RippleCore for schools

A school’s Circle is the case the rest of the product was designed around, and it is the one where the setting matters more than the features.

Safeguarded means unlisted

A Circle is either community or safeguarded, and the difference is whether strangers can come across it. A community Circle is listed publicly, so anyone can find it, signed out included. A safeguarded Circle is not listed, so people who are not members will not come across it.

Nothing inside is readable without an account in either kind, and the events and the member list are readable by the Circle’s own members and by nobody else. So are the posts, with one difference between the two kinds. In a community Circle, a member who is 18 or over can choose to share a moment of their own with all RippleCore members, unless the Circle’s admin has switched that off. In a safeguarded Circle nobody can: what is posted there stays there.

Getting in

A school’s Circle is usually safeguarded, and usually approves rather than admitting on the tap: an application, sometimes a question or two, and an admin’s yes. Codes go to the staff, the parents and the pupils who are already known — and a code can be withdrawn, or can expire.

What it is for

The same things a Circle is always for, at a scale where somebody knows every name: a moment shared, a challenge the whole year takes on, a volunteering sign-up for the summer fete, and badges read off what people actually did rather than handed out.