Parents’ Evening Manager the solution for St Anne’s

Mandy Lester, office administrator at St Anne’s CE Primary School has been in touch to tell us just how much Parents’ Evening Manager, our online booking system for parents' evening, has made a difference…

“Parents’ Evenings have always been a bit of a nightmare for us – we’ve tried lots of different ways to make the booking process simple for parents and for staff to organise, with little success until now!

First, we tried sending letters home for parents, to return in with their chosen appointment times. Not only did we have to chase responses, but teachers had to manually go through all of them, and work with each other so sibling appointments didn’t clash and weren’t spread out across an evening.

Next, we tried a board in the school office for parents to come in and book appointments on – however this meant administration staff and teaching assistants were regularly taken away from what they were doing to help deal with parent cancellations, take phone calls etc. Again, it was a time-consuming nightmare!

So, we decided to try Parents’ Evening Manager from ParentMail – and what a revelation it’s been! Staff have been over the moon with how easy it’s been, and parents are actually coming in to school to tell us how easy booking appointments is. Many book appointments instantly on the ParentMail App!

The morning it went live, we had 58 appointments booked before the school even opened – and by the time parents’ evening came round, 90% had booked through ParentMail.

A great feature is that we have the option to let parents leave a comment for teachers when booking their appointment times – and teachers have really loved this. It means they can prepare for the evenings ahead and are ready to discuss the things that matter to parents. However, it has to be said; a lot of the parents used this comment box just to tell us how much they loved this new booking process!

From start to finish Parents’ Evening Manager has been a success for our school. Initially, we were nervous about setting it up, so we contacted ParentMail and within the hour we were set up and ready to go. The support and help we’ve had has been spot on and the whole process has been wonderful for us.

It may seem like just one event in the school calendar, but for us having an easy way to manage Parents’ Evening is such a huge thing. We’re so glad we’ve finally found a simple way to organise parents’ evening and we really would recommend it to any other school.”

Want to know more about our parents' evening booking system? Click here to watch our video and see just how simple it can be! Or, to book an online demonstration and see the process for yourself, simply email enquire@parentmail.co.uk