A family reading a school message may be doing so between work, travel, and care responsibilities. The message should make its purpose clear without requiring the reader to understand the school's internal vocabulary.
Lead with the action
State what is happening, who it concerns, and what the reader needs to do. Put the date, place, and contact information where they can be found quickly. Explain unfamiliar terms when they first appear.
Check that links have descriptive labels and lead to the intended destination. If the message refers to a form, say what information the reader will need to complete it.
Review with a reader
Ask someone outside the immediate project to explain the message back to you. Listen for a missing step or an assumption that only staff would know.
Use the school's translation and accessibility processes where needed. A shorter message is useful only if it retains the information people require. The measure is whether a reader can act with reasonable confidence and knows where to ask a question.
