Welsh school uses SMS to fight off cold winter.

Penglais School is a thriving, rural comprehensive in Ceredigion with nearly 1400 pupils aged 11 to 19. There have been times when the school has had to close unexpectedly due to snow. Teaching staff had to phone every parent individually to notify them of the closure, which was lengthy, costly and inefficient.

With txttouch, the school are now able to send one text message which reaches the mobile phone of every parent instantly when these unexpected events occur.

Penglais then expanded the txttouch solution for a range of other practical purposes; now they can inform parents if a school trip is delayed, send reminders of events such as PTA meetings and parents evenings as well as reaching the parents of individual year groups.

In order to make the solution even more efficient, the school created different ‘txttouch groups’ for each class within the school. For example, parents of children in Year nine are in a Year nine group so that any communication relating specifically to that year alone can be sent only to the parents it is relevant to. If Year nine were to go on a field trip and were going to be late returning, the school could simply contact all parents of the children on that trip.

Penglais is revelling in this useful technology, Melanie Goodwin, Headteachers Secretary said: “Txttouch is an easy to use and effective way that we can contact parents. Parents have been very positive about the texting service, stating to school staff that they are impressed that with this ‘ideal and wonderful solution’, which ‘reflects well on the school.’”

She continued “Since Penglais began using txttouch they have saved countless administration hours, decreased their printing costs and increased their contact with parents at the school.”

Penglais’ plan for the future is to get the text messages sponsored by a local business, so that they reduce their communication costs even further than they have already with the txttouch solution.

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