CATTAI Public School is communicating with pupils' parents in an instant through a Skoolbag.
Skoolbag is an app which texts messages to parents, sometimes as soon as information becomes available.
"We use it to tell parents of events at the school and we can also send out the school newsletter in electronic form," Cattai Public's principal Matthew Carter said.
"We have a website and a Facebook account, but we found that people were often too busy to regularly access them."
He said the school had more success with Facebook and was once able to inform parents of up-to-minute changes on a sports day caused by rainy weather.
"But with Skoolbag, I can send messages directly to parents' phones," Mr Carter said.
"The school also wants to make communications more electronic because it saves on paper.
"We've only got 60 kids, but when you multiply that by the number of pages in a newsletter, that's a lot of paper."
Parents can also use Skoolbag to send the school absentee notes, along with doctor's certificates and signatures.
Mr Carter said Cattai Public introduced the app this year.
"Parents who are on Skoolbag like it; one said the message is right there in your face, so you don't forget it," he said.
However, he said not all parents had yet taken it up, so the school was organising a parents' information evening about the technology.
Mr Carter wants to carry Skoolbag further.
"If kids in a year 1 class, say, were putting pictures on a wall, their teacher could take photos and send them exclusively to those kids' parents," he said.
"I'd like to put discussion points on Skoolbag.
"We have P and C meetings, but unfortunately the kids' fathers don't often come to them, because they can't get to the school all the time."
He said there would always be a place for face-to-face parent-teacher interactions, but Skoolbag could help where this was not possible.
"What we're trying to do with this app is bridge the gap between home and school," Mr Carter said.
