Making friends at school as a new parent

Classlist founders Susan and Clare wanted to make sure that children joining a school would know someone else or at least have a way of meeting them. It's so much nicer to spot a friendly face in the crowd and have someone to talk to after all.

Classlist was born to help address this frequent problem by providing parents with a secure, private community for school families to look each other up and get in touch.

Today Classlist is still evolving and has moved to a modern mobile app to continue with this mission for inclusivity by supporting parent-parent and family-family connections.

Are you a new parent needing help, or are you able to pay it forward and help a new parent?

It works especially well for families who are new to an area or for parents who are not often at the school itself because of work commitments or simply because the children are older. 

There is also the case of younger siblings joining a school. Parents may not feel the need to meet others in the same way as the first child that goes to school as they are more familiar with the school and have some contacts, but, of course, it is important to nurture the new sibling's social life and help them to settle in.

"I have another child joining the school, but I don't know the families in that class."

If you have already joined Classlist for your school, you may not have thought about joining your new child's class family chat. Even if you know people at the school, there may be families new to the school who will greatly appreciate your insider knowledge and a friendly welcome.

So whether you want to pay it forward or simply connect for your child's friendship-building and class updates, add the child's details to join their class on Classlist.

Here's how to join a new class:

Add a child to your Classlist community by tapping on your avatar and choosing "Children and classes" from the menu.

By selecting the class the child is in, you will automatically be connected with other class families.

Benefits include:

• View the names of the children in the class
• Access their parents' profiles to message and arrange meetups
• Access the class chat group for reminders and information about class activities shared by the class rep, or local events happening other parents recommend
• Have a space where you can ask other parents questions who are managing the same homework, sports kit and transport schedules as you
• Switch to map view to see which classmates live near you

I cannot find my child's class in the list
If your class is not in the list or you're not sure which one it is, choose
"I am not sure" or "I cannot find it" from the bottom of the list. Once you have joined, you can message an ambassador to let them know and they should be able to help.

If you've not yet joined Classlist, register below and install the app!

Have you got a story about connecting over Classlist? We'd love to hear it. Connect on our social media channel or drop us a line.