Launchpad notices

6 min read Updated 4 November 2026

A notice is a banner at the top of the launchpad: a title, an optional message and link, for the people you choose, from its start until its end. Use it for closures, trips, reminders and anything else everyone needs to see when they sign in.

Notices work for every school — Google, Microsoft or neither.

Before you start

You need to be an admin with the Change school settings permission (full admins have it), with the school selected in the switcher. In the MAT overview the page is for trust-wide notices only (see Trust-wide notices).
Notices are being introduced gradually. Where your school has them, School settings → Launchpad notices is in the sidebar, and the Launchpad tab of School settings has a Notices card with Manage notices. If neither is there, notices haven't been switched on yet: ask Realsmart support.

Post a notice

Open School settings → Launchpad notices and select New notice. The form opens as an Info notice for pupils and staff, starting now and ending in a week.
Write a Title (up to 120 characters) and, if you need it, a Message (up to 600). Both are plain text: formatting and HTML aren't allowed. The Preview at the top shows the banner as the launchpad will show it while you type.
Optionally add a Link — a full web address starting with https:// — and the Link text to click (up to 40 characters; it says Find out more if you leave it blank). It opens in a new tab. Link text needs a link.
Choose a Tone:
- Info — news and reminders. People can dismiss it.
- Important — something people need to know or do. People can dismiss it.
- Urgent — closures, safety and emergencies. Nobody can dismiss it: it stays until it ends.
Choose Who sees it: pupils, staff, or both. Staff means every account that isn't a pupil's. For pupils you can limit it to some year groups under Pupils in; leave that empty for every year.
Choose When: the day and time it starts (now, by default; Starts on and At), and either the day and time it ends (Ends on and At) or, with End automatically off, until you end it. Times are UK time (your school's time zone if it has a different one). The end must be after the start and still to come.
Select Post notice. A notice that starts now reaches the launchpad within a minute (the page says Notice posted. It reaches the launchpad within a minute.); a later one is listed under Scheduled until it starts (Notice scheduled. and the time it appears).

Live, scheduled and ended

The page lists notices in three groups, each drawn as the launchpad draws it:

Live now — on the launchpad at the moment, urgent first, then the newest. It shows how many are live out of the three allowed (for example 2 of 3 live).
Scheduled — still to start, soonest first.
Ended — finished in the last 30 days, most recent first, up to 20. The audit trail keeps every notice ever posted.

Change, end or delete a notice

Edit changes anything about a notice, including its dates — so you can bring back an ended one. People who dismissed the old wording see the edited notice again.
End now takes a live notice off the launchpad: confirm End "(title)" now? and it leaves within a minute and moves to Ended.
Delete takes a notice off the launchpad and off the page: confirm Delete "(title)"? and it leaves within a minute.

Every change is recorded in the audit trail (see Admin audit trail), with who made it and when.

At most three at once

A school shows at most three live notices at once, counting any trust-wide notices from its trust. If a new notice would make a fourth at any point while it's live, it isn't saved, and the page says which school and when (for example (School) already has 3 notices live now, and a school shows at most 3 at once. End or delete one of them, or choose other dates.). A notice scheduled for after another ends doesn't count against it.

What people see

The banner sits at the top of the launchpad, above the timetable, for the people you chose. Each notice shows its title, message and link (which opens in a new tab). If more than three are live, only the three most important show: urgent first, then important, then info, newest first within each.

Info and Important notices have a Dismiss button. Dismissing hides it only for that person, in that browser: a pupil who signs in next on the same computer still sees it, and the same person still sees it on another device. If you edit the notice, it comes back for people who had dismissed it.
Urgent notices have no dismiss button. They stay until they end.
A notice for staff only (not pupils) shows as Hidden in projector mode for a member of staff who has turned projector mode on, so it isn't read out to a class from a projected screen. Pupil notices still show.

Trust-wide notices

A trust admin can post one notice to every school in the trust. From the MAT overview, open Launchpad notices and select New trust-wide notice. It works the same way as a school's notice, and counts towards each school's three.

Each school sees a trust-wide notice on its own Launchpad notices page, marked Trust-wide, but only the trust's admins can change it, from the MAT overview.
To post one, you need to be one of the trust's own admins with access to every one of its schools. If your access covers only some of the trust's schools, post a notice to each of your schools instead. If you can't, the MAT overview page says Pick a school with the reason, for example Trust-wide notices are posted by a trust's own admins., You can't post trust-wide notices because your access doesn't cover every school in the trust. Post a notice for each of your schools instead. or This trust has no schools linked to it yet.
The button in the MAT overview is New trust-wide notice and the form's save button is Post to every school.

Troubleshooting

"Plain text only: take out the HTML tags." A notice shows exactly what you type, so take out anything in angle brackets.
"Enter a full web address that starts with https://." Links must be secure (https://) web addresses of up to 255 characters.
"Add the link this text is for, or clear it." You've typed link text but no link.
"Give the notice a title.", "Keep the title to 120 characters or fewer." and "Keep the message to 600 characters or fewer. Link to the details instead." Shorten the text.
"Choose who sees it." Tick Pupils, Staff or both.
"The end must be after the start." and "Choose an end that is still to come." Change the dates, or turn off End automatically.
"… already has 3 notices live". See At most three at once.
"This page is for (school), but you have switched to the MAT overview since. Reload the page to carry on." (or "…reload to manage (other school). Nothing was changed."). You switched school in another tab. Reload and try again.
A pupil can't see a notice. Check it's for pupils, that their year group is included, and that it's live (not scheduled or ended). They may have dismissed it, unless it's urgent. It can take up to a minute to appear.
Staff can't see a notice. Check Staff is ticked. A member of staff in projector mode sees Hidden in projector mode instead of a staff-only notice.
"Launchpad notices aren't available yet. Nothing was changed." or Available shortly. Notices aren't fully set up yet: try later or ask Realsmart support.

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