North Chadderton School use PS Connect to manage parent engagement

North Chadderton School is a busy secondary school and sixth form with over 1,500 students.

We spoke to Shelley Hayes, Senior Administration and Office Co-ordinator, about their parental engagement strategy.

Challenge

“Carlton, our account manager, came along with a fantastic new system – PS Connect (now IRIS Reach). And it does what we need to get the job done!”

The school was using another product to manage their parental engagement but wanted to introduce a school app and have the ability to send in-app notifications. They needed a solution that could reach every parent on every device.

Solution

PS Connect enables North Chadderton School to reach their parents across a range of channels:

• In-app messaging
• Text messaging
• Emails

Shelley is now a PS Connect power user who offers her ideas to the team on a regular basis – and they are happy to receive her suggestions.

“We use PS Connect on a daily basis and I let the helpdesk know if there are any changes or solutions I think may enhance the product. When I contact the product director to suggest a new feature, he is always happy to help.”

“The customer service is fantastic. Any time I ever have an issue, I call the helpdesk and they are always happy to assist.”

For a busy school like North Chadderton with so many students, PS Connect’s targeted messaging functionality has come into its own. “PS Connect can not only send texts but also email parents and create groups for targeted messages. We find having more channels to contact parents through really assists in home-school communication.”

PS Connect also makes it possible to work as part of a busy parental engagement team. “I have the general overview of external communications, whereas my colleagues deal with the absence management sections and sending messages.” With PS Connect, you can delegate different communication functions to different staff members and share responsibility with those best suited for the job.

You can even ensure consistency with your school branding, no matter how many staff use the app. “I have created pre-set messages so all the messages that are sent out by my colleagues are professional and have the same look.”

“We send detention messages out, event messages out – anything that is happening in school. We have a parent bulletin that we send out every week via email using PS Connect. We use it a lot more than our previous parental engagement software!”

“We also send important messages to our sixth form parents via the app. We find the product to be cost-effective.”

“We receive positive feedback all the time, with parents sending us messages to thank us for reaching out. They like instant communication, and we get to reply without having to make a phone call, saving us time which is also very helpful in a busy environment!”

Conclusion

“You have to move with the times really – having modern technology with the app is great as parents really find it helpful and informative, and it is something schools should look to move forward with.”

“We are sending more messages out as individual departments are now looking at how to reach out to parents. We can reach more parents than ever and it is easier.”

“I would definitely recommend PS Connect to other schools. It is easy to use and great for parents to access. We can put different features on the parent app such as our website, parent payments and behaviour records.”

If you’re interested in seeing PS Connect first-hand and discovering how it can help your school, contact us today for a free demonstration.