Letters in the classroom

No email addresses, no accounts to remember

Pupils do not have email addresses on PenPalConnect and do not need them. The teacher adds a class list — first name and last initial, because we deliberately store as little about a child as possible — and each pupil gets a class code and a four-digit PIN. You can print the login cards and hand them out.

Every school is approved by hand before a single pupil can log in. That step is the trust anchor of the whole programme and we are not in a hurry with it.

A partner class, found or brought with you

If you already know a teacher abroad, swap class codes and you are connected. If you do not, the partner directory lists classes looking for one, with the country, the pupils' ages, the class size and the language they want to write in. You write to the other teacher first — a real message, not a bare request — and the two of you work out whether it fits before anyone commits a class.

Once you are partnered, pupils are paired one to one, by hand or all at once.

The teacher reads everything

A class teacher can read every letter their pupils send and receive, and the pupils are told so plainly on their own page. It is for safety, not marking: there are deliberately no scores and no per-pupil statistics.

Younger classes can be set to approval mode, where letters wait for the teacher before they are delivered. Anything the content filter flags reaches the teacher directly. Pupils only ever see their own partner class — they are in a walled garden, invisible to the rest of the site and to anyone in it.

Setting up, step by step

1. Register as a teacher and tell us about your school. We check every school by hand before anything else happens, which can take a little while.
2. Create a class and add your pupils — first name and last initial only. Each pupil gets a four-digit PIN, and you can print login cards for the whole class.
3. Find a partner class in the directory, or swap class codes with a teacher you already know. Write to the other teacher and agree the details between you.
4. Pair your pupils with theirs, one to one, and choose whether letters should wait for your approval.
5. Pupils log in with the class code, pick their name and type their PIN. Then they write.

What pupils see

A pupil's view is deliberately small: their partner, their letters, and a writing box. There is no directory of other members, no search, no profiles to browse and nothing to discover. They cannot write to anyone except the pupil they have been paired with. A line on their page tells them plainly that their teacher can read their letters, because children should know who can see what they write.

Agreeing things with your partner teacher

Before the first letters, it is worth settling a few things with the other teacher: which language the letters will be in, how often the classes will write, and how you will handle holidays that fall at different times of year. Uneven class sizes are common and easy to solve — a few pupils can simply write in pairs.

A letter every three or four weeks is a pace most classes can sustain for a full school year, and it leaves time to make each letter a lesson in itself rather than a five-minute job at the end of one.

What it costs

Nothing. The classroom programme is free for schools, and there is no premium version with the safety features held back.

For lesson ideas around each letter, a realistic calendar and advice on pairing pupils, see our guide to running a classroom pen pal exchange.