I have two children at different schools who both use Weduc for communication. The app gets the job done with one glaring fault - the app does not filter emails or calendar items by school/child. So I select the relevant school from the drop down at the top of the screen, click on calendar but it shows entries for both schools. So I then have to click on the entry to find out which school/child has, for example, an inset day. If I’ve selected the school I want to see information for at the top of the screen, why does it then show entries for both schools? This causes a great deal of confusion. Same with trawling through emails from both schools as they’ve all been lumped in together. 🤯

Within the app, there are so many things overlapping each other. A general message displayed could then be added into the mail box so you will need to read the same message from different places or else it keeps notifying you that there is an unread message. But the worse function is payment. It is so confusingly designed and it feels like you are battling in a labyrinth trying to get your way out. But the worst part is after you have entered your payment card details, there is a message popping out warning you about a fee that your bank may charge. And that message won’t go away, only displays “back” button and not “continue” for you to select. When I thought the “continue” maybe under the “back” button, I tried to swipe the message up slightly so I can see and select “continue” if there is one. Instead, it swiped up the background message and not the front one that is displaying on your screen. In the end, I couldn’t make the payment to the school at all. How on earth would schools use an app that is so user unfriendly and so useless due to its poor design?

The old app was very clunky. The new interface is much cleaner but it still takes too many taps to get to information - open the app, select the school, tap that you have new notifications, tap the new item, tap the link to see the post. Finding anything a second time involves even more clicks as notifications have no content preview or author info to help, and with a newsfeed and notices to check it’s easy to lose content after a few days.Reports sent out this week can’t be opened in the app - it crashes every time.When composing a message to a member of school staff, there’s no way to minimise the keyboard to see the attachment and send icons.Not all attendance codes are visible in the app, so session numbers for am and pm don’t tally if anything that counts as present but isn’t a / or \ is used for a session.Notifications take ages to clear and often require restarting the app to get the badge to disappear.

I chose this app for our schools because it offers a range of messaging options. Ideally most parents use the app and you can send in-app messages for free. But if they don’t download the app you can email them, or text them or even print out a letter. So you can be sure you are reaching everyone in your school community. The in-app messages are great because they pop up on your phone/tablet, so don’t get lost in people’s in boxes. Other features include notices, a calendar, newsfeed, online forms, homework management, document storage and the option to add an online parents’ evening system and a payments system. So essentially you can bring all your school info and systems for parents together in one place.They have listened to our feedback and incorporated our suggestions into the product’s development.As a parent I have found it invaluable for receiving import at info during lockdown.