Push Notifications are the ideal school alternative to SMS and Email. Utilising your School's existing app, you can quickly reach parents in seconds across all of their devices.
Our tests show Notifications can be received within 0.05 seconds of sending, making them an incredibly quick and effective part of your School's Communication Systems - also suitable for use within your emergency broadcast communications.
Yes! Our platform, will audit messages and provide 'Proof of Delivery'. This means that the Message has been received by the user.
Unlimited! We believe in encouraging great school communication, and to do that, you need to have the tools and services that let you reach parents and students 24/7.
Studies show that parental-engagement has wide ranging impacts across school-life, attributed to higher attendance, child self-confidence and student attainment. Can you afford to ignore the importance of effective school communication?
We sometimes overlook the importance and impacts of successful communication across school-life. Despite this, the research and evidence is clear.
Studies show that persistent and effective school communication is linked to higher attendance levels (Epstein & Sheldon, 2002, p. 309), developing child self-confidence (Wairimu et al., 2016, p. 96) and increasing student attainment and the achievement of post-secondary education (Fan & Chen, 2001, p. 4).
At EdUnity, we deliver apps that offer communication fit for the 21st century, built around world-leading research.
You can send messages to specific groups, whether an after school club, pupils of a particular bus route or parents in a class. You can also connect and sync Class Groups between your School's Management Information System and EdUnity.
Groups are an integral part of our platform and are there to simplify your school administration. Groups can be used to manage children in a group, parents of a particular class or just about anything else.
Yes, you can both import users and assign groups - or you can sync with your School's MIS and we will discover and add groups automatically!
Yes. Whether you are sending a message, notification or even a file - you can choose to send to a user, selected users or any group(s) you select.
In an industry first, we are putting our money where our mouth is. If your school doesn't save on the cost of switching to EdUnity, we'll match the cost difference in your subscription renewal.
Send messages straight away - or schedule to send later. A simple, but effective productivity booster for your entire school team.
Sending a reminder to fill out a form? This time, tap the message and we'll open the form. Messages are more actionable, in just a tap.
Tap into a range of 3rd Party tools for Communication to let your School's App do even more.
If you are ready to get started, then you can open a free and no-obligation quote online. We will ask you a few questions and then send this to one of our School Solutions Advisors will then reach out, to see if EdUnity is a good fit, and if so - how we can help you moving forward.
Kate Richards, Chief Inspector of the Independent Schools Inspectorate ISI) 2018
Both the Independent Schools Inspectorate (ISI) and Ofsted, recognise the importance of effective school-home engagement and its impact on pupil attainment across the education spectrum. Effective school-communication is one of the simplest ways school leaders can address parental satisfaction and improve long-term school performance objectives.
FAQs
EdUnity offers a number of different communication tools that can be adapted to meet a wide range of scenarios.
1. Notifications: Notifications are similar to Text Messages, best for shorter messages and reminders that should be seen quickly by parents or your school community.
2. Mailbox: For times when you need to send longer messages, attachments or rich media such as photos and videos, every user has a dedicated in-app Mailbox to receive and reply to these messages.
3. Alert System: The Alert System can be used to display a repeated warning, for example, in case of a COVID Hygiene Reminder or Tornado Alert. They don't distract users, but present reoccurring reminders for important messages.
With Marketplace, you can also discover a wide range of 3rd Party tools that extend your app's functionality with features such as Bulk SMS, Email Messaging and automatic Social Media posts.
Yes! There are no additional costs. Included with every subscription, is free and unlimited use of the communication tools and features in EdUnity. We believe in strong school-home engagement, and therefore never apply any usage limits or extra charges, as we want your school to make the most of communication tools available.
Yes, it is easy to add or remove features from your app at anytime. Meaning if your communication needs change over time, you can adjust your app to meet your current needs. Our team are always happy to assist in-app, and can add new features as needed.
