St Thomas of Canterbury RC Primary School enjoy paperless Parents’ Evening

When it comes to planning Parents’ Evening, staff at St Thomas of Canterbury RC Primary School were used to all the usual stresses and strains; piles of paper cluttering the school office, lost or missing appointment slips, chasing up parent responses – the list goes on!

With 250 students, the school office would typically send home two letters per student in the run-up to parents’ evening – that’s 500 sheets of paper for one event! In their mission to go paperless this year, the school turned to Parents’ Evening Manager to take the paper out of parents’ evening.

“Like all schools, we’d try and give parents plenty of time to book appointments,” says Admin Support, Bethany Schofield. “We’d send out a form asking parents to pick an hour that that would suit them for their appointments, before trying to put together a schedule that suited everyone. There was a lot of back and forth between parents, staff and teachers. We’re a busy school and our parents are busy people; we wanted a system that would save us all time, whilst reducing our reliance on paper.”

A teacher at the school recently used the parents evening booking system to book an appointment for their own child and realised the huge potential for St Thomas of Canterbury Primary School.

“When I looked into the booking system, I realised it offered all the flexibility we needed and would make the process easier for everyone involved – so we decided to give it a go! Setting up the evening was really easy. We prefer to keep the slots short and were able to pre-set the appointment lengths and block out times for particular teachers if needed. We particularly like how quick and easy it is to print out lists of appointments so that we can see at a glance how the evening is looking.”

“Parents love being able to book slots to fit around their busy schedules. We haven’t had any negative feedback and bookings came in really quickly! Recently, I was talking to a parent on the phone and she asked me to stay on the line while she booked her appointment, expecting it to be a tricky process – but she booked a slot in seconds, without any help from me!”

“In the office, we’re trying to go digital as much as possible; we know that online processes make things easier, faster and cheaper. We’re no longer sending home paper letters and use a cashless dinner payments system. The response from parents has been very positive. I would definitely recommend Parents’ Evening Manager to other schools. It’s a simple, smooth, time-saving process for staff and parents. We’re looking forward to using it for our next Parents’ Evening already!”

Get in touch today to find out more about Parents’ Evening Manager or to book a free online demo.