Smart Parents settings

11 min read Updated 4 November 2026

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. 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.

Where everything is

Open Smart Parents in the sidebar, under Engagement. The sidebar shows four shortcuts under it: Settings, Students, Parents and Notifications.

The page itself has nine tabs along the top: Settings, App coverage, Students, School Story, Photo consent, Parents, Events, Notifications and Website. App coverage, School Story, Photo consent, Events and Website have no sidebar shortcut: open Smart Parents, then choose the tab.

Before you start

You must be an admin who holds Manage Smart Parents. Full-access admins have it. An admin on reduced access doesn't, and then Smart Parents isn't in their sidebar at all (see Reduced admin access). 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.

Smart Parents is set up one school at a time. In the MAT overview, switch to a school first.

Step 1 — Turn on Smart Parents

On the Settings tab, set Smart Parents to Enabled, then select Update settings at the bottom of the page ("Smart Parents settings saved." appears). When it's on, parents can find your school in the app and link their child to their own parent account.

While it's Disabled: your school isn't in the list parents pick from when they add a child, mentors lose Add parent notice and nobody can send a notice (admins can still write and save drafts), and staff who open teacher mode are told "Smart Parents is not switched on for your school".

Step 2 — Set your school's contact details

Under School contact, fill in Office phone number (up to 64 characters), Contact email and School address (up to 100 characters each). Nothing stops you turning Smart Parents on before they're filled in, but keep them current.

Today the app's Contact screen shows the phone number (with a Call the school office button), the email and your school's website. It doesn't show the address yet, and the website link comes from your school's own record, not from this page.

Step 3 — Choose what parents can see

Under Parents can view, set each of the following to Yes or No independently:

Attendance, with an optional Attendance target (%), from 1 to 100 such as 96, drawn as a line on the attendance chart in the app. Leave it empty for no target.
Achievement. The Kids tab needs this on.
Behaviour
Timetable. This gives parents a Timetable tab.
Attainment. There's no attainment screen in the app yet; it only counts towards showing the Stats tab.

The Stats tab appears for a parent when any of Attendance, Achievement, Behaviour, Attainment or Classwork is on. Select at least one of them — if they're all off, a parent sees a blank screen. Teacher mode follows the same choices when staff look up a pupil.

Under Features:

School Story turns on the feed of photos and news staff post from teacher mode. See The School Story.
Kids tab and monster game shows whether the Kids tab is on. Only Realsmart can change it, so for anyone else it can't be selected; ask Realsmart support. Children earn coins for praise from the day it's switched on (On since shows the date), and it needs Achievement on.
Payments shows whether payments are on, but can't be changed: payments are switched off in the app for now.

Where it's available, Classwork (homework and assignments) lets parents see the titles and due dates of their own child's Google Classroom or Teams work, for the year groups you choose — see Classwork in Smart Parents.

Under Calendar, Calendar source decides where the calendar in the app comes from:

Google Calendar — parents see the calendar whose Google Calendar ID you enter below. Read-only: parents can see the events but not reply to them. Leave the ID blank to show no calendar at all. The app reads the calendar with Realsmart's own Google access, so the Google Calendar must be a public one (anyone can see its events). With a private calendar or a wrong ID, parents see "The calendar couldn't be loaded" in the app.
Events created here — parents see the events on the Events tab, and can sign up to the ones you open for sign-up. See Smart Parents events and sign-ups.

A school uses one or the other, never both. Parents on an older version of the app keep seeing the Google Calendar until they update it.

Select Update settings to save. Nothing is queued: parents see a change the next time the app refreshes, and they can pull down on the screen to refresh straight away.

Choose the app's colour

Under App colour, pick one of the twelve swatches (Smart Parents red, Maroon, Plum, Purple, Navy, Royal blue, Ocean blue, Teal, Green, Forest green, Burnt orange, Slate), or type a hex code such as #1e3a8a into Custom colour (or use the colour picker beside it). The preview shows how buttons, links and highlights will look. Smart Parents red is the default.

Parents see your colour while they're looking at a child at your school, so a parent with children at two schools sees each child in their own school's colour. Teacher mode and the sign-in screens always stay Smart Parents red.

The colour must be dark enough for white text on buttons. If it isn't, you'll see "This colour is too light for white text on buttons. Pick a darker shade." Pick a deeper shade and select Update settings to save. A code that isn't six hex digits shows "Enter a colour as a six-digit hex code, like #1e3a8a."

If you don't see App colour on the Settings tab, it isn't available yet.

SOS parent check

Only schools whose MIS is SOS see SOS parent check, at the bottom of the Settings tab. It decides whether Smart Parents asks SOS before a parent can see a child. SOS allows a parent whose email is on one of the child's contacts with parental responsibility, with no court order and not marked No contact. Choose a Mode:

Off — a parent links to a child with the PIN alone. SOS isn't asked.
Report only — SOS is asked about every parent link, and you can see in SOS which links it would refuse and why, so you can put the records right. Nothing changes for parents, except that a link SOS marks as restricted (a court order or No contact) is removed.
Enforce — a parent sees a child only while SOS allows it. A parent SOS can't match is refused (they can ask the school from the app), and a link SOS refuses is removed within the hour.

