Changelog
Follow up on the latest improvements and updates.
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new
Engagement
Eduspot
Teachers2Parents
Introducing rewards and recognition e-cards: Celebrate student success and strengthen parental engagement
Schools can now send personalised digital recognition cards directly to parents, making positive communication more meaningful and memorable while strengthening parental engagement.
What's New?
Rewards and Recognition (eCards) are now available within the email composer of Teachers2Parents. With eCards, schools can celebrate achievements, recognise attendance, reward positive behaviour, and mark important milestones, helping to strengthen connections between home and school.
A range of eCard templates are available to support different events, and each card can be personalised using message tokens.


How it works
Click here to watch a demo
- Select an eCard template to attach to an email when composing a message.
- Personalisation tokens automatically populate student information, allowing cards to be sent to multiple students at once.
- The completed eCard is attached to the email and delivered directly to parents.
- For parents using the Eduspot app, the message is delivered via push notification and the eCard can be viewed directly within the app.
Key Benefits:
- Increase parental engagement through positive and meaningful communication
- Celebrate student achievements, effort, attendance, and milestones with ease
- Save time with ready to use templates and automatic student data population
- Reduce printing costs by sending digital recognition cards
new
improved
Engagement
Teachers2Parents
Easily filter through your contact list with the new multi-sort function in Teachers2Parents
Managing contact lists in Teachers2Parents is now easier. The new multi-sort function makes it possible to sort contacts more efficiently using multiple criteria at the same time, making it quicker to find and organise contacts.
What's New?
Using this function allows Groups and Contacts to be sorted using multiple sorting criteria simultaneously, rather than sorting one after the other.
The multi-sort function can be used in message draft when selecting recipients and in the contact management section of Teachers2Parents.
For example, you can sort contacts by Year and then by Forename, helping you organise and manage contact lists more effectively.
NB:
It can be turned off at any time using the toggle button and easily turned back on whenever needed.

See how it works
- Watch a demo using this link Key Benefits
- Find relevant contacts and groups more quickly
- Reduce time spent repeatedly changing sort options
- Improve efficiency when working with large contact list
new
Engagement
Groupcall
Teachers2Parents
Teachers2Parents can now translate incoming parent messages.
Schools can now translate incoming messages into English directly from the message thread. This help staff better understand and respond to communications from families who speak English as an additional language.


PS: Outgoing messages cannot currently be translated. This feature is however available in Groupcall.
Key Benefit(s)
- Improve communication with families who speak English as an additional language
- Help staff quickly understand incoming messages without needing external translation tools
- Support stronger engagement between schools and parents
- Save time when reviewing and responding to messages
How it works
When a parent sends a message in another language, the incoming message can be translated into English within the message thread making it easier for school staff to understand the content and continue the conversation.
new
Engagement
Groupcall
Teachers2Parents
Schools can now identify and prioritise urgent and safeguarding related messages with the new AI powered Sentiment Triage function in T2P and Groupcall.
Incoming messages on Groupcall and Teachers2Parents now have an AI powered Sentiment Triage function, helping schools identify parent communications that may require urgent attention or safeguarding review so staff can prioritise important messages more efficiently.


What's New?
- AI automatically reviews incoming parent messages and identifies those that may be Urgent or Safeguarding related.
- A dedicated safeguarding workflow allows staff to review, manage and escalate flagged messages.
- Explanation views provide context on why a message has been flagged.
- Actions such as forwarding and acknowledgements are automatically tracked.
- Staff can record safeguarding notes and contextual information against flagged messages.
- Designated Safeguarding Leads (DSLs) are prioritised within safeguarding workflows.
- DSLs can override AI decisions or manually raise concerns when required.
- Full safeguarding history records reviews, forwards, acknowledgements, overrides and dismissals.
- Schools can create custom watch phrases that the system will automatically flag.


Watch the demos:
Key Benefits
- Identify potentially urgent concerns more quickly.
- Reduce the need for manual monitoring of incoming messages.
- Support consistent safeguarding processes across school teams.
- Improve accountability with a clear audit trail of actions taken.
- Help ensure concerns are routed to the appropriate staff promptly.
Important:
- The safeguarding flag is a signal, not a determination. AI helps identify messages that may require attention based on set watch phrases but does not make safeguarding decisions. All safeguarding decisions remain the responsibility of trained school staff.
- AI does not replace safeguarding processes, access student records, train on school data or retain message content after processing.
- The function must be enabled by an Admin before it can be used.

