Parent Communication Guide

Best practice for communicating with parents/carers

DID YOU KNOW..

Poor parent communications are thought to be the biggest driver of school complaints nationally?

Parents are busy and want to be well informed – on time, with accurate, understandable and relevant information – so they can support their child at school.

To help ensure your school mailout communications are well received, please consider the following guidance.

Purpose What do parents need to know, do or feel after reading the message? Aim for one main message per email wherever possible.

Title Keep it short and clear about what to expect in the email. Knowing what is in the email will encourage the reader to open the email and/or prioritise its importance.

Uniform

Trip

Uniform sale this Friday

Applications open for Year 10 ski trip

Greeting Use the mailout salutation feature* to personalise the message and grab attention.

Dear Parent/Carer

Dear Mrs Jangi

* Mailout salutation token

Content Make your message warm, clear and engaging.

Warm – Be warm in your tone, opening sentence and content. Acknowledge the parent’s perspective in your approach. Avoid being cold, transactional or directive; parents want to feel informed and supported, not instructed.

Clear – Make clear what parents need to do with the information. Add a call to action, or

defined deadline if applicable. Avoid jargon and unexplained acronyms (e.g. Unifrog, DfE).

Don’t make parents search through paragraphs of text to find the information they need.

Engaging – give parents a reason to care about your email.

Avoid: ALL CAPITALS Excessive punctuation!!!

Overly formal language

Key message first Put the key information in the first paragraph: All year groups will be collectively fundraising for the local foodbank this December and we’d really appreciate your food donations by 12th December. Suitable items for donation are... [list / link to foodbank website if more detailed] You can then move onto how/where to donate and then a brief explanation on why, to engage/encourage parental support.

TOP TIPS

Use Co-pilot to draft your communication if you are short of time, or unsure. Use prompts such as ‘Write a succinct, but warm email to a group of parents to tell them about XYZ. The main objective is to get responses by deadline XYZ.’ You can also ask Co-pilot to re-write text for a specific reading age, if needed.

Messages should be mobile-friendly Add your text within mailout**.

Please see attached letter (Pdf attached)

Keep paragraphs short so it is easier to read on a mobile. Don’t add attachments to your mailing unless absolutely necessary. PDFs are very hard to read on a mobile as they don’t resize to fit. ** Example of how to build mailout in sections/text inline

** Example of how mailout will look when built as above

DID YOU KNOW..

Around 90% of parents/carers surveyed said they read school communications on a mobile device.

Accuracy Read your mailing again to check spelling, grammar, dates, links and recipients groups.

Have a second person check and sign off communications before sending.

Parents expect schools (who are teaching their children) to get it right!

Review When building your mailout, use the preview feature to see how your communication will look to recipients. Before sending, use the ‘test send’ function.

Think: If you were a busy parent reading this on your phone, would you immediately and easily understand what you need to know or do?

Avoiding all-parent messages Target emails by class, year or bespoke group, so only relevant parents receive messages.

Any parent should ideally receive no more than 5 mailout communications in a week.

Scheduling and timeliness Plan ahead and prioritise. Sending lots of emails slows down sending and therefore can delay when parents receive communications.

Think: What is urgent, what has a deadline and what can wait?

Golden Rule:

ation Ever y communic nt, va le re be should sy ea d an r ea cl timely, to act on.

For step-by-step practical instructions on using mailout, please refer to Beehive’s Knowledgebase.

Training is also available for Mailout users: beehivesupport@lionhearttrust.org.uk

Parent Communication Pre-Send Checklist Before sending your mailout, ask yourself:

Relevance

Accuracy

Is this information relevant to everyone receiving it?

Have I checked spelling and grammar?

Have I targeted the correct year group, class or audience?

Have I checked dates, times and links?

Does this message genuinely need to be sent today/should another email take priority?

Have I confirmed any attachments are correct and up to date?

Subject Line Is the title clear and specific?

Would a parent immediately understand what the email is about?

Content

Have I tested any forms, surveys or booking links?

Quality Assurance Have I previewed the email before sending?

Have I sent a test email to myself?

Is the purpose of the email clear within the first few lines?

Has another colleague reviewed and approved the communication?

Have I explained what parents need to know or do?

Final Check

Have I included any deadlines, dates, times or locations?

Have I used plain English and avoided jargon or acronyms?

Is the tone warm, professional and parent-friendly?

Readability Is the email concise and easy to scan?

Have I used short paragraphs, headings or bullet points where appropriate?

Will it be easy to read on a mobile phone?

Have I avoided unnecessary attachments?

If I were a busy parent reading this on my phone, would I immediately know: What this is about?

Why it matters?

What I need to do?

By when?