To keep your child/ren safe and ensure their well-being, we are constantly looking for ways to improve our links with you and keep everyone up-to-date and well informed. As sending written information home is sometimes unreliable, we have Schoolcomms; an electronic school communication system. This will enable you to receive all your information from school quickly and reliably. We can send letters by email to your inbox and short messages directly to your mobile phone as a text message, or if you have an Apple or Android mobile phone, by app message.

You will:

  • Receive letters more reliably and promptly
  • See letters in your inbox like any other email
  • Get a short text or app message if we need to contact you urgently
  • Still get paper letters if you don’t have email
  • Not need to rely on your child for delivery

We can:

  • Send more letters and information
  • Save on admin time, printing and paper
  • Contact you urgently when necessary

Next steps:

  • The school will use the email address and mobile number that we hold for the Priority one contact(s).
  • Go to your app store and search for “School Gateway” and download the app
  • Once downloaded, select the “I’m a New User” button; enter your email address and mobile number that we have on record for you. Select Send PIN and a PIN number will be text to your mobile phone
  • Log in with your email address and the PIN, your account is now active and you will receive instant notifications of messages in your notifications bar
  • If you change your contact details please let the school know as soon as possible

Schoolcomms is registered with the data protection act. All information you provide will be kept private and will not be passed on to any other organisation. Your details will only be used for the purpose of school business. You will not receive any SPAM or marketing material.

If you have any questions or concerns please contact the Pastoral Office at school.

Schoolcomms Online Payment

Finding the right change or writing a cheque for the school trip or other items for school can be tiresome and time consuming. You or your child has to take the payment/s to school and the school office has to count and record it. At school, we have decided to use Schoolcomms to offer you an online payment method which puts you in control. You can access it at any time, track how much you have paid, what is outstanding and make payments directly to us using Instant Bank Transfer or your debit or credit card.

Getting started

You will need to register for a School Gateway account from www.schoolgateway.com. You will need to enter your email address and mobile number we have on record for you and it must be the same as the one you have provided in Section 3.

When you have entered your email address and mobile number, select the Send PIN button, a PIN number will be sent to your mobile phone. You can then use this PIN number to log into the School Gateway and view/make payments.

Payment requests

When there is money owing to school by you, we can set up payment requests and you will be notified by text or email that there is a payment request available. Simply log in using your email address and your PIN number, select the payment request(s) you wish to fulfil and follow the Wizard through to pay.

Convenient

You can give your consent for trips online, saving you the need to fill out permission slips and write notes into school about trips. When a trip is due you will be sent a text or an email to let you that you need to log in to the school gateway and give your consent, it’s as easy as that.

You can see a record of the payments that you’ve made and receipts are sent to your registered email address for all transactions you make. Depending on your school you will be able to see what meals have been taken by your child and your current meal balance and receive reminders to top up when you are getting low.

The system removes the need to send money into school with your child, removing the chance of money going astray, making it convenient for you to pay when it suits you, from anywhere at any time of day or night.

Secure

When making payments to school via School Gateway website, you will have the option to use Instant Bank Transfer as well as debit or credit card.

Instant Bank Transfer is a secure payment method and will not only make paying for school items faster for you, but it will also cut the cost to the school of processing online payments.

When using Instant Bank Transfer for the first time you will be asked to enter your bank account details. Once set up, on all future occasions, you’ll simply need to enter the amount you wish to pay the school and then click to authorise the payment.

We would encourage you to use this option to save yourself time and the school money.

Your card details are not visible or stored in the Schoolcomms or school system. All card information is processed by Barclaycard.

You log in using the email address registered with the school and with your PIN number.

If you have any questions about this, please contact the Pastoral Office at school.