Schanionthe School Companion

A school community that staff read first

How a school-moderated student community can work: every post read by a teacher, shared attendance goals, no private messages and trophies for belonging.

By the Schanion team · · 2 min read

Students already have places to talk to each other, and a school has little say in how those places work. A school community inside the school's own software can do something those places cannot: it can be a space where staff set the rules and every post is read by a person before anyone else sees it.

The design choices matter more than the features. Here are the ones we made, and why.

Every student post is read first

A student's post waits until the teacher of that student approves it. A club leader reads club posts, and the council advisor reads council proposals. Staff posts, such as school news, publish straight away. A simple automatic check removes phone numbers, links and abuse before anything is stored, and anything about self-harm is never published: the student sees support information and the school's wellbeing process is told, without the post text.

No private messages, images or links

These are the three things that are hardest to keep safe, so the community does not have them. Students can thank each other with a shout-out, ask a question in a study group and back a proposal to school council, and all of it happens in the open.

A shared goal, never a personal record

Attendance can be a source of pressure. The community shows one figure for a whole year level, and only when the group is large enough that nobody can be picked out. When the group reaches its goal, everyone in it earns a trophy, whatever their own record. No student sees another student's attendance, and no trophy rewards a streak or a perfect record.

Trophies for belonging, not ranking

Trophies come in bronze, silver, gold and platinum, with levels named after pens. They are earned by joining a club, signing up for an event, helping in a study group or having a council proposal adopted. There are no public rankings, nothing is random, and the currency, called nibs, only buys rewards that a teacher approves. It never touches marks or mastery.

What a school should decide first

  • Who reads posts in each part of the community.
  • What rewards the school is happy to give.
  • Whether to switch it on at all. It is off in a new school until the administrator turns it on.

You can see how the community looks in the demonstration, and the pricing page shows that it is included for every school.

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