ClassGrid — School Operations & Parent Portal

The Challenge

A network of 24 independent schools was operating on a tangle of 9 different vendor systems for attendance, fee billing, parent comms, behaviour tracking and admissions. Parents received messages via three apps, two emails and SMS — leading to a 38% miss rate on critical updates. Finance teams were spending 60% of the month chasing fee defaults. Heads wanted a single platform with one app for parents and one dashboard for staff.

Our Approach

1. Replaced 9 vendor systems with a single multi-school SaaS platform — per-school theming, shared platform infrastructure.
2. Single parent app: attendance, messages, payments, consent forms, behaviour reports and calendar in one place.
3. GoCardless Direct Debit integration with automated dunning that reduced default rates from 14% to 1.8%.
4. Behaviour & SEN tracking flowing into a single pupil record with audit trail for safeguarding requirements.
5. Phased rollout — one school per fortnight — with on-site training for office staff and a parent webinar at each launch.

The Results

• 24 schools live with 11,400 active families across the network.
• Parent app adoption at 99% within 30 days of school launch (industry average ~45%).
• Fee default rate dropped from 14% to 1.8% — equivalent to £820k/year recovered across the network.
• 9 vendor contracts cancelled — annual saving of £193k in licence fees alone.
• Office admin time per pupil per term reduced from 42 mins to 11 mins.

Stack & Disciplines