How to share homework and class updates with parents online, week by week
Parents want three things from a class page: what's happening this week, what homework is due, and what to bring. A simple public page with one short post a week covers that. Because the page is open to anyone, the rules about what goes on it matter more than the design. Here's a weekly routine to share homework and class updates with parents online, and the lines not to cross.
Check your school's rules first
Most schools have a policy on online communication with parents, photographs of pupils and which platforms staff may use. Some require everything to go through an approved learning platform. Read the policy, and ask your head or data protection lead before setting anything up. A class page made with Anticode is public: anyone with the address can read it, and there's no way to put it behind a password or a parent login. That makes it suitable for general class news and homework, and unsuitable for anything about an individual child.
| Fine to post | Never post |
|---|---|
| This week's topic and what the class is learning | Pupils' full names, or first names with photos |
| Homework tasks and due dates | Marks, reports or behaviour notes |
| Kit reminders: PE days, swimming, trips | Medical, dietary or family information |
| Photos of work, displays or the classroom with no faces | Photos of pupils without written consent under your school's policy |
| How to contact the school office | Your personal phone number or social accounts |
Set up the page once
- Describe the page in a sentence: "a page for Year 4 parents with a weekly update, homework, key dates and how to contact the school office".
- Create a CMS collection for updates. Give it fields for title, date, a rich-text body, homework, and an optional image. Each update becomes its own entry with its own address under the collection, and the list of updates sits at the collection's main address.
- Add a key dates section on the main page for things that change rarely: term dates, PE days, trip dates.
- Put the school office's contact details on the page, not a form. Messages about individual children belong in the school's own systems.
- Publish, and check the page on a phone, which is where most parents will read it.
The weekly routine
Friday afternoon works for most classes, so parents have the weekend to read it. The update takes ten minutes:
- Add a new entry in the dashboard with the date as the title, for example "Week of 3 November".
- Three short paragraphs: what we learned, what's coming next week, anything to bring or remember.
- Homework in its own field, with the due date written out.
- One photo, if any, of work or a display, with no faces and no names visible on the work. Write a short description of what it shows.
- Save. The collection's pages show new entries as soon as they're saved. If the main page has a section listing the latest updates, publish again for that section to catch up.
Letting parents know
Anticode doesn't send emails or notifications to parents, so tell them about the page through the channels your school already uses: the newsletter, the school app, a note home at the start of term. Put the address on the classroom door and on every letter. Some teachers add a line to their usual weekly message: "This week's update is on the class page." Over a term, parents learn to check on Fridays.
At the end of the year
Decide with your school what happens to old updates. Common choices are deleting the year's entries in the summer, or keeping them for a term and then removing them. Delete any entry a parent asks you to take down, at once. If you're handing the class to another teacher, make sure the account is a school account, not a personal one: projects can't be transferred between separate accounts.
Limits
No logins or private pages, no comments, no scheduled posts, no email to parents, no file uploads from parents, no translation into other languages for families who'd prefer it. For anything private or two-way, use your school's approved platform. For ideas on the page itself see class website and posting news updates.
Questions people ask
Can I make the class page private?
No. Published pages are public. Only post general class information, never anything about individual children.
Can I post photos of the class?
Only as your school's photo policy allows, with consent. Photos of work or displays without faces are the safer default.
Will parents get a notification when I post?
No. Tell them about the page through the school's usual channels and post on the same day each week.