At some point in 2021, we’re all hoping for some degree of normality to resume, but until then, it’s difficult to plan ahead.

Something that isn’t going anywhere, though, is the importance of parental engagement (some might argue it’s more important than ever!).

We’re suggesting three cost-effective strategies to help you engage parents in 2021.

Start blogging

It’s free, and you can start it immediately. You might be thinking “what have we got to blog about?” the answer is – a lot.

Blogging isn’t just about your school updates, it’s about sharing relevant and interesting content with your parents.

To engage them, you need to create content that addresses their problems. Let’s take COVID, for example, over the first UK lockdown, parents struggled with homeschooling. Tips around educational shows on Netflix, or advice on how to juggle your work with your new school teacher duties, would have been gratefully received.

It’s simple, by blogging, you get better marketing results. You can expect up to 55% more visitors to your website if you blog, and 434% more indexed pages by Google (which means better visibility in Google). Imagine all those parents’ eyes on your content!

Generic topics ideas could include:
– what should parents look for in a new school?
– questions you should ask your child’s teacher at parents’ evening
– money-saving tips for busy parents
– take a video tour of our school (video content helps engage a different kind of audience)

Some schools also have a separate headteacher’s blog, so this is something additional you could consider.

Consider keeping virtual meetings

We’re not suggesting virtual video calls should replace face-to-face communication. But in times when parents are too busy for parents’ evening, or they can’t get a babysitter – whatever the reason, virtual communication means you’re able to cater to every parent.

If a parent or guardian isn’t as mobile, virtual communication would also come in handy for these instances.

In these past few months, we’ve all learnt just how quickly we can adapt to different ways of communicating, and there’s no reason why we have to rush back to how it was before.

If improving parental communication is the ultimate goal for your school, see what other practices you can implement that were used during COVID.

Embrace paperless communication

In short, it’s quicker, easier, and more measurable than sending letter communications. A lot of people now have smartphones, actually, 84% of UK adults own a smartphone as of 2020.

Just think how many times you check your phone – whether it’s for email, text, phone calls or just browsing the internet, we’re probably all guilty of using our phones a lot more than we should. But this presents an opportunity for UK schools, to communicate almost instantly with parents.

Send texts, notifications, and surveys through a school communication app. Understand straightaway who opened the emails, who has responded and who hasn’t read it. Ping it back out to those who haven’t engaged yet.

A paperless solution will save your school money, time, and effort – who doesn’t want that?

P.S. check how much you could be saving by switching to digital communication, use our savings calculator now.