Parent Portal - Communicating with parents

The Parent Portal communication system was launched in September 2016 to refine and consolidate the information we send out to parents.

My School Portal

My School Portal pulls all of the data from iSAMS and some key documents from the Intranet, formatting it in a way that is easy for parents to read and navigate around. Parents can access the School calendar, reports, timetables, useful documents and teacher contacts through the new system, along with a record of all the email communications sent to them since the start of the 2016/17 academic year.

Only a limited number of staff have access to update content on the Parent Portal. Please email marketing@stpaulsschool.org.uk if you wish to share any documents or additional information with parents through this system.

My School Post

All parent communications from the School are now sent via the SchoolPost system.

During Autumn Term 2023, over 1000 separate messages and texts were sent out via School Post to groups of parents and to individual parents. We have received feedback from some parents that they are frustrated by the volume of correspondence from the school and that they find it difficult to find the emails that are important to them within the number of emails that they receive, especially for those with multiple children at the school.

To make things easier for parents, we are going to be trialling a new way of working within School Post in Spring Term 2024 to see if we can simplify things a little for them.

Subject Line Clarification

The beginning of each subject line should identify the area of the school that the email relates to. Subject lines should be as succinct as possible and make it clear which year group it relates to. It is not necessary to include St Paul’s School or St Paul’s Juniors in the subject line because it appears as the ‘from’ address. A suggested list is given below:

• Academic: results, parents’ evenings, university applications.
• Administrative: information for specific classes, medical information, uniform.
• Trips: sign up for trips and administration for those who are attending a trip.
• Sport: information for the term and information aimed at specific teams, dates, training.
• Music / Drama / Art: information about rehearsals, timings, exhibitions.
• Events: sign up and reminders about community events, bulletins with multiple events.
• Newsletters: weekly newsletters for SPS and SPJ.

For example, Academic: University Presentation for Lower Eighth Parents or Sport: U14 Rugby Match v Eton College Information

If an email requires the parents to take a specific action (e.g. provide permission for an event), the email subject line should begin Action Required: and then the rest of the email subject line as detailed above, Action Required: Academic – Sign up for Fourth Form Parents’ Evening.

Going forward we would also kindly request that those using School Post do not use the ‘push to the top’ function. The Marketing and Communications team who have oversight of all the campaigns going out on a particular day will then be able to prioritise academic calls to action. If multiple emails are marked ‘push to the top’, the system is not able to determine which is the priority and will put them in the order that they were created.

Event Information

We will also be trialling a weekly round-up email for the events programme, which will include new events that are available to book and a final reminder for events happening that week, rather than sending individual emails. Over the next few months we will evaluate the response rates before committing to this model.

Daily Timings

To allow all the subject lines to be checked and the ‘push to the top’ function to be used effectively, the cut-off time for emails to go out in the 4.30pm bulletin each day will be 3.30pm. This will allow the Marketing & Communications team to briefly check the campaigns and ensure that the most urgent or important campaign for that day appears first for parents.

We understand that sometimes an urgent campaign will need to come in after that time. If this is the case, please phone the Marketing team to ensure they are aware of it and provide copy that is already checked and ready to go. Unless something is extremely urgent (e.g. a late return from that day’s trip), communications should be kept to the 4.30pm bulletin and not sent individually.