This only works once Realsmart has set up your school's SOS token. Until then the check stays off, whatever is chosen here, so ask Realsmart to confirm it's set up before relying on it. A change of mode is recorded in the audit trail.

Step 4 — Generate PINs for pupils

Open the Students tab (Smart Parents → Students in the sidebar). It lists your active pupils, 50 to a page, with Name, Associated (a green tick once at least one parent has linked the pupil), Username and PIN.

To narrow the list, use Search name or username, the All groups list, the PIN filter — All PINs / With PINs / Without PINs / No associations (pupils with no linked parent yet) — or Filter by user, group… to pick particular pupils or groups.

Tick one or more pupils (the box at the top of the column ticks the page) and select Generate PINs (n) to (re)generate a PIN for just that selection.
With nothing ticked, the button reads Regenerate all PINs instead. This resets every active pupil's PIN for the whole school, whatever you've filtered, so you're asked to confirm: "This will reset ALL learners' PINs for this school. Continue?"

A message says how many were made ("5 PIN(s) generated."). A new PIN replaces the old one, so the old PIN stops working — but parents already linked stay linked.

Each new PIN starts with two uses. Where Realsmart has switched PIN limits on in the app, each parent who links the pupil with it uses one, and a PIN with none left shows expired here and can't be used again — generate a new one for that pupil.

Step 5 — Export PINs

Select Export to download a CSV (Firstname, Surname, Username, Year, Pin). The number on the button is how many pupils are ticked, or, with nothing ticked, how many match your filters — but with nothing ticked the file holds every active pupil, whatever the filters say.

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

The Parents tab (Smart Parents → Parents in the sidebar) lists every parent account already linked to a pupil at your school, with Parent, Email, Contact and Associated students. Search by name or email, narrow by group, or use Filter by user, group or parent….

To remove a link, select the cross beside the pupil's name under that parent and confirm "Remove this association?". It's recorded in the audit trail, by ids only. The pupil's PIN doesn't change, so that parent could link again with it: generate a new PIN for the pupil if you don't want that.
Export parents downloads a CSV of every parent linked to a pupil at your school (the search and group filter don't narrow it): Email, Forename, Surname, Mobile and Children (each linked pupil's UPN).

Once classwork is on, each pupil's name also shows when that parent last viewed their classwork, and the export gains a Classwork last viewed column.

App coverage tab

The App coverage tab shows, class by class, how many pupils have a parent on the app and who to chase. See Smart Parents app coverage by class.

School Story tab

School Story under Features switches the School Story on or off: the photos and news staff post from teacher mode. The School Story tab shows everything posted and lets you take a post down. See The School Story.

The Photo consent tab shows which pupils can appear in photos in the School Story in the app, and is where you record the school's consent forms. See Photo consent for the School Story.

Notifications tab

The Notifications tab (Smart Parents → Notifications) is where admins manage notices sent to parents:

Headline numbers — notices sent in the last 30 days (with a 12-week trend), drafts waiting, phones notified and the delivery rate.
Who your notices can reach — how many pupils have a parent linked, how many parents are linked, and how many of them have the app on a phone. Select … without — hand out PINs to jump to the pupils with no parent linked yet.
Every notice — search, filter by status, author or attachments, sort, and bulk delete. Open a draft to finish it, or a sent notice to see its report.

Select New notice to write one — see Add a parent notice. The list and its numbers are explained in Parent notices list and delivery numbers.

Events tab

The Events tab is where you create the events parents see on their calendar, and where you see who has signed up. It has its own doc — Smart Parents events and sign-ups.

Website tab

The Website tab connects your school website, so its news, calendar events and Smart Alert can reach parents in the app. It has its own doc — Send website news, events and alerts to the Smart Parents app.

If something doesn't work

A parent can't add their child. In the app a parent chooses the school, then enters the child's Username and PIN and selects Add child.

What the parent sees	What it usually means	What to do
Your school isn't in the list	Smart Parents is Disabled	Set it to Enabled on the Settings tab and select Update settings
"That username or PIN doesn't match a child at this school. Check the letter from the school office."	A wrong username or PIN, the PIN was regenerated after it was handed out, the pupil has no PIN yet, or the PIN shows expired	On the Students tab check the pupil's PIN column, select Generate PINs if it's empty or expired, and give the parent the username and the current PIN
"Failed to add child. Please try again."	Usually a temporary problem. It also appears once too many wrong PINs have been tried for that pupil: after 10 wrong tries within 24 hours, counted across every parent, adding that child is refused — even with the right PIN — until 24 hours after the first wrong try	Ask the parent to try again the next day. If it keeps happening, ask Realsmart support
"That child is already linked to your account."	This parent has already added this child	Nothing to fix

Parents don't see a feature. Check Smart Parents is Enabled, that the setting for that feature is Yes, and that you selected Update settings. Then ask the parent to update the app, pull down on the screen to refresh, or sign out and back in. See Every Smart Parents feature, and how to switch it on.

Parents see no calendar events, or "The calendar couldn't be loaded". On Google Calendar, check the calendar is public and the Google Calendar ID is right (a blank ID shows no calendar). On Events created here, check events are published on the Events tab.

Smart Parents isn't in my sidebar. You need Manage Smart Parents, and you need to be working in a school, not the MAT overview.

Was this guide helpful?

We read every response — it decides what we rewrite next.