challenging to plan for such instances. Although there are strategies in place for flu pandemics, it isn’t very easy to know what to do in such unusual circumstances.

Communication is instant

With our Parentapps school communication app – communication is instantaneous. Parents receive message notifications on their smartphone, and your school can send messages to individual classes, year groups or, in this case, the entire school.

You can be confident in the knowledge that every parent has received vital communication about the issue in hand.

 

No paper or office required

As long as your teachers or office manager has access to the platform from home – there’s no need to come into the school and mock-up paper letters. As communication is handled in a secure digital environment – communicating with parents has never been easier.

You can keep parents updated

There is no need for parents to keep refreshing your school social media feeds or checking your website for an update. Instant digital communication means you can keep your parents updated every step of the way, at the touch of a button.

This can relieve stress from parents – as they’re never left in the dark. Juggling childcare and employment can be tricky when schools close without warning. Keeping them updated with every detail is crucial to improve parental engagement.

Communicate easily with parents who don’t have the app

If you haven’t managed to get every parent signed up to the app – don’t worry, you can still effectively communicate with them. Our app has SMS and email built-in; this allows you to send text messages directly to parents who aren’t able to communicate through the school app.

This means that no parent is uncontactable – which is vital in these instances.

Your school can publish questionnaires

Our questionnaire feature means parents can keep your school fully-updated on things happening at home. Our app isn’t just a one-way communication tool; we understand how important it is that your parents have a voice at a time like this.

Sending out questionnaires to parents is straightforward and helpful when dealing with Coronavirus or other vital situations.

If you’re interested to learn more about how our school app can help you communicate even better with parents – sign up for our 30-day free trial now or contact our friendly team on 0151 728 3460.