Lucidpress and Issuu: Rethinking the School Newsletter

The world has moved on since Microsoft Publisher 2010. Many primary school newsletters haven't...

We live in a technological age of Airbnb, Spotify, Uber, Google Chrome, 4G - the list goes on of things that were unheard of 5, 8, 10 years ago, and that we now take for granted. Considering this and the amount of technology in most schools today, it is often the school newsletter that remains firmly rooted in another age. Perhaps a Publisher 2010 template dusted off every term? An aging Word document hastily converted (if you're lucky) to PDF before uploading to the school website? It's 2017 and we can do better!

 5 tips to bring your school newsletter up-to-date:

1. Consider publishing an online newsletter. I signed up to Lucidpress - it's free and a couple of clicks if you have a Google account. There are a number of free newsletter templates to help you get started:

​2.  Include lots of interactive content. Add hyperlinks to images and embed videos - from the swimming gala, summer fayre or wherever.  It doesn't have to just be a static document any more.

​3. Consider using a URL shortener such as goo.gl, or bit.ly when sending out the newsletter to parents. This way you'll be able to track how many viewers you have, for free, when you log back in to the URL service. It's a paid feature on Lucidpress but you can easily see your stats without having to pay for the subscription.

4. Using a free digital publishing platform such as issuu makes your newsletter come alive - they also give you tools so you can easily embed your newsletter onto your learning platform or school website:

Let's bring the primary school newsletter into this technological age!

(NB I know there are many schools that do the above, but they're certainly in the minority!)