The time comes to organize a school trip, but the information circulars never make it home, and keeping track of who has paid and who hasn’t becomes a real headache. Does this sound familiar? It does to us. That’s why we want to give you some tips to manage school trips and notifications in a simple way—without chaos!

Would you like to digitize all kinds of forms and the signing of consent forms? Our advisory team will show you just how easy it can be with Additio App.

If you’re interested in improving school management, take a look at our article on school guards, or our post on how to manage summer camps. In them, we share tips to help you spend less and less time on administrative tasks—and more time teaching.

That said, let’s dive straight into the post!

Challenges when managing school trips and other notifications

How are trips and notifications managed at your school? You’re probably doing it manually, on paper, or with disconnected digital tools that don’t allow you to see the status in real time. All of this leads to several challenges and difficulties worth considering:

• Circulars and notifications that never make it home—or never make it back to the classroom. When you hand a piece of paper to children or teenagers, it’s quite common for it to get lost among other sheets or at the bottom of a backpack. This slows down the process of managing school trips and notifications.
• Difficulty knowing who has paid or given their consent. Collecting responses becomes complicated when papers are scattered in many places instead of being unified so that information is easily accessible.
• Ease of forging signatures. Students can easily sign as if they were one of their parents or guardians, making it harder for essential information to reach families. This is especially relevant in cases such as attendance at family meetings, signing incident reports, etc.
• Time consumption. Managing school trips and other types of notifications manually involves a significant amount of time and repetitive tasks. This, in turn, leads to wear and tear on the people responsible for these tasks.

So, what does efficient management of school trips and other notifications require?

To manage school trips and send notifications effectively, this is the key to success:

• Digitization and centralization of information: To save time and paper, it’s essential to digitize these communication processes and the sharing of information related to trips or other permissions. This also makes it possible to keep all information unified in one place and easily accessible to those who need it (tutors, administrative staff, etc.). It’s also important to note that the information will be protected and secure—unlike printed documents whose exact whereabouts are often unknown.
• Clear communication with families: It’s essential to keep families informed of any progress in the management of trips or outings, as quickly as possible. This is also crucial in the case of last-minute changes. For example, it’s common to change the date of a trip due to bad weather, or to require students to bring a specific item for the next day’s outing.
• Digital confirmation or signature: With paper circulars, it’s easy for them never to be returned signed—or for signatures to be forged. Therefore, having a system for digital confirmation or signing is key to successfully managing school trips.
• Real-time control: You need to be able to see, in real time, who has received the information, who has confirmed it, who still needs to pay, etc. This will save you time when sending reminders and help ensure that everything moves forward as planned.

Digitize trip management and gain peace of mind

Now you know what you need to make managing trips simple and headache-free. But do you know which tools you have at your disposal to do it?

Thanks to the forms and consent module in Additio App, your school will have everything it needs in a single tool:

• Data centralization: Any form or consent you send will be stored and recorded, along with the responses. This allows you to keep all data unified in one tool. In addition, exporting data in bulk is very easy. Goodbye loose circulars!
• Digital signature option: Families receive forms instantly and can sign them digitally with their finger—no need for their children to bring the circular back to class.
• Attached documentation: Do you need to attach a document, image, or any other file? With this feature, you can attach all kinds of documents and links.
• Sending reminders: Has someone not responded yet? No problem—you can send a reminder instantly, only to those who haven’t responded.

In addition, with the communication features, you can create channels to inform families about everything related to the trip or outing. All families will be informed immediately of any last-minute changes!

If you want to use consent forms and forms at your school, request a free demo.

And not just for trips…

This feature will also be useful for image rights permissions, recording food intolerances in the cafeteria, informing families about special occasions at the school, and much more!

What will you use forms and consent forms for? Tell us on social media: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Youtube.

Remember that with Additio App, you can carry out competency-based assessment that puts students at the center of the learning process, keeping them informed about their progress and helping them identify strengths and areas for improvement.
More than 150 features are here to help you enhance your teaching and student learning. Register now and boost your teaching!

See you in the next post!