One Page Guide for Staff setting up and launching Classlist

One page guide for Staff Admins inviting parents to Classlist

Set up your school's Classlist site (30 mins)

This is often done by a Staff member, or sometimes by the PTA.

1. Set up your account at our website
   • . Please note that in the first search you won't find your school, as that is schools already set up, so search and then select 'Can't find it'.  You will be then asked for Location and school name, and then you will find the school name and can start setting it up.
2. Make sure you have the correct years and classes listed on the School Structure page.
   TIP: From May onwards each year we recommend you add an extra year group called 'All new joiners Sept 2023', with classes in for each of your entry years, to hold new joiners who register before the summer term ends or before you move your classes up.  More detail here.  The rest of the year parents can go direct into their classes when they register.
3. Add your school logo and a photo on the School Profile page.
   
4. You are ready to invite parents now. See below for how. You could invite all parents right away - but ideally you would invite your PTA and Class Reps first.

Ask reps to explore and populate Classlist (allow 2-3 days)

It is helpful for the PTA and parent reps to join Classlist a few days before the other parents, so they can write a few Welcome messages and put up some events and get-togethers for parents to see when they join.  Therefore we suggest you invite some PTA members and Class reps before other parents.

Admin status for parent reps

• • Admin status gives your PTA and Reps the extra features they will need, such as creating Community Events & Raffles, and sending Announcements to any group of parents.  Therefore you do need to give all Reps admin rights before launching Classlist.
  • You can pre-assign the reps with their admin status on Classlist when sending them an email invitation. Invite them here. There are 3 parent admin roles: 
    Ambassadors and Community Reps are generally for PTA roles.  And there is a Class Rep admin role on Classlist too.  There is more about the different admin roles here.   It is GDPR compliant for parents to have admin roles and our parent T&Cs cover this.
  • After parents have joined you can give and change their Admin status at any time via the School Profile page. A summary of the admin roles is here.
  • You can invite another Staff Member to be a Classlist Staff Admin too from the School Profile page. 
    

Training and Info for your PTA, Reps and Admins  

• • You can send this info to reps to help them get started.  
  • We recommend some of your reps and admins join a Classlist Skills and FAQs training demo which can be booked here.  We run these every Wednesday and Friday, with reps from a few schools together.
  • Schools on our paid subscription plan can book  your own training demo, at a time of your own choice, such as during a PTA meeting.  Please contact us to arrange that.
    
    
  • If you wish parents and reps to close WhatsApp groups, or to stop putting school and PTA related info in WhatsApp, it is worth addressing that directly with the reps - people will not stop using WhatsApp for school matters unless told to do so!  You may wish to draw on this letter.  Some schools have now successfully transitioned their parents away from WhatsApp and onto Classlist following the ISBA guidance on WhatsApp usage by school parents being a likely breach of GDPR.
  • Schools may also wish to articulate in their parent contract that WhatsApp groups should not be set up.  If so there is some draft wording here.

Making Classlist look interesting before launch

• • Ask the PTA Chair to write a welcome message on the School Profile page - that is sent to new joiners 24 hours after they join.  NB Only Ambassadors can write the welcome message, Staff Admins can't.
  • Ask your Ambassadors and Reps to add some events, create some interest groups, add some items to the Marketplace

Moderation

• • Our member Code of Conduct is here.  You may want to share it with parents so that everyone knows what is expected.
  • Parent Ambassadors can moderate and remove content from Classlist.  If a parent reports a message on Classlist, then Ambassadors are informed and they can see & remove the message if they decide to.  Therefore it is important that you do have at least one parent Ambassador.  Many school appoint several PTA members as Ambassadors.   Needing to remove content is rare because parents behave respectfully on Classlist. 

Now launch Classlist and invite every parent (30 mins)

1. The head should send a letter to parents via your usual school comms saying you will be inviting them to Classlist shortly.  Here is a template letter and there are other options here.  This gives your parents advance notice you will invite them and gives them the chance to let you know if they wish to opt out of being invited, which is rare.
2. Then invite all the parents from the Invite Parents page on Classlist using their email addresses.  We recommend you invite both parents.  Here is a guide to uploading the emails.  It is easiest to upload a csv/spreadsheet with parent email and class details.  An email invitation will be sent to each parent after you upload the emails, add a message, and choose 'send'.   
3. That's it - parents will start joining Classlist!
4. Now add info about Classlist to your new joiner information resources, so that new families find out about Classlist right away.  We also suggest that you diarise that in June new families should be invited to Classlist before the summer holidays, as they welcome being able make friends.
   
   Other info about email invitations
   

• You can alternatively just copy and paste in email addresses to invite parents quickly, individually or class by class, but this would take longer than a csv upload for a whole school!
• All Parents invited by admins with their email address entered into Classlist will be auto-approved. 
• Parents will receive a copy of admin announcements sent once they have been invited (even if they haven't joined yet), meaning that all parents can be reached by your reps & admins via Classlist right away. 
  Therefore if your parents are moving over from WhatsApp or email, reps can be assured they can reach all parents via Classlist right away, including those who weren't in a WhatsApp group, and those who are new.  
• If you specify year and class when you invite the parents, they will receive announcements sent to the year or class.  
  
  Other ways of inviting parents
• There are several other ways to invite parents too, such as generating a QR code flyer to give out at new family induction meetings.  Those QR codes pre-approve families too. Create yours on the Invite Parents page. They last one week.
• Parents who register without an email or QR code invitation need individual approval by an admin.
• We also recommend you add details about Classlist and our logo and link to your school website and parent portal, and put details of Classlist in your new family induction pack.

More Resources

See our detailed Playbook guide to a successful launch of Classlist.

There are several flyers and videos that you can share with parents to help them get started with Classlist such as 2 minute video for parents and a 5 minute video overview for Reps.

Our member code of conduct is here.