Services · Penwin Voz
VoIP and cloud phone systems for schools and colleges
PenwinEdu rolls out and maintains phone systems for schools and colleges – publicly funded private schools (concertados), private schools, universities, business schools and vocational training – on Penwin Voz, our cloud phone system: an AI receptionist, call queues, call recording with transcription and an extension on the mobile of anyone who needs one. Calls travel over the same network we design and oversee, with 24/7 monitoring and a support response within four working hours.
Tell us about your school and the phone system you have today, and we'll prepare a proposal: info@penwin.org. The initial assessment is free and comes with no obligation.
The analogue phone system has lost its network
In almost every school, the phone system lives in a cabinet in reception: a physical PBX, a fixed number of extensions and a copper pair for each phone. Nobody touches it until someone has to: moving an extension to another office takes a job request, a visit and a date.
Putting the decision off is no longer free: on 27 May 2025 the last exchanges on Spain's copper network were switched off (CNMC, 2025), and with them the infrastructure that carried the analogue lines and ISDN of many phone systems. Adapters extend the life of the old equipment, but they are a bridge, not a destination.
Penwin Voz, the phone system the school runs itself
The service runs on Penwin Voz, our virtual cloud phone system platform. There is no equipment to buy or maintain in the reception cabinet, and expanding stops being a project: where you once had to buy a card to add four more extensions, you now add whichever one you need on the day you need it.
What makes the difference day to day is who can make changes. Adding a new member of the office staff, changing where a number rings, setting up a diversion while someone is on leave or adjusting opening hours are all done from a dashboard, as and when the need arises. The school decides how far it wants to go: some schools handle the day-to-day and leave the design and faults to us, and others prefer to hand over everything.
- Extensions added and removed on the day they are needed, without expanding the phone system or buying cards.
- Call queues with agents and supervision, IVR menus, opening hours and public holidays.
- Call recording with transcription: every call can be listened to and read from the call history.
- Your extension on your mobile and your computer, showing the school's number rather than your personal one.
- Phones that configure themselves when plugged in, without setting them up one by one.
- Recordings and call logs held in European data centres.
An AI receptionist that answers first time
It is the new feature that does most to change how calls are handled in the school office. Penwin Voz includes AI voice agents that answer the phone speaking naturally in European Spanish: they understand what is being asked of them, deal with what they can, transfer the call to the right person and take a message when nobody is available.
It is not the usual menu asking callers to press one for the school office. Callers explain what they need in their own words and the call ends up where it should. At the times when the phone never stops – admissions, the start of the school year, the first week of school dinners – that is the difference between looking after a family and leaving them listening to the phone ring.
The agent is set up from the same dashboard: the voice, the greeting, what it needs to know, who it can pass calls to. You test it by phoning it before putting it live, and you can go back to an earlier version if a change does not work out. It also answers outside opening hours, which is when most calls are missed today.
The agent can also work with context. Notes can be attached to a phone number or a person – whatever is worth keeping in mind when speaking to them – and the agent takes them into account during the call, whether it is inbound or outbound. It is useful and has to be used sensibly: those notes are personal data, the school writes them and it is the school that decides what is appropriate to record.
What changes for teaching staff and families
With analogue telephony, an extension is a place: extension 214 rings in the office of the head of teaching and learning because there is a cable to that desk, even if the office is empty. With VoIP, it identifies a person and can be answered from the desk, the computer or a mobile.
That is the argument teaching staff appreciate most: to call a family from a school trip or from home, a form tutor today uses their personal mobile and gives away their number, which they never get back. With the extension installed as an app on their own phone, they dial from their device and the family sees the school's number. When that person leaves the school, the extension is removed and that is the end of it.
- New extensions, diversions and office moves without waiting for a technician's visit.
- Call history with filters: how many calls came in, at what times and how many went unanswered.
- Simultaneous or sequential ringing, so that a call does not die on an unattended phone.
Several sites, one extension plan
This is where the difference shows most: school groups, foundations with several schools, universities with more than one campus. With one phone system per building, each site is an island, and a call from one to another goes out onto the telecoms provider's network and comes back in.
A multi-site phone system turns them into a single system: a shared extension plan, internal dialling between buildings and a single point of contact for the calls and for the network that carries them.
- Additions, removals and changes from a single console, with the same 24/7 monitoring and the same technical support at every site.
