Welcome to the new school year

This year sees SchoolPRO supporting schools throughout Australia and off shore in East Timor and Indonesia. We are also delighted to continue the special relationship we have with School for Life in Uganda.

Late last year we received valuable feedback from a customer survey and we would again like to thank you for your input. Our continued growth is dependent on listening to you and addressing your needs. In the coming months you will see some exciting new initiatives in training and account management.

Please enjoy the content of our newsletter, I look forward to meeting and speaking with you in the months ahead.

Gary Stoneham, General Manager

Did you know…?

A recent survey amongst a broad range of independent schools in Australia showed that schools employed the equivalent of one IT staff member per.  How does your school compare?

255 students

39 staff

283 devices

Tips & Tricks: Tracking Qualification Expiry Dates

If you wish to track the expiry dates for qualifications such as first aid certificates and staff “Blue Cards”, you can do this easily via Comments. Make sure that the appropriate Comment Category has been set up with descriptions in the “Date1 Description” and optionally the “Date2 Description” fields, for example “Expiry date”. You will be able to search for staff with their expiry date falling within a certain range, by using the “Advanced Comment Filter” within the “Advanced” filter option.

Your School’s IT Spend

Figures released by the highly credentialed Somerset Education indicate on average independent schools in Australia are spending the following:

IT Spend Per Student per annum

IT rental per student, includes telephony, photocopiers

 $235

IT salary spend

$322

Capital IT spend

$375

Other IT expenses such as software and services

$219

Growth in student numbers

Independent

 2.2%

Catholic

1.2%

Government

0.9%

Improve Parent Engagement

SchoolPRO’s SMS service continues to gain momentum.

In what was originally used as a vehicle to alert parents for student’s non-arrival at school, the benefits of SMS for schools have now extend well beyond this. SMS is now a critical tool utilised by schools to communicate with their community almost immediately.

SMS can be used for day to day communications, such as:

  • Reminders about parent teacher interview dates
  • Exam dates and start times
  • Due dates and reminders for fees for school activities e.g. camps and excursions
  • Notifying parents that student reports are available for viewing on the SchoolPRO parent portal

There is very strong anecdotal evidence that SMS reminders can significantly increase awareness and involvement.

If you and your school would like to explore how you may be able use the popular SchoolPRO SMS service, please contact Gary Stoneham on 0438 188 132.

SMS also provides an almost immediate communication channel to relay special, urgent or extraordinary news. This could include:

  • School closure due to bush fires
  • Excursion cancellations
  • School working bees
  • Curriculum days
  • Fundraising activities
  • Uniform free days    
  • School concerts
  • Emergency school lock down
  • Camp buses running late

Tips & Tricks: Emailing Reports

SchoolPRO has the ability to email reports to multiple people with just a couple of clicks. This feature can be set up for almost any report in SchoolPRO! e.g. A school wants to send a detailed class list to all teachers of year 7 classes. Ordinarily, this would involve producing the report for each teacher’s classes, saving it as a PDF, then emailing those PDFs one-by-one to the appropriate teacher. With SchoolPRO reports, a report can be configured to make use of the Send To button on the report screen. For more info, please contact the SchoolPRO Helpdesk.

SchoolPRO Staff Profile

For those of you who have ever spoken to the very affable Shaun Morton you quickly realise he was not born in Australia. With a broad Yorkshire accent, it is obvious that Shaun’s roots are in the UK.

Settling in Perth in 1990 Shaun and his family have made Australia their home.  Shaun’s interest and passion about schools’ stem from his time as a Business Manager at an independent school in Perth and many years working for school software provider MAZE.

Shaun’s extensive professional experience enables him to provide a broad range of support to his clients.   From advice on school administration processes to data and IT related queries, he is a valuable resource that all SchoolPRO users can access.

For those of you who like football i.e. soccer, Shaun’s other passion is his UK football team Sheffield Wednesday. Known as the “Owls” for Shaun they are more than a big hoot. If you ever have five minutes spare, ask Shaun to explain the very interesting story on why this English football team is called Sheffield Wednesday.