Finding a calendar app that improves and enhances the communication schools already have with their community can be both confusing and time consuming. Sharlene Barnes looks at what you really need to know.

Apps are everywhere – and that’s why schools can really benefit from implementing a calendar app to communicate with parents. Statistics say 96 per cent of them have a smartphone. With data becoming as cheap as chips, these devices have become the ‘go to’ tool for living our lives. From banking to messaging, Facebook to surfing, there’s always ‘an app for that’. They’re easy to download, widely used and have become individual portals allowing a company to connect directly and personally with its customers in a way that’s over and above the traditional website or paper-based publications.

Powerful medium

So, shouldn’t your school tap into this powerful medium and reap the benefits of having a calendar app for parents? They can range from a simple, stylised design with up-to-the-minute school information to a more detailed and intensive school information portal.

At the heart of a good school calendar app is in the fact that school parents have another way of quickly and conveniently looking at an up-to-date school event calendar, saving those last-minute phones calls to school. However, forward-thinking developers have quickly acknowledged a few more things that would facilitate quick communication between school and parents: a newsletter link; an absentee function; and school information and contacts. Schools can also push instant messages out from an app and connect a school Google calendar.

All of these function perfectly on a parent’s smartphone, superseding paper and purely web-based communication tools and giving them real-time details on school information and events, making communication as fast and efficient as possible. This is what a good app will do!

Sharlene Barnes is founder of the Parent Teacher Calendar App. For more information call 0800 238 379 or go to parentteachercalendar.co.nz