Class Dojo

[LuckyMum1989]

I get so frustrated by class dojo.

I get loads of messages that have an absolutely nothing to do with my child's class but gets sent to the whole school.

If you open a picture to look at it and then close the picture it zooms all the way back to the top of the screen so you have no idea where you are.

The only way to mark if you've seen anything is to press the heart button so I end up pressing heart on flipping everything just to know where I'm up to.

There's no search function so the four separate messages about DC's school trip could be anywhere.

It's certainly useful at times and I can see many benefits to the general idea, but think the design of the thing is absolutely shocking.

Does anyone out there actually rate Class Dojo as a well-designed app?? Given gow widely used it is, it must be considered decent, right? But WHY?!

You're not wrong

DD started high school in September so I paid to upgrade Dojo so that I could download and save all the photos and videos they'd put on from her being in Nursery all through to Y6...

Didn't work. Tried twice, paid both times and nothing. It's a terrible app!

Glad I hadn't upgraded! I had wondered if maybe the paid version was better - but apparently not..

Why on earth is it so popular?!

Yes I hate that there is no search function as it makes it so hard to search for information you know had been provided.

It's brilliant just for giving points in class which I imagine is how it's mostly used. I don't know any teacher or school who uses more of the features than that, though obviously some do.

Oh my goodness, I wish it was like that for us! EVERYTHING goes on it at DD's school!

• We've found a pair of age 9-10 black leggings with no label, please come and claim from Y4 locker room
• Boy's football training tonight is cancelled
• Y2 have a school trip next week. Details of pick-up/drop-off time time changes and a reminder of what to pack
• Please can parents mind their language in the playground?
• Timmy in Y6 has won a black belt in some sport
• A week on Monday is "wear purple day. Donations of £1 if possible"
• Attendance in Y3 has dipped below target - here's a link to explain why attendance is important.
• Here is this week's lunch menu
• Would any Y5 be interested in an afterschool bookclub? Here's a survey monkey list
• It's world book day - list of ideas

...And buried deep in that list (I had 20 notifications just today.. 15 of which were for other year groups) your child got a point for good turn taking.

ALL sent to everyone in the school regardless of what class the child is in. I have one DD in the reception class.... I don't care if the Y6 boy's football team need a reminder to take their kits home to wash before half term!!

And every time you open a notification, halfway down your list, as soon as you close it, you're back to the most recent notification reminding Y3 parents that it's their "artwork exhibition" and you have to start scrolling again. It does my tree in!

I don’t mean this as a dig at all, but - turn notifications off?

I just checked Class Dojo. There’s all sorts of irrelevant stuff, whole school assemblies etc. But I just check it once every few days and scroll through quickly, only stopping to look at the relevant bits.

If there’s anything really important (trips etc) they should still send a letter home as well.

Wait til you have 3 kids at 3 different schools with 2 fucking systems each. 3 for schoo payments and 3 for some homework shite.
I have given up on it all.

I tried turning them off but the school is trying to go paper-free so literally EVERYTHING is on Dojo. Even "can we talk to you after school?"

It's such hard work - i would love a letter to stick on the fridge 😫

Ah I completely agree and I’m in the “bring back letters” camp.

Our school also has bloody Arbor for payments and clubs, and that’s even worse. Just doesn’t work even slightly. There are some really crap app developers out there making money off of schools because schools don’t know better.

This must be the fault of the school in the way they have it set up. There are things I don't especially like about Class Dojo, but the only notifications I receive to my timeline come from my son's teacher and relate to his year group or general stuff from the Principal (re school dinners, charity week, closures etc) I don't think I would be able to cope with endless messages about other year groups😅 The private message function has been brilliant for me as DS2 is off sick a lot and misses various activities due to a chronic illness and I don't need to keep phoning the office.

I no longer have dc at school, but this surely has to be that the school haven't got it set up properly.

You need to go in and speak to them about the fact that if they are sending out 20 irrelevant notifications a day, everyone will just turn it off and then not receive anything.
It's feasible the staff aren't even aware this is how it comes out to parents.