FAQs
Successful parental communication and school-home engagement has been linked to a number of areas, but the key benefits for schools can be summarised as:
1. Attributed to higher student grades and pupil attainment levels (American Psychology Association, 2014)
2. Attributed to increasing the likelihood of post-secondary education (Grand Rapids Public School District, 2018)
3. Attributed to developing student confidence in the classroom (Journal of Education and Practice, Volume 7, 2016)
3. Attributed to stimulating good classroom behaviour (Journal of Education and Practice, Volume 7, 2016)
Evidencing parental engagement is one of those school headaches. Both Ofsted and ISI state the importance of school-home engagement, but there is no clear way to evidence progression. Well, until EdUnity. We use built-in Analytics to provide you a detailed overview of how parents and students are using your School's App. It is a great way of providing supporting evidence to school inspectors and monitoring your school's progress over time.
Using our Analytics data, and expertise in Apps and home engagement, our team is always ready to lend a hand. We can help your school draft winning strategies that deliver improved and sustained levels of engagement, without taking up additional time or resources. Simply speak to us in the App Manager and we can put together simple steps and strategies, then review these with you to find what works best for your school community.
FAQs
No! On long messages we will show a preview (about 240 characters) but parents can tap the notification to view the full message in your app. Just like a text message.
You can set a Notification to open a particular page in the app or URL. To send attachments you can use the Inbox, parents will still receive an alert when they have a new messages.
One of our core objectives is to enable better parental engagement (check out our Mission Statement) - and we know it's hard to do that if at the back of your mind you're thinking every time you contact parents it will be charged. So that is it, we want to help you achieve greatness in communication.
Push Notifications use our super speedy app infrastructure, and in technical terms, your notifications can be received by users in 50 milliseconds (0.5 seconds). It is a lot quicker and more reliable than using SMS or Email as you aren't reliant on third-party infrastructure or cellular service.
Unlike an SMS, you can see notifications on whichever device you are using. Whether you're wearing a Smart Watch, using your Phone or a Tablet - your school messages are there to be seen. All you need is your School's App installed on your device, and we are good to go.
Notifications need either a WiFi or Data Connection to the internet to be received, if you are temporarily not connected - messages will be synced and received as soon as the device connects. If you are on a mobile data connection, receiving a notification is unlikely to incur any data charges owing to their small size. To put it in perspective, to fully use a 1GB data plan - you would need to receive 1 million notifications.
Notifications have a maximum size of 2 kilobytes, meaning they are very small "files". Even on a very slow or unreliable internet connection they will take seconds to load and be received almost instantly making them suitable for those on both slow and fast internet connections. As a result, in areas with limited phone or cellular service, notifications can be a particularly good alternative for parents and schools.
FAQs
You can upload and share attachments with Parents and Students by using Mailbox. We support a wide range of file types making it a great alternative for email.
You can compose a Mailbox Message by adding different elements such as Text, Attachments, Images, Videos, Links and even a Map Address! We've designed Mailbox to be functional and simple.
Let's say you are organising a School Trip. It is easy to send a message to parents about the school trip with attachments, images and information. Then we can add a link to an in-app form to register for the school trip! All in one, message and without leaving your school's app.
Yes! There is a reply function, so if parents have a follow-up question they can reply to your message. You can configure in your App settings to reply to the message sender or a specified email. Alternatively, you can choose to disable this feature.
If you select the "Notify" option, we will send a notification to all users when they have a new Inbox message waiting.
FAQs
The Alerts System is an in-app pop-up alert that is show to users every time they open your School's App. It is ideal for a wide range of situations such as:
1. COVID Social Distancing Reminders
2. Tornado Warning and Dangerous Weather Conditions Alert
3. Study and Revision Reminders
4. School Intruder or Emergency Alerts
Users can dismiss the Alerts but are prompted each time they open until you end the Alert.
No, the Alerts System is a 'Passive Alerting System' designed to provide regular reminders each time you open the app. To notify a user, you can use the Notifications setting.
It looks like you are exploring EdUnity for School Communication! Good choice, next up, may we suggest taking a look at how we can help you achieve your Parental Engagement goals? Or if you have a specific question why not Contact Us?