Migrating without losing the phones
The real objection is not the price: it is being cut off for a morning. That is why the old system is not switched off on a Friday and the new one switched on the following Monday: the old equipment stays in place while the new one is set up in parallel and traffic is moved across in phases.
And this should be said before signing: with VoIP, calls depend on the school's network, so the network has to be up to the job. We can say so from experience: school networks and Wi-Fi are exactly what we do.
- Prior review of the cabling, PoE power, upload bandwidth and voice prioritisation.
- An inventory of everything on the line that is not a phone: alarm, door entry systems, lift emergency phone.
- A schedule agreed with the school leadership, outside school hours and the admissions period.
Getting started
We start with a free, no-obligation initial assessment: which lines and numbers the school has today, which devices are connected to the line and what state the network that will carry the calls is in. Then a proposal with scope, phases and schedule. If you would rather see it than read about it, we set up a demo with the school's own extensions in less than a day.
We work with schools and colleges across Spain from Sant Cugat del Vallès, Madrid and Jaén, after more than twelve years in the sector. Today we manage more than 300,000 daily connections and more than 1,200 switches and firewalls.
Frequently asked questions
What is Penwin Voz?
It is PenwinEdu's cloud phone system, the platform on which we provide the school's telephony. It includes call queues, IVR menus, opening hours, call recording with transcription, an app for mobile and computer and an AI receptionist, all from a dashboard the school can run itself.
What exactly does the AI receptionist do?
It answers the phone in a natural voice in European Spanish, understands what the caller wants even if they do not use the exact words, deals with what it can, transfers the call to the right person or department and takes a message when nobody is available. It is set up from the dashboard – the voice, the greeting, what it needs to know, who it can pass calls to – and tested by phoning it before it is left to answer calls for real.
Does the AI receptionist replace the school office staff?
That is not what it is designed for. It covers what is lost today: calls that come in when the school office is already on another call, calls outside opening hours and calls on the days when the phone never stops. Anything that needs judgement still reaches a person, and with better information, because the agent has already taken down the reason for the call.
Does the agent know who it is talking to?
Only if the school tells it. Notes can be attached to a phone number or a person so that the agent has context for that conversation, on inbound and outbound calls. They should be handled with the same care as any other student data: the school, as the controller, writes them, and not everything that is known about a family is appropriate to note in a system that a machine will later read aloud.
How is the service billed?
The cost has three elements: the phone system, each extension set up and the minutes handled by the voice agent, the latter charged by use. The initial assessment sets out what the school needs of each, and that is where the real cost becomes clear: how many extensions are genuinely needed and at what times it makes sense for the AI to answer.
Where are recordings and call data stored?
Recordings, transcripts and call logs are stored in European data centres, on our own infrastructure. That matters for a school, which is the controller of families' and students' data and has to be able to say where that data is and who has access to it.
Can calls be recorded and archived?
Yes, and they are also transcribed: every call can be listened to and read from the call history. Like any voice recording, it obliges the school, as the controller, to tell callers that the call is being recorded – that is not optional – and to decide how long recordings are kept and who can listen to them. You should know that recording is switched on for the whole site, not extension by extension: if it is turned on, it applies to calls across the whole school.
What happens if the internet goes down? Is the school left without phones?
With VoIP, calls travel over the school's connection, so a fault on that connection affects the phones. The technology makes it possible to prepare for this: diverting incoming calls to mobiles, to another site or to an on-call number, and having a backup connection. It is one of the things decided before migrating, not after the first outage.
Do all the school's phones have to be replaced?
Not necessarily. Some desks need an IP handset, such as reception or the school office, and others can be covered with the app on the computer that is already in use. Compatible phones configure themselves when plugged in, without anyone having to set them up one by one. The initial assessment details what each desk needs and at what cost.
Can a teacher call a family without giving out their personal number?
Yes. With the school's extension installed as an app on their computer or mobile, the teacher calls from their own device and the family sees the school's number, not theirs. When that person no longer needs it, their access is removed.
Can the same phone system serve a school with several sites or campuses?
Yes. A multi-site phone system gives all the buildings a shared extension plan, with internal dialling between sites. That is the case for school groups, foundations with several schools and universities with more than one campus.
Can the phone system be changed over the summer without affecting the school year?
Summer is the natural window and, within the summer, the first half: a change made in July leaves August to adjust and test before September brings enrolments. Some dates are off limits even when there are no students around: admissions deadlines and exams.
Let's talk about your school
Email us at info@penwin.org with details of your school, or fill in the contact form, and we'll reply with a specific proposal.