School closure nightmare – NAHT present a simple but effective solution
The last few days have been an administrational headache for school leaders. The snow and ice has caused chaos with thousands of school closures. Trying to communicate to parents, teachers and other staff has been difficult and fraught with problems.
The solution is Parent Hotline; a unique number for each school that hundreds of parents can ring simultaneously to keep up-to-date with the latest news.
The service is very effective; each school is given a unique number for their school. A designated member of staff rings the service from any location and leaves an emergency message informing everyone what is happening. Parents and staff can then ring in on a low call rate number (0844) to listen to the latest message. The message can be updated any number of times and listened to by hundreds of parents simultaneously.
About Parent Hotline
The NAHT have been working with Community Alerts for over 3 years and have supported their messaging service for school trips. This service has now been adapted to provide schools and parents a simple but effective solution called Parent Hotline.
Even better news is that the service is low cost at only £95 ex VAT per year. The service can also be used for school trips, after school clubs, sports fixtures and other important announcements throughout the year.
There is normally a one-off set up fee of £100 but for NAHT members this fee will be waived for all schools registering before the end of February.
Following the last few days, the number of new registrations is expected to be very high and therefore schools will be set up on a first-come, first-served basis. To register your school, please email
register@parenthotline.co.uk or call 01444 448092 (please be aware that lines may be busy!).
