The EdTech revolution happening outside of the classroom

Last month Education Secretary, Damien Hinds, challenged the tech industry to launch an edtech revolution for schools, colleges and universities across the UK.

EdTech has an increasingly valuable place in the classroom; 3D technology is quite literally bringing lessons to life and coding is becoming a prevalent lesson for students of all ages, whilst encouraging inclusion and opening eyes to the possibilities of the industry. With only a minority of schools able to fully embrace these technologies today, however, it may take some time before the opportunity to embed state-of-the-art EdTech in the classroom is available to the majority of schools across the UK.

But tech doesn’t only deliver benefits to students inside the classroom. One of the five opportunities discussed by the Education Secretary was the important role of technology in reducing time spent on non-teaching related tasks and teacher workload.

Since the earliest days of ParentMail, we have recognised and evidenced the important role that EdTech plays outside of the classroom. Investment in technology in the school office serves to encourage parental engagement and improve student academic outcomes as a result.

While technology continues to evolve outside of the school gates, parent habits are changing. Alongside the evolution of technology, schools are under increasing pressure to demonstrate efficiencies and save money at every turn. Protecting the school budget remains a priority for schools across the country this September, so how does cost efficiency and investment in EdTech fit together?

With the new school year nearly upon us, now begins the task of onboarding new students, communicating term dates, planning parents’ evening and updating student, parent and teacher data. Gone are the days when these tasks took hours of time to plan, implement and manage. Thousands of schools are making the most of modern technology with ParentMail, saving time and money whilst performing day-to-day admin tasks and enjoying the huge benefits of improved parent responses as a result. Whether circulating the school newsletter, requesting updated parent contact details, collecting school dinner payments or arranging parents meetings – Multi-Academy Trusts, Primary and Secondary schools across the country are saving time and money with digital communications and managing important data safely and efficiently like never before!

Last month we released our innovative and improved Android App to the Google Play Store. With the help of feedback from parent testers, we have improved the user experience to ensure schools continue to receive a great response to their communications. We’ve also very recently completed our annual Customer Satisfaction Survey, gathering feedback from schools to continue the improvement of our software and services for your benefit. We’re proud to be the UK’s leading parental engagement system; our commitment to staying on top of the latest EdTech trends whilst listening to customer feedback ensures our product will continue to support schools in building fantastic parent/school relationships for years to come.

Since 2001, ParentMail have been investing in technology for the benefit of thousands of schools across the UK. To find out more about how our software could support parental engagement in your school, email enquire@parentmail.co.uk or call us on 01733 595959.