Education

Before setting up your community, consider your purpose – is it to share school activity updates, provide support for student and staff well-being, share best practices and new teaching material, or something else? Your purpose will help you to decide which members to include in the community and what groups they will be in. You might create or add the following groups:

• teachers by grade or subject;
• non-teaching staff;
• people working on different projects;
• parents by class or grade;
• student classes with teachers as group admins;
• members of sports teams or other school activities.

A clear community purpose will help your admin team and members to understand why some groups are added while others are not. For example, if part of your purpose is to share school related updates, you might decide to add a group of parents of school football players, who are sharing information on equipment and training schedules. On the other hand, a group of parents connecting over a shared social interest would not be included.

The members of some groups – such as class groups – could change significantly each year. In this case, it will be easier to remove the group and add a new one in its place. Other groups, such as sports teams, study or project-based groups, may need to be added and removed more regularly. Groups such as parent associations or non-teaching staff are more likely to remain constant, with some members being added and removed from time to time. If most groups need to be removed each year, it may be simpler to deactivate the community and start a new one.

Maintaining a positive environment is important for the well-being of your community. Whether you are conversing with teachers, parents, or students, it is good practice to include a Code of Conduct for your Community on WhatsApp. A Code of Conduct is a collection of the rules, principles, and values that guide your community in understanding the behaviors and content that are allowed and disallowed in the community.

In the education sector, there are some risks to pay close attention to. It is important to develop clear guidance for both community and group admins regarding:

• Underage Students - Students must be at least 13 years old to register for and use WhatsApp, and in the European Region, they must be 16 years or older. It is vital that you do not create a Community on WhatsApp that includes students younger than these age limits. It is crucial to work with your admin team to monitor for the presence of underage students, and remove and report underage accounts to WhatsApp promptly.
• Group Invite Links and New Members - Invite links can be extremely useful in a context where class and parent groups are constantly changing. However, links should only be sent directly to intended group members by email or private message, along with a warning that the link should not be forwarded to unrelated contacts. Work with your community and group admins to monitor and quickly remove any contact you do not recognise.
• Bullying - Bullying can come in many different forms, from spreading rumors, to posting inappropriate photos, to threatening someone. It is a good idea to regularly post announcements to encourage members to report bullying to group and community admins. Make it clear that bullying within the community will result in removal, and may also lead to consequences under your school’s anti-bullying policies.
• Child Exploitation - Where minors under 18 years old are involved, any form of sexual communication is against WhatsApp policies, and also illegal in many countries. This can be the case even where minors are the ones sharing sexual imagery, and the imagery is of themselves. Such content should be deleted immediately. If you or your admin team receive or encounter content indicating that a child is being abused or exploited, contact your local police and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), or the International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children (ICMEC), and report and block the user immediately.

How to add and remove group participants

In education-based communities, there should be a clear framework for appointing community and group admins, communicating and coordinating across the admin team, and holding group admins accountable for managing their groups.

When selecting a community admin, it is best to choose people who have some formal accountability to your community – for example, an employed teacher or staff member. At the same time, consider the skills and access to information that an admin will need to ensure that communication across the community is efficient and valuable to members.

For managing staff and parent groups, consider appointing a group admin who is:

• committed to the Code of Conduct;
• friendly, sociable, and resilient;
• prepared to spend time managing the group;
• prepared to regularly communicate and meet with other admins.

Teachers should be appointed as group admins for class groups involving students under 18 years old. If there is a need for smaller study or project groups, a teacher might:

• make sure they are an admin of each group;
• appoint one student as their co-group admin;
• check in with student group co-admins periodically to discuss any concerns and remind them of the Code of Conduct;
• encourage students to either @mention or privately message the teacher if there are any concerns.

To keep your community engaged, it is important to ensure that information provided in the Announcement group is valuable and relevant to everybody. This could include announcements about:

• assemblies or events;
• closures and vacations;
• staff appointments or transitions;
• curriculum changes;
• feedback surveys.

It is good practice to consider the purpose of various groups within the community. Depending on their objectives, you can work with group admins to guide the format, frequency, and content of their communications. It may be useful to:

• send out year level announcements to parents and students concerning events, tryouts, and opportunities;
• message class parent groups to ask for volunteers, invite them to meet teachers, or respond to their frequently asked questions;
• send educational videos, homework documents, or reminders about exam timetables to class groups.

It is a good idea for community and group admins to ask members for feedback about the information they find valuable and what they would like to see more of. Community and group admins can also connect in the Admin Only group to share what they think is working well and what isn’t, what groups could be added or removed to keep conversations more relevant, and whether certain announcements are better handled at a group or community level.