We don’t do big-bang rollouts. The recommended path is a five-phase pilot, narrow at first, that lets your own pilot data decide whether to expand. The page below explains exactly what happens in each phase, who needs to be in the room, and what the school is asked to bring.
Each phase has a clear deliverable. If a phase doesn’t go well, we stop and revisit; we don’t push you into the next one out of momentum.
Before anything else, we want to understand your school: size, current tooling, what’s working, what isn’t, and which class or department might be a good first pilot. No deck, no demo yet. The deliverable from this call is a one-page summary of the proposed pilot scope.
A 60-minute working session with leadership, two or three teachers, and your IT lead. We walk through the actual teacher and student dashboards using a demo school we’ve set up for you, and we answer the “but what about …” questions live. The deliverable is a signed pilot agreement and a list of the data we need from you to set up the pilot tenant.
We provision your school’s tenant on CHERI SMS, import the pilot class’s student list, set up two or three teacher accounts and walk those teachers through their first quiz and online class. Parents in the pilot class get an introductory message from the school over WhatsApp or email so the first time they see CHERI SMS isn’t a surprise.
The pilot teachers run their normal weekly schedule on CHERI SMS: assignments, weekly quizzes, online classes if they teach any, ratings and chat. We’re alongside on a shared chat channel for any questions. A short 20-minute check-in once a week catches anything that needs adjusting.
We sit down with you and pull the pilot numbers: quiz completion rate, class average, parent portal logins, hours teachers report saving on admin, and whatever else mattered when we set up the pilot. You decide whether to expand, pause, or stop. We’ll tell you honestly whether we think this school is ready for the platform yet.
Expand grade-by-grade or department-by-department, not all at once. We schedule monthly check-ins on adoption metrics. The school decides the pace and the order of expansion. We provide training and support, and we don’t up-sell during this phase.
The pilot only really works if the right people are involved at the right time. The list below is who we ask for and what we ask of them.
Owns the decision to run the pilot, attends the discovery call and the measurement review. Doesn’t need to be in the day-to-day, but does need to back the pilot teachers when they need time off paperwork.
The actual users. Ideally one enthusiastic adopter and one moderate sceptic, so the feedback isn’t one-sided. We ask for around two hours of their time in week 1, then one hour a week for the next three weeks.
Joins the demo to ask the security and integration questions, and helps with the data the platform needs at setup (student list, parent contacts, fee structure if relevant). Usually a half-day total.
The person who maintains the student records day-to-day. Helps validate the imported student list and is the human safety net when a pilot parent calls the office confused.
One named person on our side who runs the demo, sets up your tenant, runs the weekly check-ins and pulls the pilot numbers with you. Same person across all five phases.
Available on the shared chat channel during pilot hours for anything weird (an integration question, a config tweak, a bug report). Not in your weekly calls unless we need them.
Most surprises in pilots come from unclear ownership. The two columns below try to make the split unambiguous.
A few honest observations from running pilots, including the bits that don’t fit a marketing page.
The login flow, the parent invites and the first quiz are where we see the most friction. By week 3 most teachers tell us they stop thinking about the platform.
Parents engage with the platform more than schools expect, especially around quiz results. That can drive new questions in the WhatsApp group; brief the office before the pilot.
Every school has its own term structure, fee logic or grade scheme. Expect at least one configuration tweak in week 2. We don’t bill for these in the pilot.
Some teachers reclaim five hours a week; some reclaim none in the pilot window because they’re still finding their feet. The honest number comes from week 8, not week 4.
Around one in three pilots end at week 5 with a “not now” rather than a rollout. We’d rather close the loop honestly than push a school that isn’t ready.
The pilot lives or dies on whether your two or three teachers want to keep using it after week 4. If they don’t, no admin push will save the rollout.
The discovery call is 30 minutes, free, and ends with a one-page summary of the proposed pilot whether you go ahead or not.