Checking out the new Sentral for Parents app are Executive Officer of the ACT Council of Parents and Citizens Associations, Veronica Elliott, Education Minister Yvette Berry, parent Lauryne Grant and Hawker Primary principal Amy Czoban. Photo: Ian Bushnell.
Putting the kids on the bus to school may have had its moments this week, but one new piece of tech is set to make busy parents’ lives easier.
Hawker Primary School parent Lauryne Grant has been trialling the new Sentral for Parents app and has declared it a game-changer.
The app delivers all the functions of the Parent Portal – where school information and business can be securely accessed online – to your smartphone.
“Going from a position where all of the information was scattered across emails and paper copies and on the newsletter and all over the place, it’s just wonderful to have that single source of truth now,” Ms Grant said
“So if you miss anything, you don’t have to crawl back through your emails to find stuff.”
Ms Grant said that before the Parent Portal, which was rolled out this year, the payment systems were archaic and difficult to manage, but the app also meant any fees could be paid on the go.
“It really has made my life a lot easier,” she said.
“We’re all working and have lots of things on, but you don’t necessarily have a finger on the pulse all the time.”
As a piece of tech, the app had good functionality, and the experience was seamless. Education Minister Yvette Berry puts that down to a managed phase-in so it wasn’t rushed.
“We’ve been careful to make sure we phase it in to make sure it works straight up, starting with a smaller number of schools with the website and then developing the app and starting to roll the app out,” she said.
Education Minister Yvette Berry says more functions and improvements will be made to the app, including permission notes.
Ms Berry said the app was in response to parents who enjoyed using the Parent Portal but wanted more convenience.
The Portal has been gradually rolled out across all ACT public schools throughout this year and 24,405 parents have signed up.
This number is expected to grow now that the Sentral for Parents app is available.
Ms Berry said more functions and improvements would be added to the app as parent feedback came in, “because we know that there’s more that we can do, particularly around permission notes”.
“That’s still something that’s required to be done in paper form but we want to see that moving to electronic access because that’ll change the contact that parents have with schools and just make it easier for everyone.”
Executive Officer of the ACT Council of Parents and Citizens Associations Veronica Elliott said the Parent Portal and now the app highlighted the collaboration and partnership between schools and families, which was key to improving student outcomes.
Ms Elliott said she was confident the app would make a real difference for parents and how they interacted with their children’s school
“This app’s been through a lot of testing and the team at the directorate have been really responsive to feedback from council and from parents and carers in the community,” she said.
“One of the things that we’ll be really excited about when it comes is the need to no longer complete paper forms for excursions and things like that because there is a lot of duplication in that process.”
Hawker Primary School principal Amy Czoban said the Parent Portal had already reduced paperwork, particularly with payments and teacher workload.
“With everything being up there, and parents having access to everything, it means that there’s not as much chasing up that we have to do for notes and things like that, which is a job that the teachers would normally do, so this is definitely helping with the workload,” she said.
And for those few who might be comfortable with old-fashioned paper, Ms Berry reassured them that they would not be left behind.
“Schools will have ways that they communicate with parents, who might need that extra kind of contact,” she said.
“I expect that at some point in the future, the app will used by all parents, but there will always be some families who just need different kinds of contact and schools can do that already.”
Parents of new ACT public school students, including those starting kindergarten in 2025, will receive a registration link and access key from their school. They will need to set up an ACT Digital Account if they don’t already have one to register.
To learn more about the Parent Portal and the Sentral for Parents app, visit the Education Directorate website.
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