ParentMail “all day, every day!” for St Ambrose Barlow Catholic Primary School

St Ambrose Barlow Catholic Primary School are proving the benefits of fantastic parental engagement with the help of ParentMail’s full suite of applications!

“We use it all day, every day.” Says PA to Headteacher, Elaine Warren. “We decided as a team that if we were going to introduce ParentMail in the school office, we were going to utilise all of the solutions available to support our parent communications. We’re definitely feeling the benefits now!”

Easy parents’ evening management!

For their busy team, Parents’ Evening Manager stands out as a favourite. “When you add up all the hours we’d usually spend arranging timetables and managing parent responses, we’ve easily saved a day’s work planning parents’ evening. Previously, we planned the event with paper appointment slips. As and when slips were returned to the office, we’d have to set aside hours to manage appointments. With ParentMail, the whole process is paperless. We also used to spend a lot of time chasing missing forms, so the reminders are very helpful for prompting parents yet to respond.”

Keeping in touch with parents

For day to day parent communications, the school are saving money by utilising messaging and email over text; “We save text messages for the few parents we know who prefer that method, so we know our communications reach all parents and no one is missed out. With ParentMail messaging, we aren’t limited to the number of characters we can use and parents receive messages instantly.”

“Most of our parents are using the free parent App to manage school communications. Parents are never far away from their phones, so the App is great for ensuring parents receive important information quickly and reliably. With summer just around the corner, we’re encouraging new parents to register their accounts and install the App before children start in September.”

“We have groups set up to manage communications by class and year group, and we send a variety of information to parents; newsletters, fliers for the PTA, surveys and questionnaires... We recently used it as a voting system to elect new parent governors - it’s a great way of improving parent communication.”

Easy form collection

“When it comes to forms, I love that we don’t have to produce our own reports; ParentMail does it all for us. We save templates for communications we’ll use again in the future, and can make any amends we need to. We run a variety of after-school clubs, trips and extra-curricular activities. Collecting parent permissions is very convenient with ParentMail. I can see the responses coming in and can send reminders if I need to. It’s a great time saver.”

Going cashless

“We’re really pleased with +Pay. We’re practically cashless as almost all parents pay for school items with +Pay. Our bursar is really pleased with the payment reports; they clearly tell us everything we need to know, making it easy to stay on top of finances.”

“Live Chat is helpful and the training was great. We’ve learned everything else as we go along! Even the staff members who were a little wary of taking on an online system have been won over by ParentMail. We’d recommend the platform to any school considering it - it’s such a flexible system and can do so much for schools.”

Join St Ambrose Barlow Catholic Primary School in upgrading your parent communications strategy with ParentMail. We also offer a smart range of financial management software for schools.