We’re really excited to have launched our new free service, and want you to get the most of it from day one. Below, we’ve put together a quick guide to help you get started and engaging parents straight away. Not registered yet? Head to www.parenthub.pleasecheck.me/#/register to get your free account today.

Setting up channels

Channels are the different feeds that you can post messages, documents and images to, allowing parents to see the amazing things that you’re doing at school. Each channel has a name and description, which are shared with subscribers to let them know what the channel is all about.

Creating posts

Each post needs a subject (brief overview) and content. You can attach PDFs, Word documents and images to share with subscribers – just hit the upload button and choose your file.

Invite subscribers

If you have email details for parents you can send them an invite straight from the portal, or alternatively you can download a lovely, ready-made channel poster with your channel code and instructions for parents to download the app.

Share your channel with colleagues

Shared responsibility of a class? Looking to set up a departmental channel? Want your line manager to have an overview of content you’re sharing?

You can invite members to your channel to let others post content to the feed and see the activity in your channel.

Some final words of wisdom:

• Make sure you’ve published a post or two for subscribers to view when they get your invitation – parents are more likely to keep using the app if they can see the value from Day 1.
• Share channels with colleagues to share the responsibility and increase the amount of content for parents – the more staff that use it at the school, the more useful the app will be for parents.
• Set up a different channel for each group or class that you teach – this means that parents will only get information that is relevant to their child.
• Send a post with a picture attached early on – just like on social media, subscribers to your channel will engage more with images than plain text.
• Write dates out in full so that subscribers can sync them straight to their phone calendar.

Happy messaging!