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Latest news from the EdTech industry,

Nov 29
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Creating a Booking Setup for Covid Testing

By EdTech Discussion No Comments

You can use Parents Booking to take appointments for Covid tests. The principle is very similar to setting up a parents’ evening, in that you want different students ‘booked’ into their own unique time. However, in this case you’ll be asking parents to book “Testing Stations” (or similar) rather than teachers.

Below are some instructions on how to set up a very quick Covid Testing booking process.

Step 1: Create the “Testing Stations”

On the Teachers page, create some new “Teachers” and call them “Testing Station 1”, “Testing Station 2”, etc. Create as many as are required. Each of these will provide a different ‘slot’ for pupils to book. So if your capacity is to have 3x students being tested at the same time, per “appointment time”, you’ll need 3x testing stations.

In the Teacher Name, Department and Subjects fields, just input “Testing Station 1”, so its clear what parents are booking. The Email and Room fields can be left blank.

Step 2: Linking Students to the “Testing Stations”

Still on the Teachers page, you now need to “link” students to each “Testing Station”. This is required because, unless you do this, parents will not see the Testing Stations as booking options.

Click a Testing Station’s name to edit it, then scroll down to the ‘Add Students’ button and use the filters to (one-by-one) add the Year Groups or Reg Classes to the Testing Station. If the whole school will need to be able to book an appointment, add all Reg or Year Groups to the Testing Station. If there are Year Groups in the Year Group tab, this would be our suggestion – click one, then click Add Class, and this adds that whole Year Group. Repeat until all students required have been added to the Testing Station. This may take 5 minutes or so.

Repeat the above step for all Testing Stations.

Step 3: Set up a ‘Parents’ Evening’ Specifically for Covid Testing

Moving now to the Evenings page in Parents Booking, create a new “Term/Group”, which we’d suggest calling “Covid Testing” or similar. Click on this group once created and then create a new parents’ evening.

Create the event as you would a parents’ evening, choosing the date, start time, end time and length of these ‘appointments’. You can use the Buffer Time feature to add a gap between one Covid test ending and the next starting.

Remember to keep the evening as a ‘Parents Evening’ and not a ‘Video Calls’ evening.

You can add more dates by pressing the relevant orange button half-way down the page.

In the 2nd screenshot below, you’ll see we are recommending you institute a rule of 1 appointment per student.

Lastly, select the Reg Groups that apply (which may be the whole school) and then save the parents’ evening.

Step 4: Remove Class Teachers from the Covid Testing evening

Your parents’ evening will have imported lots of class teachers, as well as the Covid “Testing Stations”.

Go to Dashboard > Options > Edit the Teachers OR Evenings > Covid Testing > Edit > Edit the Teachers, and then Select All teachers (untick the Covid Testing Stations) and se ‘Delete Selected’ to remove them all. This means parents will only have the Covid Testing stations as booking options.

Step 5: Send Your Invite

You can now invite parents to book slots for students’ testing.

Go to Dashboard > Options > Send Invite to Parents OR Evenings > Covid Testing > Edit > Send Invite to Parents, where you can customise a bespoke invite to be sent out, select the parents you want to invite and send them an invite.

Nov 19
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Mid-Term Feature Release

By EdTech Discussion No Comments

We plan to release a big software update very soon, which will principally change the logic of how to set up the teachers for parents’ evenings (including how to share a parent’s appointment with multiple teachers, to divide bookings between two teachers where they share a class). We’re just dotting i’s and crossing t’s, there are lots of factors to test.

In the meantime we have released the below new features today, with there being no need to delay their release any longer:

1. You can now easily transfer appointments from one teacher to another using the “Share or Transfer Appointments” button in Manage Bookings.
You’ll also see a ‘Select All’ button above each teacher’s schedule to make selecting multiple/all appointments easier.
Sharing appointments means both teachers can join the same meeting. Transferring moves selected appointments from one teacher to another (where the second has free appointments to take these).

