Messages and notices

How the school contacts you

Announcements, school updates and teacher chats are grouped in one communication view.

SMS — short, immediate things: an absence, a fee balance, a closing date, an emergency.

WhatsApp — longer messages and attachments, where your school uses it. WhatsApp also works the other way: you can ask it questions and get an answer straight back.

Notices — published inside the parent view. Anything with a shelf life: meeting dates, uniform reminders, fixtures.

Newsletters — the longer termly letter, sent and published.

Direct messages — a conversation about your child specifically.

All of it goes to the contact details on your child’s record. If you are not receiving messages, that is where the problem is — ask the office to check the number and email they hold for you.

Reaching the school

WhatsApp answers factual questions immediately — balances, results, homework, the bus. Start there for anything with a definite answer.

Direct message in the parent view goes to the school and stays attached to your child’s record, so whoever picks it up can see the history. Use it for anything not urgent that needs a person.

Ring the office for anything urgent, and for anything you would rather discuss than write.

Ask for the class teacher for questions about learning, behaviour or a specific subject. The office handles fees, records and admin.

Writing a message that gets a useful answer

Say which child and which class. A school has several children with the same first name.

Say what you want to happen. “I am concerned about Mathematics” is harder to act on than “could the Mathematics teacher call me this week”.

Give a fact where you have one — a date, an exam, a message you received.

Keep it to one topic. A message covering fees, a bus route and a Chemistry mark reaches three different people and usually gets one reply.

When you disagree with the school

It happens. What works:

• Start with the person closest to it — the class teacher for a marking question, the bursar for a fee question. Going to the head first usually routes back down anyway.
• Ask what happened before saying what should have happened. There is often a fact you do not have.
• Put it in writing if it matters. A direct message creates a record for both sides, which protects you as much as the school.

Notification settings

Settings controls which notifications you receive and how.

Do not turn everything off. Some messages — absence alerts, emergency notices — are worth being interrupted for even when the daily ones are not.

Messages that are not from the school

Schools are a common target for payment fraud. A genuine ShuleOne message will never ask you for your password, and payment details will never change by SMS.

If you receive a message asking you to pay to a different number or account, do not act on it. Ring the school office on the number you already have.