Over the summer, I’ve been making quite a few changes to SchoolPolicy.ie.
Some are small improvements to make managing your school policies easier. Others are completely new tools designed to deal with some of the other jobs that land on a principal’s desk.
The aim hasn’t changed: to take some of the unnecessary administration out of running a school.
So, before the new school year gets properly underway, here’s what’s new on SchoolPolicy.ie for 2026/27.
A new dashboard
The first thing you’ll notice when you log in is a new-look dashboard.
As SchoolPolicy.ie has grown, I wanted the dashboard to become more useful than simply being a route into your policies. It should tell you quickly what needs your attention and help you get to the things you actually need.
You’ll now be able to see the status of your policies, spot policies that are coming up for review, keep an eye on recent circulars and get quick access to the other tools and resources available to your school.
Your policies are still at the centre of SchoolPolicy.ie. The idea is simply to make everything around them easier to find.
Keeping up with the Circulars
One of the problems with being a school principal is that important information rarely arrives in a neat package labelled “Here’s what you need to do.”
Instead, there are circulars, guidance documents, announcements and updates arriving throughout the year.
That’s why I’ve added Keeping Up with the Circulars to the Dashboard.
When an important new circular or piece of guidance is published, I’ll try to cut through the Department-speak and explain what has actually changed, what it means for schools and what, if anything, you need to do about it.
You can find the latest updates directly from your SchoolPolicy.ie dashboard.
Riabo: keeping track of the jobs you’ve delegated
I think every principal has the same problem. You ask someone to update something. Someone else is going to organise an event. A member of staff needs to complete a particular job. Another task needs to be done every month.
Then, three weeks later, you’re wondering: Did that ever get done?
That’s the problem Riabo is designed to solve. Riabo lets you assign actions to members of staff, set deadlines and recurring actions, send reminders and keep track of what’s complete and what still needs attention.
Staff have their own simple list of actions, while school leaders can see how things are progressing without having to chase everyone individually. Riabo is included with Policy Plus, and it can also be purchased separately.
You can claim your activation code by clicking here.
RotaMate: take some of the pain out of school rotas
Setting up school rotas is one of those jobs that sounds simple until you actually start doing it.
Who is available? Who has already done too many duties? Which combinations work? How do you make the whole thing reasonably fair?
RotaMate is designed to do all of that!
It helps you generate school rotas without spending an afternoon moving names around a spreadsheet trying to make everything balance.
RotaMate is also included with Policy Plus or can be pruchased separately.
Professional Development for School Leaders
I’ve also added a new professional development area to SchoolPolicy.ie.
The idea is to provide short, targeted courses for school leaders in areas you need now, without hours of unnecessary theory.
The first course is Making the Whole-School Plan Manageable, created by experienced school leader and curriculum planning expert Rozz Lewis.
The new Whole-School Curriculum Planning Guidance is important, but it isn’t exactly light reading.
This course turns it into a practical two-year route for curriculum enactment and School Self-Evaluation, without creating unnecessary meetings, paperwork or pressure on teachers.
It includes 26 minutes of easy-to-follow video instruction, along with editable documents that can be adapted for every subject area in your own school.
The course is included with Policy Plus. It can also be purchased separately for €20 with lifetime access.
SchoolPolicy isn’t just for the principal
Another important change this year is the ability to give up to 10 additional users access to your school’s SchoolPolicy account. This is again available for Policy Plus users.
That means the work of managing policies doesn’t have to sit entirely with one person.
Members of your leadership team or other relevant staff can be given access, making it easier to share the work of reviewing, updating and maintaining school policies.
And, of course, the Policy Builder
With all the new additions, the main purpose of SchoolPolicy.ie hasn’t disappeared.
You can still create and manage unlimited school policies using the Policy Builder, keep them together in one place and track when they need to be reviewed.
The growing collection of templates is there to save you from starting with a blank page, while your school’s own policies remain organised and accessible through your account.
So, what is Policy Plus now?
Policy Plus has changed quite a bit.
It’s no longer simply about getting some additional features within the Policy Builder.
For 2026/27, Policy Plus brings together the growing collection of tools and resources I’m building for school leaders, including:
- Unlimited policy creation and management
- Policy templates
- Up to 10 additional school users
- Riabo
- RotaMate
- Professional development courses
- Additional tools and resources as they are developed
My intention is to keep adding useful things to Policy Plus rather than creating a separate subscription every time I build something new.
One less thing to worry about
I’m a school principal myself, so SchoolPolicy.ie tends to grow out of problems I encounter in the real world.
The test I try to apply to anything I add is fairly simple:
Does this make running a school a little easier?
There is already more than enough administration in our schools. I don’t want SchoolPolicy.ie to create another system that needs to be managed.
I want it to be the place you go when you need to sort something out, get the job done and move on to the next thing. Hopefully, the changes for 2026/27 bring it a little closer to that. As always, if you have any admin headaches, you’d like to see resolved, let me know and I’d be happy to have a look!