2. Parents can request a telephone call rather than a video appointment, where schools allow them to.
Schools turn on this feature when they set up their parents’ evening. The parent is asked to tick a box when making their appointments, if they want to ask for a telephone meeting rather than a video meeting. This is then shown as a notification on the teachers’ appointment schedule.

3. Parents and teachers now have a ‘video meeting help’ button that they can click, from their video meeting room, if they’re having problems connecting to their video meeting.
The instructions provided today will soon be replaced by a new diagnostic tool that Twilio, our video meeting provider, has very recently released.

4. Teachers can now easily see who has not booked appointments with them yet, by clicking the “30 slots available for 28 pupils” type ‘calculator’ on their schedule page.
It is our intention to expand on this by allowing tecahers to send parents a reminder email directly from this pop-up in due course. For now, teachers can use the Manage Bookings > Send Request to Parent feature to directly message a parent.

5. Your automatic data import can be set up to run scheduled searches for new students, and to identify ‘leavers’.
This will not refresh the teachers/classes throughout term, because we don’t want to overwrite customisations you’ve made, but it will help keep on top of the students, adding new students to their teachers and making them easier to add to live parents’ evenings if such a scenario presents itself.
N.B. We still suggest you use the ‘Upload Data’ button before setting up new parents’ evenings, to import the latest database curriculum/class teacher assignments.

Sep 17
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What are the benefits of a well-planned, and easily managed, parents’ evening?

By EdTech Discussion No Comments

Parents evenings; they’re a universal tool used to better communication and build relationships between schools and families. They’re an accumulation of moments of a year, a painted picture of a child’s academic achievements and well-being, and a chance for some of the most important people in a child’s life to come together to help to create a better future.

They are a vital component of education infrastructure.

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Sounds good, doesn’t it? Let’s break this down and talk about the benefits of this for those involved.

Schools

By planning ahead of time and implementing a parent’s booking system, it allows schools to be organised, both for present and future parents evenings. This includes allowing teachers to know in advance who they are seeing and when, and personal choice over scheduling and topics of discussion – such as awards, homework or behaviour.

This consequently steers meetings towards being more targeted, relevant and effective for both teachers and families. Here, the use of technology helps to grow parental engagement and interest, offering real life benefits in expertise of importance.

Online parent’s evenings are a great example of how technology has helped to revolutionise education systems. Now, multiple teachers can join various online meetings with one click; allowing parents to meet with subject leaders, senior leadership members or any other member of staff involved in the child’s education.

A countdown timer clock, visible on screen throughout, allows both teachers and parents to see the start and end meeting time, as well as how long is left in the current meeting. This ensures that each child, and their parents, are given an equal amount of time, promoting a consistent approach threaded within, and beyond, the meeting.

As well as this, parent’s booking systems are simple and easy to manage for school admin staff; simply taking under 5 minutes to set up but saving up to 100 hours of staff time and between £50 – £100 on office paper and ink. In this example, the mathematics makes perfect sense. Parent’s booking systems are easy to use, and easy to understand, offering brilliant solutions and no-nonsense outcomes.

”“It’s transformed our lives in many, many ways.”

“It’s really taken us to the next level.”

“I would highly recommend this to any school, anywhere.”

”“Parental bookings have definitely increased since we rolled out the system.”

“It was so much easier just to book online to be able to get the appointments that I want, at the times that I wanted and fit it into my life.”

Parents/ Carers

The new, and novel, way of booking that parent’s booking systems bring, has created a shift in culture that has lead to greater parental engagement. The tools in the system that have brought about this change ensures ease; both in terms of access and in booking.

The use of a ‘Booking Wizard’ (a one-click touch) maximises your time whilst still allowing you to see your allocated teachers at your preferred time.  This incredibly effective way of allowing parents to book, can allow parents to see their evening schedule in 15 short, sweet seconds – and it can be emailed directly to their smartphone, lending itself towards even greater ease. No paper, no chasing, no long waits. It’s a stress-free solution that plans itself around you, for you.

