Guide
Updated 24 September 2026.
Put the site and the date in the first line, then say what parents should do with their child. Send that to each adult who is allowed to have it, and print a copy where there is no email. You can mark it as an emergency so it goes out after school. A blocked contact stays off the list.
Most people will see the first line while they are still in the kitchen. Name the site, say whether it is the whole day, and say if breakfast club or after-school care is running. Put the time of the next update in that same short block.
The reason can sit underneath. A paragraph about the boiler, or a line from the trust, can wait until they have actually opened the message.
A closure is a bad moment to mail every address on last year’s spreadsheet. Open the audience and read the excluded names. If both parents are allowed school information, each of them needs their own copy.
Where the record does not say whether an adult may see it, hold that pupil back and give the exception to a named person in the office. Sending it “just in case” is how the wrong adult gets the letter.
Families already on the app get the push and the email. Households with no email need a print pack from that same list, otherwise the sheet on the office desk ends up saying something different.
If it becomes a second day, or one site reopens, send a new message. People will not go back and reread yesterday’s. Cancel a scheduled send if the date has moved and it has not gone yet.
Send it to the adults the school has said may receive it. Both households can be on that list. A restricted contact stays off it. If permission was never recorded, hold the pupil and ask the office.
Yes. Marking it as an emergency is what lets it go out in the evening. The block on a contact still applies.
Look at how old the contact data is before you send. If the import failed, the office should know that while they still have a choice.
More on this: Who should receive a school letter, Families without email, School letters in Pupil Gate. The full list is on the guides page.
Open the demo as a parent, then as the office, and see the same letter from both ends. It is a fictional trust with the real product behind it.
