More than lessons and timetables
Running a school involves far more than teaching. Everyday tasks like sharing reports, sending exam timetables, managing wraparound care, and keeping families informed can take hours each week. When communication relies on paper, phone calls, and manual processes, staff quickly become overloaded, and messages don’t always reach home.
That’s where Schoolcomms makes a difference. By combining messaging, absence reporting, and parent engagement into one integrated platform, schools are cutting admin time, improving efficiency, and keeping families better connected. Whether via email, text or in-app messaging, schools can communicate in the way that suits them best.
Ponteland Community High School: from paper to practical savings
At Ponteland Community High School, the initial goal was to make communication easier, but the benefits quickly extended across the school.
“As a result, the number of calls to the school office has reduced as parents are now able to access information at a time that best suits them. The Messaging module gives us the confidence that messages are in fact reaching parents – there’s always the risk of letters not making it out of the school bag!”
By linking directly with SIMS, staff could send updates, progress reports, and attendance information more efficiently. Fewer trips to the office and less paperwork meant measurable savings in staff admin time.
“We’ve also made significant savings in staff admin time. Overall, Schoolcomms has greatly improved our efficiency, parent satisfaction, and the way we communicate with parents and pupils.”
Parents received information quickly and reliably, while staff could focus on supporting pupils instead of chasing messages or paper trails.
The John of Gaunt School: cutting hours on reports and timetables
For The John of Gaunt School, sending paper reports and exam timetables had become a major drain on resources. With Schoolcomms, these tasks moved online.
“We are a large secondary school communicating with 99% of our parents via Schoolcomms and with 88% using the App. Only 15 parents now require a text message via Schoolcomms and a follow-up letter if necessary. This is a massive saving in terms of paper, postage and admin time.”
Reports for all seven year groups (totalling 21 reports a year) are now sent electronically, alongside multiple versions of exam timetables. Teachers and admin staff spend far less time printing, collating, and distributing documents.
Parents are more engaged, too. Communication is faster, two-way, and easier to track. Notifications for detentions, homework, library requests, and trip letters are all handled in one place. The result: more efficient use of staff time and a better-informed parent community.
New Hartley First School: faster absence reporting, less admin
New Hartley First School wanted a single system for messaging, absence reporting, and parent engagement. The results were immediate.
“We surveyed parents after a half term of using Schoolcomms. The response was overwhelmingly positive with more than 96% of parents saying that communication had improved since the introduction of the system.”
With absence logs feeding directly into SIMS, staff could follow up quickly and accurately. Parents welcomed the convenience of reporting absences via the app, and signing up for clubs no longer required paper forms.
The admin team could focus on other priorities, confident that messages and updates were reaching families reliably.
What this means for schools
The experiences of Ponteland, The John of Gaunt, and New Hartley show how much time schools can reclaim when communication is centralised. It’s not just about reducing paper, it’s about making everyday tasks easier and more predictable.
- Staff spend less time chasing information or sending letters
- Teachers can send reports, timetables, and updates instantly
- Parents stay informed in real time, without phone calls or slips of paper
With these hours saved each week, schools can focus more on supporting pupils, improving learning, and engaging families.
Building stronger connections
Schoolcomms is more than a messaging tool, it’s a platform that gives staff space to work efficiently and families confidence that they’re always in the loop. For many schools, it’s meant reclaiming hours of admin time each week. For others, it’s the reassurance that every absence, report, or notification reaches the right person.
Either way, the outcome is the same: less time spent on admin, more time focused on pupils, and stronger connections across the school community.
Even more to come
Our teams are busy developing new features to make parental engagement even easier – soon we’ll launch a single parent app that allows families to manage messages, view updates about their child, receive calendar updates and make payments all from one easy-to-use app.
Combined with our market-leading payments solution, parents will benefit from Auto Top-Up and the ability to pay for all their children, even if they attend different schools.
