How to share the ‘boring’ school news

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We understand that some school news is always going to remain rather monotonous, it’s unavoidable. 

Often though, this ‘boring’ news is pretty important and needs to be read. This being the case, how can you ensure that the not-so-exciting news is communicated effectively to your parent community? 

Here are Five Ideas:

  1. K.I.S.S

    Here’s the obvious one, but it needs a mention. Keep It Short & Simple. As far as digital communications are concerned, people’s attention spans are continuing to decrease. At the same time, there’s a mind-boggling amount of media vying for that dwindling attention.

    Your school comms are competing with Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Online News, Email, WhatsApp, Online Banking, the list goes on and on (and on).

    Condense the information as much as you can. Could you communicate it in an image? Great. Would it work as a short video? Even better.

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  2. Schedule it

    It’s really important to consider when you send your news, and we mean ‘when’ in more ways than one. Firstly, exercise some common sense about the time it gets distributed. Whilst it might be tempting to write an email or app notification, send it there and then, and be done with it, consider how likely it is to be read by your parents, if you send it at that time. 

    Instead of sending the notification at 9am on a Monday morning when many are embarking on a new work week, for example, would it be better to schedule it for a Tuesday evening at 7.30pm? A time when more people will have settled down, fed and bathed the kids, and possibly be thinking about relaxing on the sofa?

    Secondly, on the ‘when’ point, consider this news in the broader context of your school communications. Do you already plan to send out a lot of information today? If so, could this component wait until tomorrow, or could you consolidate this information with other news?


  3. Ping it

    This is about being intelligent regarding how you send your news, especially if the information is of the more monotonous nature. Of the below, what’s more likely to be consumed by the parent?

      • Another email, in their overflowing inbox, on which a non-mobile responsive PDF letter is attached. This PDF is nice and small, so the parent needs to get two hands on their phone, in order to expand and decipher the text.
      • An app notification that pings on their home screen. The info displays correctly for mobile, it opens up to show all the relevant information, and the parent knows they can return straight to it in their feed, whenever they need to.

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      Granted, we’ve chosen two extremes here for the purpose of illustration, but you get the point. The channel you choose to send news is just as important as how you portray that information, because if the content doesn’t get opened in the first place, the rest is totally pointless anyway!


    • Sandwich it

      Everyone loves a bit of good news, especially if it concerns their child personally. If you’re already producing engaging, well-read newsletters, this idea could particularly work for your school. 

      The concept is simple; integrate the ‘not 

      exciting but important’ notices within other, more interesting news items. For example, follow up a media-rich round up of the school sports day with a reminder about payment for a school trip. Keep the title for this concise, and consider adding an eye-catching image, so people naturally want to read on. 

      And if your newsletter needs a bit of positive TLC, check out our article about how to make a newsletter more engaging.


    • Contextualise it

      Finally, it always helps readers to know why this piece of news is important, so it’s worth giving a bit of context. For example: “The roadworks and traffic lights are outside school again. This time though, it’s because they’re building a fabulous new childcare facility over the road which will be open next summer.” Or: “Several parents have reported speeding traffic last week, with one incident nearly resulting in a dangerous situation involving a child in year 2. Please keep to the speed limit on 20MPH outside the school.”

      Again, give the article a stand out headline so it jumps out at the reader.

      If you’d like a no-pressure chat about improving parent engagement at your school, get in touch with us to arrange a virtual meeting.