Today we have a fantastic success story from a vibrant primary school in New Zealand. Mt Roskill are using School Stream to engage their school community very effectively through extensive use of the translation feature. A big thank you to Deputy Principal Rebecca Bishop for chatting to us and sharing her insights. Keep reading to learn more.
School Stream at Mt Roskill – at a glance
Students: 700
App Downloads: 1,906
Notifications sent: 587,134
The School
Mount Roskill is a school of 700 students in Auckland, New Zealand. Most of their parent community are non-English speakers. They have a strong set of values around education and learning, as well as sports, culture and good citizenship. Principal Mike O’Reilly describes the school:
‘Our school is a wonderful mix of diversity, with students from many cultural backgrounds working alongside students with physical disabilities and others with special learning needs. All have their part to play and all are successfully provided for.’
Benefits of using School Stream
Deputy Principal Rebecca Bishop gives a snapshot of the benefits the school has experienced since implementing School Stream.
‘We have increased attendance at school events because parents are actually receiving school communications and are accessing the translation feature. Previously, many of the paper based notes sent home from school were not understood.’
‘Traffic through the office has significantly reduced. If the office gets a couple of calls with the same enquiry, the office staff will send out an alert via School Stream to keep the parents informed and we find this stops further disruption to the administration team.’
‘Thanks to the translation feature, we have been able to cast a wide communication net to include extended families. This is absolutely due to the translation feature.’
How we use and implement School Stream
‘All the Team Leaders and Leadership team have access to School Stream so we can use it more spontaneously. Since implementing the app, staff have wanted to replace existing systems and paper notifications such as newsletters and trip notices. We use it for classroom notifications and when things change, such as when Sports Day was cancelled earlier this year.’
‘The implementation process is really important and it continues throughout the year. Teachers consistently check in with parents to ensure they have it loaded on their phones and know how to access it. It’s been a lot of time and effort but the results are great. We are looking forward to using the Payment Forms feature in the future.’
Thanks again Mt Roskill Primary School and we wish your school community all the best for the future.
In case you missed it last week, we are offering a free download of our School Communication Report. We have had some great feedback from those of you who have accessed it so far. Click here to register for your free copy.
