Tips to make your Classlist site more interesting!

Adding great content is a good way to ensure parents actively want to visit your Classlist site. Ensuring that admins and reps are all regularly adding useful posts, events and announcements is a great way to get the ball rolling and help parents feel comfortable to join in.

Add images (where possible) to your content will also make the site more interesting and help your post or event stand out.

Events & Raffles

• Create an easy new social event and invite parents - what about a start of term coffee or pub night? No organising, no fundraising; just a get-together to get started. 
• Create event pages for any PTA events that you already know the date for. When you create the events they will appear in the Events list, but no-one will be invited until you click 'invite' and select which groups you want to ask. This means you can save the event and then ‘send’ invitations out later (triggering emails), by using event reminder, when more parents have joined.
• Plan your next event and sell tickets on Classlist or organise a quick raffle with as little as one prize.

Posts

• Write a post or two on the Home page wall e.g. welcoming people to the site and inviting others to post too. Or use the automated welcome message to sent a welcome to new parents as they join. 
• Make sure you post regularly on the Parent Board, so that parents get used to checking the site. Whole school posts aren't emailed, but group (ie year, class or parent group) posts are.
• Post in the community groups too, e.g. the Ambassadors and Reps group. 

Announcements

• Send an Announcement, which allows longer messages to be emailed out and will go to all members and any invited parents you have invited by email in Admin Mode.

Groups

• Ask parents what type of groups they would find useful then create some groups from the ideas - or let parents know how to do this themselves. From dog walkers to dyslexia support, or foreign language speakers to fitness fanatics, there is no limit to the type of parent groups you can create. 

Marketplace Listings

• Have a clear-out and post some stuff you would otherwise be taking to the charity shop on the Marketplace - outgrown bikes, coats and roller blades, or those unused gadgets cluttering up the cupboard and books you will never re-read. You can ask for payment or give stuff away for free.

Inspiration

• Use the Classlist blog for inspiration and share links to stories with your fellow parents.

Guidelines & Rules

• Set out your guidelines for how parents should use the site: here are Classlist's Community Guidelines. You may decide you would like to point your new members towards those when they join, by putting a post on the Parent Board, to avoid any future misunderstanding.  
• Stick to these guidelines by letting parents know if they have gone over the boundary.  Classlist should not be used to discuss people connected to the school or for lobbying the school.
• Make sure the info about guidelines is only a small part of what's on the site - aim to show or tell people about what is allow to encourage them to post to further build the community.