A pre-send checklist for school newsletters from Google Sheets™
School and PTA lists are messy in a particular way: several children per family, two parents per child, addresses typed on a phone at the gate, and data about children that must not go to the wrong home. Run through this before you press send.
The list
- One row per email you intend to send. Decide whether a family with three children gets one email or three, and shape the list to match.
- No duplicates. Compare addresses in lower case with spaces trimmed; the same parent often signs up twice.
- No typos. Scan the domains for
gmial.com,hotmial.co.ukand friends. - Unsubscribes removed. Keep opt-outs on their own tab and exclude them every time.
- No blank names where the template uses one — or a fallback in place.
- Nothing sorted on its own. If any column was sorted, check that each row still belongs to one family.
The template
- Every
{{tag}}matches a column header exactly, including spaces. - Dates and amounts read correctly — trip dates as dates, dinner money with its £.
The send
- Under the daily limit. A whole-school list can exceed a free account's quota; split it into batches.
- Send yourself a test with a row that has a blank name and one with a long one.
Children's data
If the email carries anything about a specific child — a class, a result, a medical note — treat a misaligned row as a data breach waiting to happen. Check the alignment of the list, not just its tidiness.
Check it for free
Mail Merge Pre-flight Check runs this whole checklist against your sheet and template in one click and shows you the email each family will get. Checking is free, and schools, PTAs and charities get 50% off Pro. Nothing leaves Google.
Mail Merge Pre-flight Check checks your list and template in one click. Checking is free.
Mail Merge Pre-flight Check is not affiliated with Google or with any merge tool named on this page. Names are used only to identify them.