There are BIG changes coming to School Stream in August!
Schoolzine’s development team have been busy working on School Stream since it was acquired in January. The team has made a number of changes suggested by our users, and the first of many improvements will be coming out in August!
This page goes into detail to let you know about each change, to give you a chance to get used to the changes, ask questions, make suggestions or get free training and support from our Customer Success Team.
A new look and feel
The first thing that parents and caregivers will notice is the new look and feel. We’ve made it easier to scroll through updates, events, news and more.
Users with students at multiple schools will have the ability to easily switch between schools all from the one app!
Push notifications now contain the school logo as well, so its clear which school a notice has come from
For Schools:
To get the most use out of these changes, here are a few helpful guidelines:
- Adding an Image to news or events where possible can make the feed visually stunning
- Ensure to add in addresses and times into events so parents can easily see the event and sync it with their calendar (both time and location)
- Make sure your school logo is up to date as it will be prominent down the bottom, on push notifications from your school and several other places throughout the app
Security Baked In
Parents and Caregivers will now have more ways to keep their School Stream data safe, and Schools will now have the ability to verify identities with more information. This helps address a number of compliance and child protection best practices for Schools.
- User must set a biometric lock or pin code on the School Stream app, similar to a bank app
- Schools can “Request more Information” which prompts a user to enter details such as their name, their child’s name and year level
- Users will verify BOTH their email and phone number. Extra information like first name, child’s name, can be added to help schools accept users whose phone numbers or emails might not be in the system
- Attempts to take screenshots of the app are also blocked (Android Only) to stop users from attempting to save images in line with child protection best practices
Inclusive from the Start
Parents and Caregivers will be able to choose their preferred language from the very moment they sign up, making it easier to onboard and setup the app easily. Removing this friction point is great for your school community, but also complies with policies around inclusiveness set by state governments, catholic diocese and other governing bodies in education.
Engaging parents and caregivers who might not speak English at home results in better outcomes for teachers and students as well as parents and caregivers who will more easily interpret events, forms, information and more.
Schoolzine will continue to improve translations on the app and its content over the coming months, as well as assessing the accessibility levels of the app to ensure it can be as inclusive as possible.
Making Term 1 Easier
We’ve added a few features to the School Portal to help make the start of the year easier. This includes:
- A branded, printable guide automatically generated with QR codes to help parents and caregivers download the app and find your school, available in A3, A4 or handout that you can edit using Word.
- The ability to scan your school within the app to easily add it
- The ability to resync Wonde on demand so that schools don’t have to wait after graduating students in the Student Management System onto the next year.
- As a longtime partner of Schoolzine, a “Wonde Hotline” has been setup to help us expedite any Wonde or data issues.
Thank you & Next Steps
Our next steps will be circulating a training video around some of the changes in the coming few weeks before the update. We don’t anticipate any disruption although some users may have to login or re-verify their phone and email addresses – as always, our team will be on standby to help support you through these changes.
We appreciate your patience over the last 6 months while our Schoolzine staff get across the School Stream ecosystem. We’ve been listening and learning as much as we can and are now excited that some improvements are coming to this platform. We look forward to hearing your feedback, thoughts and suggestions and are excited to build out more features and improvements moving forward!
Sincerely,
– The Schoolzine Team