Panoptic vs The New Beacon
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side โ with what reviewers say about each.
Panoptic
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Panoptic is the app your School runs on. It needs a School account: enter your School code, sign in, and the School day is in one place. If your School does not use Panoptic, there is nothing in here you can open. WHAT YOU SEE DEPENDS ON WHO YOU ARE One app, three experiences. Pupils, parents and staff sign in to the same app and each land on what matters to them. Your School decides what your account can reach, so there is nothing to set up and no wrong version to download. FOR PUPILS AND PARENTS - The week's timetable: every lesson, room, set and teacher, with the day you are in marked. - School reports and assessments as the School published them. - Attendance, day by day and session by session, with the rate alongside it. - Exam candidate numbers when the School has issued them. - Messages from the School, by email and as a notification on your phone. - For parents, the same view of each of your children. FOR STAFF - Registers taken in a few taps, for your own lessons or for a colleague you are covering. - School reports written in the shape your School designed, with the grade scales, the field lengths and the deadlines it set. - The full pupil, staff and contact lists, with each person's record behind them: form, house, sets, teachers, attendance, relations and notes. - Lesson cover, free periods and absence summaries. - Messages to a year group, a house, a set or one family, from your School's own sending address. SEARCH IS THE FRONT DOOR One field finds any pupil, member of staff, contact or page in the app. It is on the home screen, it is a keystroke away everywhere else, and it is how most people use Panoptic. IT IS YOUR SCHOOL'S APP Panoptic wears your School's name, crest and colour, and your School's data lives in your School's own database. Sign in to more than one School on the same device, which staff who work at two and parents with children at two can both do, and switch between them without signing out. MADE TO LIVE IN - Light and dark, following your device or set here. - More contrast, for when frosted panels are hard to read. - Reduced motion, which also follows your device's own setting. - English, French, Spanish and German. - Built for VoiceOver and for a large text size. Panoptic does not take payments and shows no advertising. SUPPORT Ask your School first: your account, your permissions and your data are theirs to manage. For anything else, the support link on this page reaches us.
The New Beacon
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This app is The New Beacon School's own parent engagement and communication app and it is designed to enhance communication between the school and parents of our students. Benefits of this app for parents of students at the New Beacon School include: - Receive push notifications and in-app messages from the School. - Keep important School information available away from the clutter of email. - View the school calendar and noticeboard, with information relevant to you and your child. - Access important School information via The Hub. - Keep up to date with your children's activities via the Newsfeed. - Clear and visible Notice updates for important School events. - Paperless communication. Registration: To use the New Beacon School app, you will need an account which will be provided by your child's school.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is update cadence: Panoptic at every 2 days against The New Beacon's every 2 months. Panoptic also leads on device support (4 vs 2) and iOS requirement (15.0 vs 17.0). On price, ads and in-app purchases there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price ยท Rating ยท Positive reviews ยท Number of ratings ยท Update frequency ยท Ads ยท In-app purchases ยท Monetization ยท Best chart rank ยท Devices ยท Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Panoptic ships an update every 2 days, The New Beacon every 2 months. The most recent releases landed on October 16, 2026 and October 12, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Panoptic | The New Beacon |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Update frequency | Every 2 days โ better | Every 2 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod, Mac โ better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 15.0 โ better | 17.0 |
| Further details โ not scored | ||
| Size | 80 MB | 138 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Tonbridge School | Weduc UK Ltd |
In-app purchases
Panoptic
No in-app purchases
The New Beacon
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is Panoptic free?
Is The New Beacon free?
Do Panoptic or The New Beacon have ads?
Which is updated more often, Panoptic or The New Beacon?
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