How does your primary school communicate with you?

[Imogensmith]

Our first DC is in reception so I don't have anything else to compare with.
We have messages from school via marvellous me and sometimes via email.
School also have a twitter page which is the only way to view photographs of what the children have been up to. I was quite surprised about this as we've never really used twitter, as have most of our friends.
It's a really small school so I don't know if that affects maybe the budget they have for using a different platform?
Twitter is so un user friendly when you don't have an account and I can usually only view one or two posts before a 'sign up' pop up appears and I can't use the site anymore. Is it worth me raising with the head teacher?

Through passive aggressive and sometimes just outright rude emails.

Never social media.

They’re not communicating with parents via Twitter though, they are communicating with the whole of the outside world. If money is an issue they should have opted for Facebook and only permitted verified parents as ‘friends’ to share photos.

Nothing on social media. Can they keep photos private on twitter or are they posting the kids for all to see?!

Our school communicates mostly by email. Sometimes notes sent home in book bags.

1. Get a twitter account.
2. What communication do you want? This isn't nursery, they don't have to send photos home or anything like that.
3. They sound fine for a small school.

Ours use email and a weekly newsletter via email with pics on but usually 15ish pics of events at a 2 form entry primary.

Dojo

Seriously? You think schools have the staffing to stream photos of your child across multiple platforms? Sign up to Twitter or take a chill pill.

DC's school use class dojo and the Arbor app. There is also a public facebook page with regular updates. The school I worked in prior to my current one used Twitter, each class had an account along with a main school account. It had poor engagement as so many people don't use Twitter!

We get photos on Tapestry sporadically , then a whole school weekly email every Friday. Letters go on the parent portal (or sometimes on Tapestry, just to keep us on our toes). Bump letters come by email. And then we get reminders by text for some things too. So a real mixture for us, meaning there's often people asking on the class WhatsApp where to find information they know they've read somewhere!

Actual communication: emails and through an app. It’s mostly emails (which 50% have to be retracted because they are completely wrong - wrong date, time, instructions 🙄), but sometimes randomly and inexplicably a message through the app. We don’t all seem to get all the messages, but there’s no pattern to who is left off what email.

They also post photos and class information on the website and on Facebook as well, but only really for special events (and only for children with consent obviously).

Just get a twitter account. You only have to follow the school and you don't need to post anything.

I get emails, text and the school has a private Facebook page.

We get emails, some messages through "the school app" and there's a Facebook page too. They used to use twitter but stopped recently due to Elon Musk changing things, I'm not sure what though. I'd raise twitter with them to check it's secure and not seen by anyone and everyone.

It was email or text.

A never-ending torrent of mostly trivial emails.

No..I definitely didn't say that did I. I was just wondering how other schools do it, since this is obviously the only school I have experience of being a parent at. I'd rather they didn't use twitter or social media at all actually so definitely not asking for multiple platforms, I think your response is a massive reach from my OP. Maybe you could take your own advice and take a chill pill✌
Thanks for the helpful responses...a wide range of ideas.

They will have to have permission for the social media posts, remove your consent.

Sounds like my daughters school 😂

They use the ParentMail app, approx 250-300 children in the school. ParentMail is actually really useful - we can order new uniform, pay for school trips, they send the class newsletters on it, any random messages (reminder of uniform rules, don’t forget pta cake sale after school, advert for local village fete etc).

Info is not always accurate.

I think it’s worth raising as an issue if you don’t feel you’re getting appropriate communication, and if you happen to know any of the governors it might be worth a quick informal chat with them?

We have Tapestry for class related trips/reminders & photos of what they've been up to.

Everything else is emailed. We get a weekly newsletter for the whole school with a plan of what each year group is doing the following week, info about trips, important dates etc. And always an email for anything specific for you to come & watch (school play, sports day etc).

They used to mix communication between Tapestry & email with no clear rationale for what went on which one & so many people didn't check Tapestry regularly enough (me included) that they decided to just use email as that's what parents preferred (they put out a survey to ask).

I wouldn't be happy for the school to share my child's photo etc on twitter but not on their chosen school platform. I would expect them to concentrate on sharing it with the parents in a secure method rather than spend their time uploading it to twatter, which the majority of parents don't use as its a load of shit.

There is another recent thread that may help you with a bigger picture.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/5102514-is-this-much-primary-school-info-online-normal?page=1

Everything is sent by parent mail plus a closed /private class web page for home work (1 for each class) . Reception also has tapestry to record the observations that they need to do for early years.