School Websites - why you should make the effort

Having a poor site can give the impression that there is a lack of care to detail, that IT is not important or well implemented in your school or even that your school is unwelcoming.

For your website to be a useful tool, you must 

• be providing the right information

• keeping the site looking fresh and up to date

Providing the right information

Before deciding what you want on your website, you need to understand who will be using the site and what they want from it. Understanding how people will use your website will not only help you to provide the right content, but also make sure it is easy to find – reducing enquiries to your office and improving the reputation of your school.

Find out more about how your site can help:

• Attracting new pupils 

• Existing pupils

• Parents

• Your school office

• Ofsted and your SEF

• Governors, PTA and other community groups

• Other interested groups

Keeping your site looking fresh and up to date

Users must feel they can trust what is on your website. They have to know that documents and information are the most up to date. Putting dates on items can be a useful tool for doing this. However if some information is dated months or even years in the past then users may doubt not only how current that page is, but also how much effort is being put into the site as a whole.

You need to:

• Check that content looks up-to-date: that “upcoming events” haven’t happened; that pictures and articles of activities include recent events; that lists of staff etc. are all correct

• Have a regular stream of new information for School News, class information etc. As well as a reason to come back, this demonstrates to users that your site is still active

• Ensure that documents and policies are up-to-date

• Regularly check your website stats to see which pages are being looked at and which aren’t. If some pages are being ignored, is it because they aren’t required or are just in the wrong place?

• Regularly check all pages to make sure information hasn’t changed

• Ensure a consistent, accessible style throughout your site – usually by having one person acting as editor for the site

• Periodically review all pages. Even if a page isn’t out of date, updating the content from time to time helps to keep the site feeling fresh. For some pages it may be annually, for pages such as your Welcome message more frequent updates can have a big impact.