3 Easy Ways to Reduce Paper Use at School
It’s unrealistic to expect that a school could go completely paperless. But there are ways to reduce the amount of paper you use, which come with some attractive benefits:
- Improve organisation and storage
- Save time on lengthy, paper-based processes
- Store documents more securely
- Reduce waste and improve school sustainability
- Cut costs on paper and printing
So, how can you make it happen?
1: Take School-Parent Communication Online
Keeping parents engaged in their child’s school life is critical for so many reasons – from promoting good attendance to keeping children happy at school. So it’s vital that you ensure your communication with parents is clear and engaging.
Letters home can get squashed at the bottom of a backpack. Or lost. Then all that time you spent printing and photocopying goes to waste and, worst of all, the message doesn’t even get read.
Bringing your communication online means you can reliably reach parents by sending messages directly to their phone or email. For everything from an absence chaser to a full colour newsletter, you’ll be able to keep parents informed and engaged while reducing the amount of time and resources it takes you to communicate with them.
There are a number of digital messaging platforms you can use for school-parent messaging, with varying features and costs. For example, Studybugs offers a free messaging platform and an optional free parent app. Zero paper, instant notifications, engaged parents.
2: Securely Store Records Online
We come across a fair number of schools who print off information that could be easily kept online, and in some cases already is.
Your MIS stores a wealth of information from pupil attendance to contact records, although we do appreciate that MISs aren’t always easy to navigate. But that doesn’t mean you need to resort to paper for easy access to the information you need.
It’s definitely worth looking beyond your MIS to other platforms that store and display data in an easily accessible way, without the need to run complicated reports or print anything out.
3: Primary School? It’s Time To Ditch Paper Registers
It’s easy to make the change to online registers. Many MISs let you enter the register directly, but you could make it even easier (and more fun!) for staff and pupils by using Studybugs.
Studybugs Registers allows children to self-register as they enter the classroom. It makes registration fun and super quick. Marks are automatically entered into your MIS and children can choose their lunch with just one tap. These are automatically emailed to your kitchen staff, so there’s no need to print off lunch choices either.
Conclusion
They may sound like simple steps, but there are still schools who keep processes on paper when they could easily do the same thing digitally.
Studybugs provides all the tools you need to easily manage pupil attendance and registers, messaging parents,
children’s health and wellbeing and more completely online. If you don’t use Studybugs already,
— Lucas Abbott