The relationship between schools and technology has stepped up significantly since the start of the year. With the prospect of prolonged homeschooling looming large, schools found creative ways to keep students learning and keep parents in the loop. For most schools, this meant leaning into tech-based solutions. With this in mind, let’s revisit some of School Stream’s hardest-working and most flexible features to help you to get the most from the app.
We’re here to support schools. Keep reading to see how you can get the most out of School Stream, or visit our website to watch a short demonstration of all these features in action.
Make your life easier with digital forms
We all know how many paper-based forms go back and forth between home and school. We also know ‘student post’ is notoriously unreliable! With School Stream, schools can cut out the middle man and use the Forms feature to send notes straight to a parent’s smartphone or device. One high school in Far North Queensland has created custom forms to replace paper permission slips, parent surveys and an order form for the uniform shop with a mobile payment option. Other schools use Forms to replace the entire gamut of paper-based notes. It’s easy to make a custom form for anything, from reporting absences to lunch orders. Administrators can even export parent responses to a spreadsheet.
Send a card for better engagement
We often describe the Cards feature as the most powerful function of School Stream, but what we mean when we say’ powerful’ is ‘flexible’. Cards allow schools to create a ‘post’ in three easy steps to share school news with parents. Instead of sending an email with a link, the card actually contains all the information embedded. It may not seem like a big deal, but fewer clicks for parents equals greater engagement for schools. Schools find they get great results when they send a variety of card types with short, precise messages. You can send a card to:
- Share documents
- Send short reminders or updates.
- Assign homework, give daily updates or share photo galleries
- Share resources – including videos
A card can be created in 30 seconds if you have your content ready to go – it doesn’t get more efficient than that.
Organise school news using categories – by year level or activity
If you’re using a filing system so you can find documents on your PC easily, you already understand how important filtering information is. Using School Stream’s Categories feature to organise information works much like filing information away under tabs in a cabinet. For example, a school in Melbourne’s South East with a big sport and music program has set up categories for each activity on School Stream. This means administrators know that if they post the new rehearsal times to the Junior Band category, the right parents will see it. Everyone wins.
Ensure confidentiality & protect privacy by targeting content
Working hand in glove with the Categories feature, schools can also send targeted information to parents and caregivers using School Stream. This means that in cases where information is sensitive or confidential, only the intended recipient or group of recipients receive it. A group of child care and early learning centres in Victoria is using this feature effectively to send information to parents that is only relevant for the days their child attends.
School Branding at School Stream
Did you know School Stream offers branding? Schools can customise the appearance of their home screen for a consistent look across all communication. Parents have confidence in their school when they see how professionally it is presented in print and online.
Work smarter, not harder
Would you like to save precious time in your busy day-to-day? Of course you would! School Stream gives you access to tech that can automatically verify the details of parents and caregivers when they sign-up for School Stream. Visit our website to read more about this impressive innovation. And while we’re talking about working smarter, School Stream also includes read statistics for each post sent. Schools can look at stats to see who is reading what post. This allows you to see what works and reach out to parents who haven’t engaged in a while. Did we mention School Stream integrates seamlessly with your existing technology or SMS?
Do you have questions? Please get in touch via Live Chat or call to speak with our Australian based Customer Success Team. They’re ready to help and can talk you through how to put in place any of the things we’ve just mentioned.
