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SMS FOR PARENT COMMUNICATION: AN EFFECTIVE TOOL FOR SCHOOLS
To communicate with parents, educational institutions use a combination of emails, websites, apps, and paper notices. It can be extremely overwhelming, and keeping up at home and at school can be difficult.
Then why aren’t enough schools using SMS for parent engagement, which has been validated to be a quick and efficient method of communication, especially in emergency situations?
THE CHALLENGES OF SCHOOL-PARENT COMMUNICATION
The education sector’s continued reliance on conventional methods is to their disadvantage. Regrettably, these streams are not the best way to keep parents informed and reach them instantaneously, — particularly in an emergency.
Calls or emails are not always the best way to reach a parent for important information. Most people won’t answer calls from an unknown number, and some will ignore them as soon as they see a “private number”. Now, say, there is an emergency situation that requires the attention of a parent, and a call is made to a parent who is in an important meeting and won’t be able to pick calls, especially if it is an unknown number calling, ultimately, the parent won’t be able to attend to the situation. But if a brief SMS message is sent, it only takes a glance to view the information sent. This will prompt a quick reaction if there is an emergency.
In today’s world, many parents do not answer their phones. In fact, millennials would 100% prefer texting to voice calls. SMS is less disruptive to 63% than voice calling, and 53% prefer to send SMS rather than call according to a recent survey. Because these are the parents of the future, schools must therefore adapt to their communication styles.
SCHOOL APPS ARE NOT THE ANSWER TO PARENT COMMUNICATION
Many schools spend money on apps that don’t always deliver on their promises. The process of developing specific communication apps for schools can be quite costly, and most will use it exclusively for all notices. The issue that most parents encounter is that they are frequently non-intuitive, with clumsy interfaces and unappealing uis. Another issue is that notifications are frequently so numerous that most parents will turn them off.
PRACTICAL WAYS FOR SMS USE CASES
Here are some suggestions for how you can
begin using school texts and SMS reminders to improve communication and parent
engagement:
1. HOLIDAYS/EVENTS REMINDERS
It is critical to maintain classroom management and schedules. The school year calendar is always jam-packed with fundraising events, sporting events, themed days, Book Week, holidays, and a slew of other activities.
Bulk SMS can help parents stay on top of the school year. For an upcoming event, alerts can be sent to the entire student population or to specific classes. Parents will appreciate any help you can give them in keeping track of their children’s activities!
2. ABSENTEEISM
Absenteeism can be difficult for parents, teachers, and students alike. Use SMS to automatically notify parents when students are absent without notice to solve the problem.
3. PROACTIVE NOTIFICATIONS
Send out bulk SMS messages to parents informing them of system disruptions or downed phone lines. Send out alerts to parents, especially those who live nearby, to let them know that the drill is just that: a drill.
4. EMERGENCY COMMUNICATION
In the event of an emergency, SMS messages can be sent to thousands of parents at the same time informing them of emergency procedures in the event of a school lockdown. These can be done at a single click of a button.
5. PARENT/TEACHER MEETINGS
Parent/teacher meetings must occur on a regular basis throughout the school year. No-shows – especially late arrivals – can wreak havoc on everyone’s schedule with only 10-15 minutes per child spread out over several hours.
Integrate SMS into your scheduling system to take advantage of automated reminders to the fullest. Schools should set them to go a day or a few days beforehand so that they arrive on time to attend.
It can be difficult to pinpoint the pressing or vital messages as working parents struggle to cope with the volume of messaging from their children’s school.
Now is the time to think about using SMS to improve your communication.
Frequently Asked Questions
You’ve come to the right place! You can find the answers to the most common questions we get asked by our customers. If your question is not answered below (and even if it is but you need further clarification) please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us..
Our representative will write back to you with a personalized response. You can also call us on +33 185 732 219 / +225 2724381734
/ +44 744 142 6242
Your data (contacts phone numbers, emails, etc.) is completely safe. We do not share or pass on any of your data, including the mobile numbers you have uploaded. Feel free to check our terms, conditions and privacy policy.
Yes of course. You can register anytime and try our service. 20 SMS will be added to your account for free to test our service. Click here to open your account.
While we are exclusively focusing on huge demands, with 50euros you can get prepaid sms credits and start sending your sms to your contacts. Please check our pricing page for all bulk sms packages. Remember. The pricing depends on the country, the type of sms and the quantity.
No, your prepaid credits don’t expire. Your SMS credits remain available in your sms dashboard account for as long as you need them.
Yes of course. Once you have created your sms, you can select a time and date for to send your text message.
You can start sending your sms campaigns from your web dashboard, SMPP or use our API or plugins to integrate it in your web or mobile app, e-commerce website (prestashop, woocommerce, etc.).
Instantly. But depend on the volume, it can take some delay. However sometimes congestion in network may cause unavoidable delay.
No. you don’t need to use any phone number. You need to set up SENDER ID only in order to be able to send your sms campaigns. But you cannot receive a response from your customers. In case you want 2ways, you need to buy a phone number that you will use to send your sms from. Once your contacts reply, you can read and send a response directly from your web dashboard or via your own app.
You can submit for approval all SENDER IDS you plan to use in your account for yourself or your clients. Once approval you will have the option to choose one of them when sending your sms message. Trademarks and already registered third party company names are not allowed. You can use any character in these ranges a-z, A-Z and 0-9. 11 characters maximum
You will find in the REPORTS section of your dashboard all your messages which have been delivered ornot. A status will be marked at the SMS such as pending or invalid number or any other error.
Yes. You can.
Just type the mobile phone number without + or 00 with the country code. For France, start from country code 33. You will have 337650xxxxxxxx. In case, if you wish to send a message to multiple mobile numbers, separate the number with a coma (,) or space.
160characters per message. Don’t copy and paste your SMS message from applications like MS Word, Outlook, etc. because it can insert non-GSM or unicode characters in the message inadvertently. Use notepad or any other simple txt editor. Double check special or unicode character before sending your message.
Long codes are your standard 10 digit numbers and toll-free numbers are the typical numbers with area codes 800,844,866,888, etc…In the United States and Canada, long codes are best used with 2-way communication when the SMS conversation is taking place both ways. Toll-free numbers can also be used for 2-way communication, but are also intended for A2P traffic and great for business uses like marketing and notifications.