Sending Announcements

Classlist Ambassadors, Class Admins and Community Reps can create announcements for the entire school or any group (eg classes/years, Ambassadors and Reps group, parent groups) using their Admin Accounts.

Your announcement will appear in the newsfeed of the relevant group, will send an app notification and appear in the email inbox of all the classes/years selected as recipients, unless a parent has specifically opted out of notifications for announcements in their notification settings.  You can also embed pictures and attach files to announcements. 

The announcement will also be sent to non-members (parents you have invited, but who haven't yet joined. They can unsubscribe if they don't wish to receive future announcements). This is a great way of reaching all your parents as soon as you get started on Classlist.

Announcements can be quick one-liners, reaching all parents in an instant, or longer newsletters which display beautifully on any phone or computer.

Creating an Announcement:

How to create an announcement 

• Make sure you are in the (green) admin mode
• Open the Announcements page in the sidebar navigation on a desktop, or find Announcement in the Create shortcut menu on the app (as above)
• Select the audience for your announcement from the drop down menu. Announcements can be sent to selected groups (eg class/year groups, the Ambassadors & Reps group) or the whole school
• Write your notice in the text box (using the formatting tools if you like)
• Click the paperclip if you would like to add an attachment
• Click 'Send'.

The announcements page also lets you view a record of past announcements sent by school ambassadors and class admins, detailing who sent them and when.

Announcements are capped at up to 10,000 characters. Other methods of communicating on Classlist include putting posts on your group wall, or using Classlist's private messaging feature.  

Scheduling announcements

Announcements can be 'schedule sent' at time that suits you.  You can also save a draft anytime.

Duplicating announcements

Sometimes you may want to re-use an announcement, so they can be duplicated and edited to send again.

Editing announcements

After editing Announcements will be re-sent.

Commenting on your own Announcement 

If you send an Announcement to a year or class of which you are not a member as a parent, you will only be able to reply to comments in the admin mode. You can view other members' comments on your Announcement from your notifications page in the parent mode, but if you try to post a comment you will see the 'Whoops' page, like this! If this happens simply tap on 'homepage' and switch to admin mode where you can view and comment on your Announcement on the Announcement admin page. If your Announcement was to a group of which you are a member, you can comment in either parent or admin mode. 

Tracking Announcement Statistics

Once an Announcement has been sent out, Classlist begins recording a number of useful statistics for you to keep track. From the Announcements tab you can see how many people you sent the announcement too, as well as the number of people that opened the accompanying email or those who viewed it on Classlist. 

You can keep an eye on your overall announcement open rate by looking at the Classlist Dashboard. 

Whole School Posts

Admins can post to the whole school via the Newsfeed too.  Whole school posts and announcements have different notification settings to group posts to enable parents to personalise how they receive different types of messages.  For instance, if they wanted to receive announcements from the PTA but not posts from class groups they could personalise their settings to achieve that.

NB You have the choice of whether you allow parents to post to the whole school.  You can change that on the School Profile page.