PACT introduces the Classlist App for Parents and Guardians

Coming into a new school and/or country is always challenging, not only for children but also for parents. They need to connect directly with other parents, build friendships, make arrangements for their children and themselves, and stay in the loop on the activities of our wonderful Class Reps and PACT.  

As we know, social media usage as a communication tool between parents has been on the rise recently. However, platforms such as WhatsApp oblige users to share personal data to participate in a group, and some parents are simply not able to share their details with others for professional or personal reasons. These parents face a choice between being excluded from parent-to-parent communications at our school by not using WhatsApp or having to unwillingly share their personal details so that they or their child don’t miss out. 

In many ways, it has been the easiest solution up until now, but the school is not in a position to support or manage the use of WhatsApp or other non-inclusive platforms for communication by PACT or by the school or class-related groups such as those set up by Class or Year group Reps. 

Consequently, and in order to facilitate inclusive parent communication for all families, PACT, with the school's support, is introducing the Classlist app, which is widely used at many UK schools and beyond and is GDPR compliant.

By joining Classlist  you can:

• Decide exactly what contact information you wish to share with other families; 
• View a list of children in the class and year, and contact their parents via the app;
• find which families live nearby on a map (if they opt-in to share their address);
• Communicate with your class and year in a chat group on the Classlist app; Find, join and create other interest groups among parents
• Send invitations to children’s parties and parent social events, request, for example dietary info; manage RSVPs;
• Stay in the loop on events and activities PACT and class reps run.  See how you can help too.
• Place and find items for sale on a private marketplace;
• Report any content you feel is inappropriate to parent moderators (our Classlist Ambassadors), who can take immediate action to remove messages.
• Decide how many notifications you need: from every comment being notified to a single weekly digest email from Classlist on Thursdays covering everything relevant to you.

Classlist is UK-based and fully GDPR-compliant and is already being used successfully by hundreds of thousands of parents in other schools in the UK. Everyone using Classlist must comply with the Classlist Community Guidelines, which include respecting fellow parents and not using the app to complain about the school or individuals connected with the school.

On or around 5 May, you will receive an email invitation to join Classlist from "[email protected]”.  Please let us know if you do not want us to invite you to join. Parents who are invited but don't become a Classlist member will still receive copies of some email announcements from the PACT (and can, of course, unsubscribe from these), but won’t benefit from the member features above.

Our school prides itself on being a welcoming, inclusive community which is more than the sum of its parts. Classlist’s “virtual school gate” offers a safe, moderated and private space where all our parents can now link up online and meet each other in person when visiting the school.

Although our IT teams initially set up the platform, the ongoing management and administration will be done by PACT, and the school staff will not have any access to the communications or items within the platforms.

I do encourage you all to join Classlist.

Mr Paul Morgan
Head of School