Over the last 18 months, we have watched technology weave it’s way into the school day; from virtual show-and-tell, to online lessons, to uploading your homework through a camera and smartphone, we have watched the world re-build, and people come together, as life fell apart. Video meetings have allowed what we envisioned to become a reality. Technology now allows schools to hold their parents’ evenings virtually through an online device, such as a laptop, computer or iPad.

This means that previous issues of moving from classroom to classroom, struggling to find a parking space, listening to distracting noisy conversations or losing your slot to other parents are simply eliminated. Multiple parent’s can join from different locations, meaning night-shift workers could join during their work break, a parent can join as their dinner cooks in the oven, or conversely, a parent could join from a different continent, if their child attends a boarding school during term time.

Gone are the days of difficulties on public transport, of 20-minute gaps between appointments, of not getting to see the one teacher you needed to see, of a lack of accessibility and thought. And here is the future, all from the comfort of your own home; inclusive, flexible and calmer, video meetings are a way of living that meets everyone’s needs – and they’re loved by teachers and parents alike.

Children and Young People

By increasing the ease of access, and providing schools with a toolbox to engage hard-to-reach families, important conversations around goal-setting, future-building and potential-reaching are able to happen. By providing the time and place, positive conversations are able to happen between the home and the school. By creating a simple addition of parent and teacher, the answer continues again and again, to equal student success.

The greater parental involvement, the greater parental understanding, resulting in better educational experiences and outcomes for children and young people.

There is anecdotal evidence from local authorities, multi-academy trusts, leaders in education and schools universally that they will continue to incorporate video parents’ evenings this new academic year and long beyond. We need to be prepared for the likelihood that across the globe, in-person meetings won’t be going ahead as social distancing rules continue. But it is so much more than that. The habits of a nation have changed. The shift in technological communication is here.

And that’s where we (Parents Booking) come in…

”“One of the strengths of this system is that it does allow us to chase parents where bookings haven’t been made with a particular teacher.”

“The parents are able to organize the appointments in a way in which suits them.”

Here at Parents Booking, we believe that we can help you plan calmer, manageable and successful parents evenings, online. The next level of parents’ evenings are here.

Let us help you get prepared now, and be part of the technological change that is here to stay.

Are you ready?

Set your school up a free trial to get started. This video will also demonstration how video parents’ evening meetings work.

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Aug 16
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New features for 2021-22

By EdTech Discussion No Comments

Firstly, welcome back. We hope you had a relaxing and refreshing summer, and managed to soak up some rays!

This blog article lists the exciting changes we’ve made to Parents Booking since last academic year. You can click on a topic below and this will open that specific change in a new blog post, usually complete with a video explainer.

Also, these are some of the things we’re looking to add ASAP this term:

  • Screen sharing and a chat box in the video meeting room.
  • Ability to email teachers their appointment schedule one-at-a-time or in bulk.
  • Parents and teachers will be able to login from RM Unify in one click.
  • Schools will be able to import Pupil Premium status for students, where wanted, to help with priority inviting or chasing parents this applies to.
  • One click data import for the following MIS/SIS school databases: Arbor, Aspen, Engage, PowerSchool and Progresso/Cloud School.

Thanks for reading, and if you have any questions just let us know.

Best wishes,

Parents Booking

Aug 16
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New Events and Clubs Module changes for 2021-22

By EdTech Discussion No Comments

We’ve been hard at work upgrading the Events and Clubs module this summer, and below are a list of the changes we’ve made so far:

