26 September 2023

School alerts at your fingertips

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A new app that will allow parents to receive real-time alerts should a school need to close during a crisis has been launched by the Department of Education.

Minister for Education, Sarah Mitchell said the app would ensure parents received immediate alerts if their child’s school was to be closed the following day.

“The past few months have been incredibly challenging both for school communities in bushfire and now flood impacted areas,” Ms Mitchell said.

“We have learnt you can never over-communicate in a crisis,” she said.

“This app provides an extra channel to inform parents if their children’s school is closed.”

Ms Mitchell said that at the peak of the bushfire crisis in November, there were up to 20,000 people a minute accessing school safety information on the Department’s website – and a total of 1.35 million visitors in the last four months.

“The app will expand over time to provide more centralised information to parents and families,” she said.

“It will be particularly helpful for parents with children at separate schools, as multiple schools can be registered on the app to provide local information.”

Ms Mitchell said the Schools Update app was available at app stores for iOS and Android users.

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