How it works
- AI reviews incoming parent messages and highlights those that may require urgent attention or indicate a safeguarding concern.
- Staff can review the explanation provided, add notes, forward concerns and record actions taken.
- DSLs can review, override or manually raise safeguarding concerns where appropriate.
- All activity is recorded to provide a complete safeguarding history.
Watch the demos:
improved
Analytics
Assembly
Attendance reports now provide a more complete view
This is an update to this log - https://venturedsolutions.canny.io/changelog/faster-and-more-accurate-attendance-reporting-for-trust-leaders
Attendance reports now include all students relevant to the selected reporting period by default, helping provide a more complete and consistent picture of attendance.
What's New?
- Attendance reports now default to including all students, rather than only those who are currently on roll.
- This means attendance figures will reflect all students relevant to the selected reporting period, including students who have since left where applicable.
- The On Roll filter remains available for trusts that wish to report on current students only.
Key Benefit(s)
- Gain a more complete view of attendance across the reporting period.
- Improve consistency when comparing attendance data over time.
- Ensure reporting reflects all relevant students, including leavers where applicable
new
improved
Payments
SchoolMoney
A simpler way to navigate SchoolMoney is here!
Getting around SchoolMoney is now quicker and more intuitive with the updated navigation experience designed to help schools access key tasks and information more easily.
What's New?
- SchoolMoney now has an improved side navigation menu that stays visible while you work, making it easier to move between areas of the product.
- Related features and tools are grouped more clearly, helping you find what you need with fewer clicks.
- The update also introduces improved list views on selected reporting pages, including: Dinner History, Club History, and Club Arrears.



Key Benefits
- Find key areas of SchoolMoney more quickly
- Move between common tasks with less effort
- Reduced learning curve for new users
How it works
The navigation menu remains visible while you work, making it easier to move between tasks and key areas of the platform. If you need more screen space, the menu can be collapsed while still remaining easily accessible.
Click here to watch a demo
new
Engagement
Payments
Groupcall
SchoolMoney
Teachers2Parents
Greater visibility of school engagement for trust leaders and local authorities with the new school-wide Performance Hub.
The new Performance Hub for Multi Academy Trusts and Local Authorities is now available. It provides a single view of communications and payments trends across schools, using data already available to help flag issues, recommend actions, and provide a platform for comparison.
NB: This feature is available for trusts and local authorities with schools using VenturEd Solutions communications and payments products.
What's New?
The MAT/LA Performance Hub brings together insights from existing communications and payments data into a single dashboard, helping leaders understand how schools are performing across their organisation.
The hub provides visibility into:
- Eduspot app adoption across schools
- Parent engagement and communication reach
- Payment completion and outstanding balances
- Areas of operational risk, with recommendations to address them
- Performance trends over time
- A compare feature to compare performance between schools


Click Here to watch the demo


Key Benefits
- Get a single source of truth
- Monitor financial exposure, debt and overdue balances
- Make evidence-based decisions with confidence
- Detect potential issues earlier with clear risk indicators
- Compare schools across a trust or local authority to identify which schools may need additional support
Click Here to watch the demo
new
improved
Analytics
Assembly
Gain deeper exclusion insights with flexible benchmarking on Assembly
We have made updates to the
Exclusions Report
on Assembly to make benchmarking more flexible, allowing you to compare exclusion rates against national, local authority and regional averages. Benchmark data is also updated automatically as new statistics become available, helping ensure your comparisons remain current. We have also updated the interface, introducing a new comparison page, richer breakdown tables and colour coded performance indicators.What's New?
- Flexible benchmarking across the report
- New benchmark comparison page
- Enhanced benchmarking insights
- Expanded suspension analysis
- Richer reasons analysis
- Performance improvements to the Suspension Rate student drilldown table
Key Updates
1. Compare against National, Local Authority and Regional benchmarks
A new
Benchmark Selector
is now available across all pages of the Exclusions Report. This allows you to switch between National, Local Authority and Regional averages when reviewing exclusion data.Once selected, KPI cards, breakdown tables and comparison charts automatically update to reflect your chosen benchmark. When comparing against Local Authority or Regional averages, the report uses the selected school's local authority and region to ensure the comparison remains relevant.
This means for you can quickly move between national, local and regional perspectives without leaving the page, making it easier to understand performance in the context that matters most.

