Using the school to help set up your Classlist site

You need to establish your key contact within the school, and make sure they are briefed on how Classlist works.

The key points to let the school know are that Classlist is Data Protection registered and that, under new data protection regulations (GDPR), it is lawful for the school to assist the Classlist Ambassador/s in verifying parents' identities and class lists, where the PTA is also a data controller. More information on GDPR is available here.

You could ask the school to include some information about classlist.com in their weekly newsletter, start of term letter, or as a separate letter. It is ideal if your school is supportive and helps you communicate about Classlist. If they can send a few reminders while parents sign up that is really helpful. 

The following sample messages could be used as a guide for schools or individuals to send out to Class Reps (if your school has Class Reps) and to parents, explaining what Classlist is and the benefits both to the Class Reps themselves and to the wider school community.

Message from one Class Rep to other Class Reps:

This academic year Yr 2 will be using Classlist.com for our class directory and, as I will be responsible for setting up our school on this system, I wanted to find out if you would like to use Classlist.com for your year group too?

Classlist.com is a private and secure website for parents and PTAs: each school has its own site. As well as providing mobile-friendly class directory lists and contact details for your year group, it will enable you to communicate easily with your class/year group (forwarded to email), and set up class events and others like private birthday party invitations. Parents can share as much as or as little contact information with other parents as they like, and can even keep their own email address private whilst still receiving messages.

The PTA will be using Classlist for all communication to parents. We will be able to email all parents and send emails using the latest online class lists, without us having to maintain a separate database.

The Classlist site is free to use, and is funded by advertising. If you would like your year group to join, let me know and I will add it to the list of year groups and classes. Our Classlist.com site will be available soon. I will let you know when it is set up.

Sample message to parents:

This academic year we will be using Classlist.com for our class directories. Classlist.com is a private and secure website for parents and school PTAs. As well as providing mobile-friendly class lists and contact details for your year group, it will enable you to communicate easily with your class/year group (forwarded to email), and set up events and private birthday party invitations. Parents can share as much as or as little contact information with other parents as they like, and can even keep their own email address private whilst still receiving messages. The PTA will be using Classlist for all communication to parents. We will be able to email all parents and send emails using the latest online class lists, without us having to maintain a separate database.  Classlist is fully data protected. You can choose which contact details to share with your year group and enter them securely on the site.  Classlist does not share contact details with third parties.