How the System Works

The NewsFromSchool.com website is used by schools to send sms text messages to the mobiles of their pupils’ parents or guardians.

The users of the system (Head Teacher, School Administrator, Teachers) login to the website using a mobile number and a password assigned to them. This can be their own mobile number or that of a mobile phone owned by the school. All text messages sent by a user appear on the recipient’s phone as coming from the mobile number used to logon to the system. This means that recipients can reply to the messages they receive and the replies go directly to the mobile number used to login to the website. These replies do not come through the NewsFromSchool.com website and are simply normal text messages being sent from one mobile phone to another and charged accordingly by O2, Vodafone or whoever the account is with.

Each pupil in a school will have one contact mobile number on the NewsFromSchool.com system to which all messages for that pupil’s parents will be sent. The pupils within a school can be split into different groups.  For instance you may have a group setup for the 5th Class Football team. When you send a message to that group it only goes to the mobiles of the parents of the pupils in that group.

A copy of the message also goes to the mobile number used for logging into the system. This serves as an indicator to the user that the message was sent correctly.

A pupil can be in more than one group and there is no limit to the number of groups a school can have on the system.

A message can also be sent to one pupil’s contact mobile or to one number not stored in the system instead of to a group. When a message is sent to just one pupil’s contact mobile a copy of the message is not sent to the mobile of the user sending the message.

The only cost to the school to use the NewsFromSchool.com website is for the text messages sent. Each text message costs 2.5 cent. This cost is inclusive of vat at 21%. So, if a school sends a message to a group containing 30 pupils the costs will be 30 x 2.5 (the parents) + 2.5 cent (confirmation message sent to user) = €0.775. That’s less than €1 to get a message to the parents of a whole class.

This is not a prepay service so there’s no need to load up your account paying for messages you have not yet sent. Instead we will invoice the school by email on a monthly basis or once per term depending on usage. The school then pays the invoice by cheque as they would with any other product or service.

The NewsFromSchool.com service will work with SERCO’s Facility software. This means that your school can use Facility to send SMS text messages to parents without having to logon to the NewsFromSchool.com website. The usage data for messages sent from Facility will appear under your Usage menu item on the NewsFromSchool.com website. Charges for text messages sent via SERCO’s Facility software are the same as for those sent directly via the website.