2. Dynamic Benchmark Labels
Always know which benchmark you are viewing. Dynamic labels have been added alongside KPI cards to clearly display the benchmark currently being used, such as
"vs National", "vs LA" or "vs Regional".
The labels update automatically whenever the Benchmark Selector changes so you can immediately see which benchmark your results are being compared against without needing to check the Benchmark Selector separately.
3. Phase-Aware Benchmarking
Benchmark comparisons now automatically reflect the phase of the selected school, including Primary, Secondary, Special and All Through settings. When no school is selected, the report defaults to the All-through (total) figure. This ensures benchmark comparisons are aligned to the type of school being analysed, helping provide more meaningful insights.
4. Automatically updated benchmark data
Benchmark figures used throughout the report now update automatically whenever the report is refreshed. This means benchmark comparisons always use the latest available data without requiring manual intervention. The Information tooltip button has also been enhanced to show which academic year benchmark data is being drawn from.

5. New Page — vs LA vs Regional
This page displays suspension and permanent exclusion rates alongside Local Authority, Regional and National averages through summary cards and comparison charts. This means you can view all benchmark levels side by side and quickly understand how your school's performance compares across different geographical contexts.

6. KPI cards now reflect your selected benchmark
All KPI cards now use the selected benchmark as their target/goal value. The KPI target line and colour coding (above/below target) update when the Benchmark Selector is changed.
Pages affected:
Overview · Drilldown · Suspensions by Groups · Permanent Exclusions by Groups · Suspension Rate · Suspensions Vs National 7. Benchmarks Added to Breakdown Tables
Benchmark values have been added to FSM, Gender and SEND breakdown tables. School rates and benchmark rates can now be viewed together within the same table. This mean you no longer need to compare figures across multiple visuals, making benchmarking quicker and easier to interpret.
Pages affected:
Suspensions by Groups · Permanent Exclusions by Groups 
Additionally, the rate columns in the breakdown tables are now colour coded:
🟢
Green text
— the school's rate is below
the benchmark average (performing better) 🔴
Red text
— the school's rate is at or above
the benchmark average (cause for attention) Where no benchmark exists for a particular group (for example, the Non-FSM row), no colour is shown. Areas performing above or below benchmark can be identified more quickly without manually comparing rates.
8. Side-by-Side Benchmark Comparison on Suspension Rate Charts
Suspension Rate charts for FSM, SEND and Gender groups now include benchmark comparison bars alongside school values. Each group is compared directly against the equivalent benchmark rate for that group. These visual comparisons are easier to interpret and provide greater context than a single benchmark line.