  • The capacity for events and clubs are now tied to the date, not the actual event, meaning where you run an event or club over multiple date ranges, with a capacity of 20 for example, this is the capacity per date now.
  • In the school’s Admin Area > Set Up School > Preferences page, there is a new text field that allows the school Admin to determine a maximum number of clubs that a student can be registered for within one group/term. This will be perfect for schools who don’t want the first parents to login to be able to book more than their fair share of clubs.
  • We have integrated with Stripe, meaning that it, ParentPay and PayPal are all ‘payment gateways’ that schools can configure to take payments online.
  • We’ve added more currencies, so that schools who operate internationally should be able to take payments in their currency.
  • Clubs and Events will very soon use the same Reg Class ‘selection’ interface as parents’ evenings, because we know from trials and feedback that this is much more popular than typing in the Reg Class names.
  • Hopefully by 1st Sept we’ll have launched a new type of Club, which allows parents to select multiple dates. This will be perfect for wraparound care, breakfast clubs and after school clubs where parents can opt students in on selected dates, rather than all dates. An example of how this will look is below.
Aug 16
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New video meeting features for 2021-22

By EdTech Discussion No Comments

As ever, we’ve been hard at work over the summer, and in this case in particular we’ve been adding lots of nice new features to our video meeting module, to improve the parent and teacher experience so that meetings are even more immersive and helpful to all participants.

  • If a parent is very early for their parents’ evening, a new notification explains this and a button shows where the ‘join appointments’ button will be shown (15mins before the first appointment starts)
  • When you hang up during a meeting, you do not leave the meeting any more. You are held in the video meeting room until your next meeting starts.
  • A countdown timer now shows how long until your next meeting starts, before or in-between meetings.
  • Parents and teachers can see if the other meetings they will have are ‘online’ or not now. A red circle icon indicates the other participant is not in their video room at this moment in time, whereas a green circle icon indicates the other participant is in their video meeting room.
  • Teachers can now click on a parent’s name, in their video meeting room’s appointment schedule, and expand more booking information, such as contact information and comments submitted by the parent.
  • Parents can share a ‘join link’ that will allow other parents to join the booked video meetings in one click, without even the need for a parent login.
  • Parents who have meetings ‘shared’ with them (by other family members) can now see these on their Dashboard > View my Booking Schedule page, and can choose to opt out of joining these from their Parent Dashboard > Make/Edit My Own Bookings page.
  • The school Admin can define which region the video meetings take place in, in case this is required. See Admin Area > Set Up School > Preferences page.
  • The school Admin can see not only which parents/guardians booked and attended their meetings, but also which extra parents/guardians attended, e.g. when the meeting was shared with them. See Reports tab’s List of Attendees and similar reports, on the day after the parents’ evening, for this data.

At the time of writing we intend to add the following within the next month as well:

  • Screen sharing and a chat box in the video meeting room.
  • Better error reporting, e.g. when a video meeting cannot connect we will explain as best we can to the parent/teacher what the issue is.
  • When multiple users are in the video meeting room, we want to show you the person that is talking to you at all times, so we will code the “video area” to work this way.
Mar 02
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Taking Bookings for COVID Testing in Parents Booking

By EdTech Discussion No Comments

Do you want to facilitate booking of COVID-19 tests by parents? If so, this is the blog post for you!

Steps:

  1. Create some new teachers called “Slot 1”, “Slot 2”, or similar.
  2. Edit each, then add the students who will be booked into the “slots” using the Add Students button. You’ll probably need to add each Reg Group individually.
  3. Create a parents’ evening (with multiple dates?), ticking to include all the Reg Groups you added to the “Slots”. You may also want to set a booking limit so that parents can only book each student once (e.g. one per ‘slot’).
  4. When the parents’ evening has been set up, go to Dashboard > Options > Edit the Teachers, and remove ALL teachers and subjects except your “Slots”.
  5. You an test it works by going to Manage Booking > Login as a Parent
  6. Lastly, send parents their invite like normal, and you can monitor the sign-ups from the Reports page.
Sep 29
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New parents’ website design

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We have recently given the parents’ area a fresh lick of paint. Below are some screenshots which show how some of the website now looks. As well as looking more modern and ‘cleaner’, the website now looks even better at mobile and tablet resolution. We hope you and your parents will appreciate the upgrade!

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