NotaBene School Communicator app for iPhone and iPad

The challenges of managing a school

Running a school is a juggling act.
As the principal and admin staff, you have many people to consider: students, parents, your teachers and so many others. There are achievements and celebrations. Accidents and disasters. Childhood memories of learning, friendships, sports and arts are made at school. Few know of the administrative and organisational demands that your school faces every day.

There is so much going on that effective, streamlined and safe communication is key. Yet, it is easier said than done.

Your communication fails you often. It gets cluttered, it misses the mark.
You are constantly requesting payments, for everything from school fees to school camps. You wait. You send out indemnity forms. You wait some more. You send out reminders. Deadlines are missed.

You’re counting cash, invoicing for it and safely storing it. Many different documents, still filled in by hand, are handed in and need to be filed. You’re responding to emails and telephone calls. There are potential families interested in your school. There are current families upset about something at school. It is very frustrating that, with everything that needs attending to, you waste valuable time on manual administration and never-ending paperwork.

Time better spent on doing what a school does best: educate, support and inspire.
What if there was a way of doing things?



The struggle of the parents

Few of us with children of school-going age were fully prepared for the logistics of going back to school, this time round as a parent, not as a pupil. We often had very idealised notions of school.
Notions based on our own memories of attending school, many years ago. We’re full of hopes and dreams for the future. The exciting discoveries our child will have. The friends they’ll make. The teachers who’ll inspire them.

It’s a bit of a rude awakening to find that school needs a to-do list all of its own. We are immediately surprised by the daily emails from our new school. We struggle to read all these mails, never mind actually attend to them. Some of us go through a bit of denial. We can’t bear to add to any more stress to our lives. We try to just ignore the mails and hope they’ll all go away. You try to just quietly pay your fees and mind your own business. Or, you may have had a willing and able partner, happy to tackle the to-do list. In which case, you were off the hook.

Even if you are the very on-the-ball sort of parent, you find it exhausting. You have efficiently dealt with the emails from day 1. You make sure your child has everything they need, without ever needing a reminder. You never miss a deadline or forget an event. Still, it’s a juggling act. The sunny optimism on your child’s first day of school seems to have gotten lost amongst the school fees, extra-murals, school trips, concerts, sporting events, exams, tests, assessments, homework and parent-teacher meetings.

We use clever apps and software so much in our lives today to simplify our to-do list. We use technology to save time, reduce paperwork, make us more efficient and communicate more effectively. All the while reducing the stress in our lives; making space to enjoy the things we thought we would.
Why are we not using better software in schools to improve the way we do things?