Helping Schools with Fast and Effective Mass Notifications

The meaning of School Lockdown as greatly changed over the last few months, moving away from emergency situations as a whole and now focusing on COVID-19 procedures. As schools, colleges and universities reopened this late summer, there are some things we know, and much more that we don’t.

Schools across the UK closed early, long before they intended to, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Many are now reopening, however the school day as we know it has made some dynamic changes to ensure the health and safety of students, staff and visitors.

Most schools are taking a hybrid approach: Opening to students and staff for shortened periods of time and scheduling online or distance learning throughout the premises. Some schools are keeping the students at a distance but requiring their teachers and staff report to work every day. Whatever your school decides to do as we approach back-to-school season, a solid communications strategy will help keep everyone informed and enable you to change plans quickly with as little confusion as possible.

Many, if not all, school have adopted some type of notification system to help schools inform campuses and communities about everything from general announcements to emergency situations. Schoolwatch has been at the forefront of this technology since it started being the norm. 

Danger at schools is too common, but now the risks associated with the pandemic and schools’ need to mitigate them are universal. Schools that don’t have a true mass notification platform in place can no longer push off the need. 

All college and university students, all parents of school-aged children, and all staff members from nursery through universities are going to have to stay flexible and informed at all times. Everyone involved needs to know what the protocol is for their school, and if (or when) plans change, how to respond: Masks? Online learning? Building closed? Lunchrooms? Class quarantine? There will be so much to stay updated on as this school year unfolds.

How Mass Notification Works

Schoolwatch Mass Notification (or Digital Alerts) works with schools to provide emergency and day-to-day communications to all of their community members: Staff, students and parents or guardians. Messages can be received with ease on any device, including via SMS/text, phone call, email, push notifications and even displayed on digital signage throughout school properties.

The Schoolwatch Digital Alerts system offers unlimited administrators and flexible account configuration, which also means the system can be used by anyone to reach the audiences they’re authorised to send to. Teachers can easily send fast updates to parents of students in their classes or administrators can message everyone in a school community about updated government restrictions or new policies for attending school safely.

Several examples of how mass communications can be used across your premises:

Everyday Communication

  • Information about changes in schedules and lesson planes
  • Emails regarding assignments and missed assignments
  • Links to online learning environments and instructions
  • Changes in bus or public transport information
  • Newsletters keeping the whole community informed
  • Digital signage in school reminding students to wash hands and maintain distancing
  • Enable students and staff to report to administrators if they’ve tested positive for COVID-19

Emergency Communication

  • Send last-minute text messages if class needs to be cancelled or a certain group should self-quarantine
  • Coordinate cleaning or other responses if there is an infection or outbreak at the school
  • Changes in schedules during the pandemic
  • Safety information in case of weather emergencies
  • Instructions on where students or parents can get tested for the virus
  • Panic button and Fire Alarm integration

Schoolwatch Mass Communication in Use

We’ve designed and installed many Digital Alerts and Mass Notifications systems across schools based on their requirements and needs. Here area few examples of where and why these systems were needed.

Alfred Sutton Primary School, Reading

Requirements: After an incident at the school, Alfred Sutton requested a system to trigger audio alerts as well as a method to send mass notifications at a moment’s notice.

Solution: The building was fitted with Intelligent IP Speakers which link directly to the alerting system, these can be scheduled to send message to all speakers at once or in isolated locations. After some use of this system, they have now decided to link with their neighbouring university and Maiden Erlegh school to send mass communications are share alerts across all three buildings.

New Hall School, Chelmsford

Requirements: Being a large building, New Hall requested a speaker system to cover the whole school including communication software for 100 members of staff.

Solution: Over 25+ Intelligent IP Speakers where installed across the school to ensure that all areas of the school where covered. The speakers can then be scheduled to send message to all speakers at once or in isolated locations. Digital Alerts software was also provided to provide mass notifications to all members of staff and students.

Bournemouth and Poole College, Poole

Requirements: The college requested software for 750 users that can send clear messages to both staff and students across 5 campuses.

Solution: The Digital Alerts Mass Notification system was installed to send pop-ups, push notifications, emails and alerts immediately, across all five campuses. All updates and alerts could be sent to all staff and students at a moment’s notice or scheduled for regular updates.

If you need to have a Mass Notification system installed at your school or campus, call us on 0845 519 3660 or fill out our contact form and we will be glad to do it.