Why schools and colleges use e-signatures
Education runs on forms that need a signature from someone who is not in the building. A permission slip goes home in a book bag and comes back crumpled, or not at all. An enrolment pack needs a parent’s signature on six different pages. A new teacher’s contract waits for a head of department who is teaching all day. A student’s internship agreement needs the student, the college and the host employer, all in different places. Office staff spend the first weeks of every term chasing paper.
SignPe moves those forms online. You upload the form — PDF, Word (DOC or DOCX), or a photo of a paper form — place the fields each person needs to complete, add the signers and send. Parents, students and staff get an email with a Review & Sign Document button, sign in their browser or on the SignPe app, and the signed PDF comes back to you with an audit trail. Nobody needs a SignPe account to sign: guests sign after accepting an electronic-records consent screen.
It suits a nursery or tutoring centre sending a handful of forms a term as much as a school office or a university department handling hundreds. The free plan covers your first three documents with unlimited signers on each, so you can run a real consent form end to end before you decide on a plan.
Parental consent forms: trips, activities and photo permissions
Trip permission slips, sports and activity consent, photography and media permissions, medical information forms — every one needs a parent or guardian to read it, tick the right boxes and sign by a deadline. With paper, the deadline is the day the office starts phoning home. With SignPe, the form reaches the parent’s inbox the moment it is ready and they sign it on the phone they already carry.
- A checkbox for each permission. Place Checkmark fields beside each item a parent must agree to — attending the trip, being photographed, receiving first aid — so each permission is recorded separately.
- Details on the page. Add Full Name, Text and Date fields for the child’s name, emergency contact details and the date of the activity.
- Both parents where needed. Add each parent or guardian as a signer with their own fields. Leave the order open so whoever sees it first can sign first.
- Copy the class teacher. Add the trip leader or class teacher as an observer so they receive updates without being asked to sign.
If a parent says no
A parent can choose Decline to sign? rather than ignore the form. You are notified straight away, so you know where you stand before the trip, not on the morning of it.
Admissions and enrolment paperwork without the paper pack
Enrolment is the heaviest paperwork moment of the year: admission forms, home–school agreements, fee agreements, acceptable-use policies for school devices, and data consent forms, often for a whole new intake at once. SignPe keeps every one in a single Documents list that you can filter by Draft, Action Required, Waiting for Others and Signed.
- Bring the forms you already use. Upload PDF, Word (DOC, DOCX) or images (JPG, JPEG, PNG), up to 20 MB, or import them straight from Google Drive, OneDrive, Box or Dropbox.
- Initials on key pages. Place Initials fields on pages with fee terms or behaviour policies, so it is clear each one was seen.
- Dates in your format. Date fields support DD/MM/YYYY, MM/DD/YYYY, YYYY-MM-DD, DD-MM-YYYY and “MMMM DD, YYYY”, so dates match the rest of your paperwork.
- Prepare ahead of the intake. Set each form up as a draft and send it when the place is confirmed — drafts do not use a document credit.
If a family hands in a paper form at the open day, the SignPe app’s Scan option captures up to 20 pages with automatic edge detection, so it joins the rest of your digital paperwork. Several photos of a form are combined into one PDF automatically — see import from photos and cloud.
Staff contracts and teacher onboarding
Recruiting teachers, lecturers, teaching assistants and support staff brings its own stack: offer letters, employment contracts, safeguarding and code-of-conduct acknowledgements, and contracts for visiting or part-time staff. Many need a principal or head of department to sign as well as the new hire.
- Countersign in the right order. Use Set signer order so the new hire signs first and the principal countersigns. The next signer is emailed automatically, and anyone who opens it early sees “Waiting for <name> to sign”.
- Role details captured. Company and Designation fields record the school or department and the job title as they appear in the contract.
- The school stamp. Where your institution stamps its letters and contracts, upload the stamp once and apply it from your saved library.
- Sign a stack at once. A principal signing from a saved signature can choose Apply to all fields of the same type to fill every signature box assigned to them in one go.
When the principal is away on a trip or at a conference, they can delegate their signing to a colleague in the same organisation, who can sign on their behalf; the delegate is notified. Our guide to signing employment contracts online covers the contract side in more detail.
Internship and placement agreements across three parties
Work placements, internships, practicums and teaching placements usually need three signatures: the student, the institution’s placement coordinator and the host organisation’s supervisor. On paper, the agreement travels between three desks and often arrives at the start date unsigned.
| Who signs | How SignPe handles it |
|---|---|
| Student | Signs first as a guest from their email, on a phone or laptop |
| Host supervisor | Emailed automatically when the student has signed; signs without an account |
| Placement coordinator | Countersigns last, from a saved signature |
| Course leader or tutor | Added as an observer to follow progress without signing |
Each person signs the same document, so there is one final version carrying every signature. Track each signer through Sent, Received, Opened and Signed in the document’s Activity timeline, and use Remind if the host organisation has gone quiet. More in multiple signers.
A typical school signing workflow
Prepare the form
Upload the consent form, enrolment form or contract, or scan a paper form with the SignPe app. If you are interrupted, leaving the wizard prompts Save as draft? so you can finish later.
Place and assign fields
Drag Signature, Full Name, Date, Text and Checkmark fields onto the page and assign each to a parent, student or member of staff.
Add signers and observers
Add each signer by name and email, set the order if one signature depends on another, and copy the teacher or coordinator as an observer.
Send and follow up
Watch the Waiting for Others filter as the deadline approaches, and use Remind to email everyone who has not signed yet.
File the result
When everyone has signed, all parties receive the signed copy. Download it and the audit trail PDF for the student or staff record.
Forms signed at the front office
When a parent is at reception, use In person Signing: open the form on a tablet or phone and hand it over to sign on the spot. The signature is recorded in the same audit trail as a remote one.
Compliance considerations for education documents
Electronic signatures are recognised for most everyday agreements under laws such as the US ESIGN Act and UETA, the EU’s eIDAS regulation and India’s Information Technology Act 2000. Education adds its own layer: student-records and privacy rules such as FERPA in the US or GDPR in Europe, rules about who may consent on behalf of a minor, and your institution’s own policies. Confirm with your data-protection lead or legal adviser which forms can be signed electronically and what student information is appropriate to include. The legality guide covers the Indian position in detail.
- Consent to electronic records. Guest signers accept an electronic-records consent screen before they sign.
- Only participants can open a document. A child’s consent form is visible only to the sender, its signers and its observers.
- Encryption in transit and at rest. Documents travel over HTTPS/TLS and are stored in encrypted cloud storage — see eSignature security.
- Mistakes can be withdrawn. If a form goes to the wrong email address, void the document — the signing link stops working and the recipient is told.
Student and staff records contain personal data, so send only the form that needs signing rather than a full record, and apply your own retention policies to the signed copies and audit trails you download.
How to send a trip permission slip for e-signature
Upload the permission slip
Upload the slip as a PDF or Word file, or import it from Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive or Box.
Add the parents
Choose Set signer order, add each parent or guardian as a signer, and add the trip leader as an observer.
Place the fields
Add a Signature, Date and Full Name field for each parent, plus a Checkmark field beside each permission.
Send and track
Parents are emailed a Review & Sign Document link. Check the Waiting for Others filter and use Remind before the deadline.
Receive the signed copy
Once signed, everyone receives the signed PDF and the audit trail is ready to download for the trip file.
