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Hi guys and gals,

We have been working on a website I thought you might like
to know about that could prove useful to you and your
schools. Basically how it works is a parent/teacher
searches for the school where their child or they
themselves attend, instantly they will be able to see on
the site whether the school has been announced as open or
closed.

Doesn't sound like much I know but the good part is that
they can register their email address (verification
required to stop other people signing you up) and you will
then get an instant email notification every time the
status of your assigned school changes! You can also
register your mobile phone number to receive the same
notification through SMS!

Many of you may well be thinking “Why should we bother when
we already inform the radio/LEA/update our own school
website?” thus duplicating what is already done, but this
site does it differently, it gets the information directly
to those who want it instead of them actually having to
search for it. The idea is that not everyone would bother
to listen to the radio or check the school websites that
often unless there is a concern that the school MAY be
closed, say for example 2mm of snow on the ground. In the
cases of say gas leaks, power failures and many other
unforeseen events many parents would still turn up to the
school and be sent away because it isn't safe for the
children to be there, in these cases how are the parents
supposed to know? Would it not be handy to have an email
sent straight to your inbox or a text message to your phone
before you go through the trouble of fighting through rush
hour traffic just to be turned away?

No-one checks for school closures on a daily basis, this
site is just a quick and easy way for the school to notify
all parents and staff members who subscribe to that school
to let them know that the school is closed in an instant.

Anyone can change the status of a school through the
website, once a status change has been initialized
notifications are sent out to those who requested them
stating that the schools status has changed but is
UNVERIFIED. We will then contact the school to verify this
information (we are currently working on a way of
automating this), once the school has verified its status a
further notification will be sent out stating this.

Some of you may be concerned about the potential for pupils
shutting the school down if they ever find out about the
website, that is why the notifications are labelled as
UNVERIFIED until the school themselves confirm the closure,
this site is still a work in progress and is continually
been updated and this method may well be restructured in
the near future.

This site is currently free for all to use whilst it is
getting its footing, however the most likely thing will be
that the people receiving text notifications will be
charged a very small amount to cover the costs of this
service. Schools may well find this preferable to software
such as homecontact as the school themselves do not incur
any cost.

Please give it a shot and let me know what you think, any
and all suggestion welcome.

http://sc.primaryschoolict.com/  

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