Smart Parents settings
Smart Parents settings
Smart Parents is the parent-facing companion app: a parent links their account to their child using a PIN you generate for that pupil, then sees whatever data your school has chosen to share. Admin configuration lives at Smart Parents in the sidebar (under Engagement), across four tabs — Settings, Students, Parents, and Notifications.
This is a different feature from Classroom parents, which is specifically about inviting guardians to Google Classroom. Smart Parents is the standalone parent app and PIN system; Classroom parents is Classroom guardian email invitations. A school can use either, both, or neither.
Before you start
You must be an admin — managing Smart Parents settings is an admin-only capability. (Mentors can still send a one-off notice to parents once Smart Parents is on — see Add a parent notice — but can't change these settings.)
Step 1 — Turn on Smart Parents {#step-1}
On the Settings tab, set Smart Parents to Enabled. When it's on, parents can link learners from your school to their own parent account.
Step 2 — Set your school's contact details {#step-2}
Fill in Office phone number, Contact email, and School address. These are the school's own contact details as shown to parents in the app — worth keeping current even though nothing stops you turning Smart Parents on before they're filled in.
Step 3 — Choose what parents can see {#step-3}
Under Parents can view, set each of the following to Yes or No independently:
- Attendance
- Achievement
- Behaviour
- Timetable
Select at least one — if all four are off, a parent sees a blank screen. You can also add a Google Calendar ID so parents see that calendar in the app; leave it blank to not show one.
Select Update settings to save.
Step 4 — Generate PINs for pupils {#step-4}
Switch to the Students tab. Search by name/username, and filter by group or by PIN status (All PINs / With PINs / Without PINs / No associations — pupils with no linked parent yet).
- Select one or more pupils and select Generate PINs to (re)generate a PIN for just that selection.
- With nothing selected, the button reads Regenerate all PINs instead — this resets every active learner's PIN for the whole school, so it's confirmation-gated.
Each generated PIN allows a small, limited number of sign-ins before it shows as expired in this list — generate a new one for a pupil whose PIN has expired.
Step 5 — Export PINs {#step-5}
Select Export to download a CSV (Firstname, Surname, Username, Year, Pin) for your current selection, or for every active pupil if nothing is selected.
Do not share this whole CSV with parents. It contains every selected pupil's PIN in one file. Give a parent only their own child's username and PIN — never the full export.
Step 6 — Review linked parents {#step-6}
The Parents tab lists every parent account already linked to a pupil at your school — search or filter by group, see which pupils each parent is associated with, remove an association if needed, or Export parents to CSV.
Notifications tab {#step-7}
The Notifications tab here is the same feature documented in Add a parent notice — it lists recent notices sent to parents and a New notification button that opens that same composer. See that doc for writing and sending a notice; this page is just where admins land to review what's been sent.