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October 2009 - Manchester chooses Messenger for
all of their schools!
Manchester, one of the most prominent Local Authorities in the UK has chosen to install Groupcall Messenger in all 167 of its schools.
Groupcall Messenger is already the choice of over 1500 schools nationwide, and has been proven to boost attendance figures and parental relationships; all areas that Manchester are looking to improve in. “I am delighted”, explains Lawrence Royston, Groupcall Managing Director, “that Manchester has taken the lead in being the first major Metropolitan Council in England, to implement a messaging solution across all of their schools”. “I believe that they will be a beacon for many other local authorities, who are seeking a cost effective and easy to use parental contact solution” We welcome Manchester schools into the Messenger user community.
Vince Slatford, MIS support manger explains the LA’s decision to install Groupcall Messenger in all of their Schools;
“As the support manager for schools ICT, it is always a challenge to find new and intuitive ways of assisting schools in raising their performance levels. One of the many projects we are currently working on is to improve the attendance levels at each school and therefore that of Manchester as a whole. We were aware of a limited number of schools using various applications to text parents/carers in relation to first day calling. This seemed to be a cost effective and time saving method of engaging parents at an early stage to discover the whereabouts of each child. We looked at a number of applications and chose Groupcall as the product that ticked most of the boxes we require from an application such as this in Manchester.
It is quick and easy to use, has direct links into various MIS systems and primarily has the ability to send messages in different languages. Having such a diverse culture within the city, Groupcall's messenger service will prove invaluable in reaching out to all parents/carers from all ethnic backgrounds. During an initial pilot scheme, schools saved hours of administration time by being able to contact parents/carers effortlessly and in return having information about pupils attendance quickly read back into their schools MIS systems. Something that had previously taken hours was now being concluded within minutes. Administrators were now having spare time to concentrate on other tasks but, more importantly allowing everyone concerned to know where each pupil was within minutes of the registers being taken.
Since then we have realised that Messenger can do so much more than just track and improve attendance and it has enabled us now to focus on the Parental Engagement strategy for the 2010/2012 agenda. Schools can send various forms of messages out to parents/carers relating to simple queries such as forgotten PE kits to school closures due to swine flu etc
On completion of the trial, Manchester City Council has now purchased 'Messenger' on behalf of all our schools because, being such a key application, we wanted to make sure schools had access to what we thought was the most efficient and effective option available. Messenger will be invaluable to schools, as well as being able to report on timekeeping, behaviour and assessment; they can now communicate in a new way that will save money and time. All Manchester schools will shortly be prepared and have the tools to react quickly should they need to close due to Swine flu, bad weather or any other emergency.
Ultimately Schools can only benefit from having Groupcall Messenger.”
For more information - Please contact us at sales@groupcall.com