9. New Chart on the Suspensions Vs National Page
A new 1+ Suspension Rate by School chart has been added to the Suspensions vs National page.
The chart shows the proportion of pupils with one or more suspensions and includes benchmark comparison data. This helps to gain more complete understanding of suspension patterns across schools.
Page affected:
Suspensions Vs National 
10. Richer analysis of exclusion reasons
The Reasons page has been enhanced to include both suspension incidents and permanent exclusions by reason. Drilldown analysis has also been expanded to allow you to explore exclusion types within each reason category. This means you can better understand not only why exclusions occur, but also the volume and type of exclusion activity behind each reason.
Page affected:
Reasons 
11. Faster Loading on the Suspension Rate Page
The detailed student level drilldown table on the Suspension Rate page has been optimised. This improves responsiveness when drilling from school through to individual pupil level, particularly for schools with large numbers of suspension records.
Page affected:
Suspension Rate (student drilldown table) 
12. Compare exclusion reasons against benchmark trends
A new Suspension Reason vs Benchmark table has been added to the Reasons page.
The table allows schools to compare both suspension and permanent exclusion reason distributions against National, Local Authority and Regional averages. The Benchmark Selector controls which benchmark is displayed.
It displays per school and per reason:
- # Suspensions— raw count
- % Susp by Reason— school's % distribution across reasons
- Benchmark Susp Rate by Reason— National / LA / Regional benchmark % (controlled by the Benchmark Selector slicer)
- # Permanent— raw perm exclusion count
- % Perm by Reason— school's perm % distribution across reasons
- Benchmark Perm Rate by Reason— benchmark perm % by reason
This mean you can quickly identify whether specific reasons for exclusion occur more or less frequently than expected when compared with similar schools and benchmark groups.
Page affected:
Reasons
Key Benefit(s)
- Compare exclusion rates against national, local authority and regional benchmarks
- Access benchmark data that updates automatically
- Gain more meaningful insights with phase specific benchmarking
- View benchmark values directly alongside school performance data
- Identify trends faster using visual benchmark indicators
- Analyse exclusion reasons in greater depth
- Understand performance across multiple benchmark levels from one place
- Benefit from improved report performance and data accuracy
new
improved
Analytics
Assembly
Faster and more accurate attendance reporting for trust leaders
We have made attendance reporting faster on Assembly. This improvement means attendance data is now stored and processed more efficiently, improving performance, reliability, and scalability.
What's New?
- Attendance processing and storage have been optimised to improve efficiency without changing reporting detail.
- Nightly data refreshes at 9pm, ensuring reports include attendance data up to the previous day.
- Historic attendance reporting is now automated, removing the need for manual setup and saving time.
- Year-to-date reports now include National Persistent Absence for the current academic year.
- Expanded enrolment types in reporting, including G (Guest), S (Subsidiary), andO (Other).
- Historical attendance reporting has been enhanced with clearer summaries and trends.
NB:
Historic attendance report covers up to 3 academic years by default and 1 academic year for larger trusts.
Key Benefits
- Faster reporting with quicker-loading dashboards and outputs.
- Better decision-making with up-to-date and reliable attendance insights.
- Reduced admin effort through automated reporting setup and maintenance.
- Greater visibility of key measures such as National Persistent Absence.
- Increased flexibility with broader enrolment type support.
We’ve given the incoming message experience in
Teachers2Parents
and Groupcall
a significant upgrade to better support schools and trusts in improving parental engagement. This update brings conversations, contact details and key actions together in one place, making it easier to manage messages and build more meaningful connections with parents.What’s New?
The Incoming Messages experience has been refreshed across both Groupcall and T2P, with tailored updates for each platform as outlined below.
- Automatic “Action Required” status for attendance related messages
- New “View Attendance” option showing a full audit trail of attendance updates for a student
- Contact Details panel added to the conversation screen to manage contact preferences, omissions with end dates, related contacts and message history
- Eduspot App indicator showing whether a contact uses the app and when they last registered
- Log Communication feature to capture offline interactions such as phone calls, meetings and letters directly in the conversation history
- Forward and Note functionality
Groupcall
- “Action Required” status flag for attendance related messages
- Automatic Action Taken status when adding notes or updating attendance
- In-thread message translation
- View Attendance option showing a full audit trail of attendance updates for a student
- Contact Details panel within conversations to manage contact preferences, omissions with end dates, related contacts and message history
- Eduspot App indicator showing whether a contact uses the mobile app and when they last registered
- Log Communication feature to record offline interactions such as phone calls, meetings and letters in the conversation history
- Forward and Note adding functionality
**Click here to watch the Groupcall demo**


Teachers2Parents
- Incoming message translation
- Forward and Note functionality within conversations
- Notes can be used to track actions taken, information or follow up tasks
- Automatic Action Taken status when notes are marked or messages are forwarded
- Contact Details panel to manage contact preferences, omissions with end dates, related contacts and message history
- Ability to set omissions to run until a specific date
- Welsh translations across the experience


**Click here to watch the Teachers2Parents demo**
Key Benefits
- Strengthen parental engagement with a complete view of every conversation and interaction
- Supports clear message audit trails with a full communication history of messages
- Reduce manual admin with automatic action tracking
- Improve visibility of Eduspot App through app usage insights
- Simplify contact management with easy access to preferences, omissions and related contacts
- Keep all communication records including offline interactions in one place
**Click here to watch the Groupcall demo**
**Click here to watch the Teachers2Parents demo**
How it works
- Incoming messages are managed through a unified conversation view combining messages, notes and actions
- The Contact Details panel provides quick access to contact preferences, omissions, related contacts and communication history
- Selecting View Attendance shows a full audit trail of attendance updates for the selected student
- Log Communication allows staff to record offline discussions which appear within the conversation history
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