Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether his Department has issued recent guidance to schools on ensuring that information intended for parents and supplied over email is routinely made as accessible as possible to parents who (a) lack access to a desktop computer or tablet at home, (b) do not have English as a first language and (c) may experience other challenges in opening and reading attachments to emails.

There is no specific guidance which covers information provided by schools to parents via email.

The school information regulations, which cover the information that maintained schools must publish on their website, require schools to provide parents with free paper copies of the information on their website if they request one. The regulations also require that, if appropriate, governing bodies must make available free copies of the information they are required to publish, in a language other than English, or as a Braille or audio tape version.

More broadly, the governance handbook states that governing bodies should also be able to demonstrate the methods used to communicate with and seek the views of parents, carers, and the local community, including disadvantaged families or those families where English is not the first language.