Knowledge Base

What a News Item Is

A news item is a communication sent to a defined set of students and their families. It has a title, a body (plain text), and optionally a set of response blocks (such as RSVP or consent). It can have a due date, and it can be updated over time — with version history that keeps a permanent record of what was sent and when.

News items are the right tool when you need to communicate something to a specific group of families and, optionally, collect a structured response. Common uses include:

• Concert or performance announcements (with RSVP and dietary notes)
• Exam information (with consent or acknowledgement)
• General studio announcements (informational only, no response needed)
• Excursion or event notices (with consent and RSVP)

The News Item Lifecycle

A news item has a container and a version. The container is the long-lived record — it persists through edits and version changes. The version is an immutable snapshot of the content at a point in time. When you first create a news item, it starts as a draft version. You build out the content, add recipients, then publish when it's ready. Publishing is separate from sending — see Sending Emails to Families below.

Once published, a version cannot be edited. If you need to make a change after publishing, you create a new version of the same news item. The original published version is preserved in the history.

Creating a News Item

From the News section, click Create a News Item. The item is created immediately and you land on the detail view in edit mode, with the title pre-filled as "Untitled news item" and ready to type.

From the edit panel you can set:

• Title — the name of your announcement as families will see it
• Body — the main text of your message, written as plain text (line breaks are preserved when displayed)
• Response blocks — optional fields for families to fill in (see Adding Response Blocks)
• Due date — a deadline for responses (optional; you can set date only, and time defaults to 23:59 if not specified)
• Allow response updates — whether families can change their response after submitting
• Attachments — optional files families can view or download (see Attaching Files below)

You can edit any of these freely while the item is a draft.

You then choose which students will receive it (see Targeting: Choosing Who Receives Your News). Once students are added and the content looks right, publish the item.

Attaching Files

You can attach files to a news item from the Attachments section of the editor — up to 10 files, up to 15 MB each. Accepted file types are PDF, JPG, PNG, WEBP, GIF, and Word documents (.doc/.docx).

Images and PDFs open directly inside the Family Hub — families don't need to download anything to view them, and PDFs show a page thumbnail. Word documents and any other accepted file type are download-only; families see a Download button instead of an inline preview.

Attachments can only be added, removed, or reordered while you're editing — either a draft that hasn't been published yet, or a new draft you're creating from an already-published version (see Editing After Publishing). If you edit a published item's attachments without changing anything else, saving still creates a new version, the same as any other change.

Sending Your News Item to Families

Publishing makes the news item visible in the Family Hub, but it does not automatically notify anyone. After publishing, you send communications as a separate step. The Send your news item modal lets you choose whether to send by email, SMS, or both when SMS is included in your plan, then review the audience and confirm the send. See Publishing, Editing, and Versioning for the full detail on the communication flow, and Sending news by SMS for the SMS channel specifically.

The News List

The news list shows all your items with status badges (Published or Draft) and a response-type badge (for example, "RSVP" or "No response"). You can filter the list by status, or search by title, status, or response type. Your last-used filter is remembered between sessions.

If you're an admin in a studio with multiple teachers, you can also filter by teacher — switching between "mine", "all", or a specific teacher's items.

Creating a News Item from a Performance

If you're communicating about an upcoming performance, you can create the news item directly from the performance detail view. This is the recommended workflow because:

• The news item is automatically linked to the performance, allowing easy navigation between the two
• The target list is pre-populated with all the students in that performance — you don't need to select them manually
• If your performance student list changes later, you can sync the targets to match

When a news item is linked to a performance, a banner at the top of the news item detail view shows the performance name, date, time, and location — and links directly through to it.

See the Performances section for the full detail on how this connection works.

Deleting a News Item

To delete a news item, use the Delete news item button at the bottom of the detail view. Deleting is permanent and removes all versions, recipient records, and family responses associated with that item — including any attached files, which are permanently deleted along with it. You'll be asked to confirm before deletion proceeds; if the item has attachments, the confirmation says so explicitly.

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Next: Targeting: Choosing Who Receives Your News