The importance of communication in schools
Effective communication methods are crucial in an educational environment. They not only support the continuous learning journey of students of all ages but also ensure the safety of both staff and students during emergencies, such as lockdowns, fire drills, and evacuations.
Keeping parents and guardians informed about school updates and individual student progress builds trust and strengthens relationships.
Why Communication Matters
Learning
Effective staff coordination ensures consistent management of timetables, meetings, and processes. Furthermore, integrating a telephone system with education platforms reduces administrative time and helps create an organised and supportive environment.
Safety
When an emergency arises, schools need to share accurate information quickly, enabling staff members to coordinate procedures and responses effectively, reducing confusion and panic, and keeping parents informed.
Reputation
Educational institutions that communicate well are seen as professional, trustworthy and well-managed. When a school is viewed as reputable, it attracts top talent and increases opportunities for funding and industry partnerships.
Phone systems for schools
Telephone systems facilitate clear communication among staff, teachers, and external stakeholders. They play a crucial role in managing daily operations, delivering urgent messages, and responding quickly during emergencies.
Modern hosted telephony systems, such as Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), help reduce costs, can integrate with existing school technology, and support remote learning. Additionally, phone systems can assist with business continuity when supported by the appropriate backup and connectivity solutions.
The benefits of VoIP for Schools
VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) offers schools a cost-effective and flexible solution for enhancing communication, modernising their systems, and supporting student welfare initiatives.
Cost-Effective Communication
- Budget-friendly for campus-wide communication
- Cloud management enables quick installation and easy scalability
Flexible Licensing
- Add or remove licenses/extensions as needed, only pay for what you use
- Helps manage costs as communication needs evolve
Modernised
- Replaces outdated landlines with modern, cloud-based systems
- Enables future-ready communication in line with the UK PSTN switch-off
Enhanced Features
- Alarms and alerting systems support communication needs identified in Martyn’s Law
- Provides anonymous student welfare helplines for reporting bullying and mental health concerns
Why choose SCG?
SCG offers phone systems designed specifically for schools. Working closely with educational institutions to understand their needs, we have created solutions shaped to fit school workflows, while keeping things budget-friendly and easy to deploy and manage.
SCG operates its own hosted platform, Evonex. Designed with safeguarding in mind, Evonex includes essential features such as security and lockdown alarms, Microsoft Teams integration, and school-wide paging. These functionalities enable quick responses during emergencies and support safeguarding practices aligned with Ofsted expectations.
Having our own platform allows for complete transparency in development timelines, ensuring that we can implement what our customers need.
Key features of Evonex:
- Can equip every classroom with a handset, enabling site-wide, two-way communication
- Education-specific licences that offer relevant features whilst keeping costs low
- MIS integrations such as Arbor, Bromcom, CPOMS & Wonde
- Screen-Pop Enhancements – Pop MIS contact details before, during, or after answering a call
- CPOMS Incident Reporting to report safeguarding incidents directly from Evonex Connect
- Built-in security and lockdown alarms as standard
- Call routing options to ensure enquiries reach the right person quickly
- School-wide paging system with a variety of tones
- Call recording and reporting tools to monitor and track all call activity, supporting safeguarding and accountability
Orwell Park: Transitioning to VoIP for schools
Orwell Park School, a co-educational day and boarding prep school, needed to upgrade its costly and cumbersome ISDN30 system. David Horton also needed a quieter method to alert students to emergencies without the use of disruptive bells.
SCG installed a robust, secure and flexible VoIP system, working alongside the school’s existing connectivity.
- Flexible infrastructure that grows and contracts with the school’s needs
- Easy to deploy handsets in each classroom and across the site
- A variety of non-obtrusive tones for security alerts and drills
Upgrade to a secure, school-ready VoIP system today.
Get robust, secure, purpose-built communications, tailored for education.