The Keys To Engagement And Connection

When you want your students, their parents, and your alumni to be engaged and connected to your school, there is one key step you need to take. You have to prepare your school’s website to be a mobile-friendly school website design.

More and more people are switching from laptops and PCs and going to their mobile phones for internet searches. Mobile phones are convenient and easy to use and almost everyone has one.

This upgraded mobile-friendly design should also help you with SEO rankings. It is vital when you want great communication with parents, students, and alumni.

What Is Mobile-First Design For A School Website?

When website developers design for PCs first, it is called backward design thinking. This type of design effort does not encourage the designer to focus or create innovations that would work on mobile phones.

To do a mobile-first design for a school website, the web designer first designs the website for mobile phones and then moves on to the bigger electronic devices like notebooks, laptops, and PCs.

This technique is designed to help designers to focus more on what they are doing and be more creative with their innovations. With a large number of the population using mobile phones, schools that want to upgrade older websites or build new ones should consider this newer technique.

Why Is Mobile-First Design Important For Schools?

There are a lot of benefits a school will receive from doing their website in the mobile-first order. Here are just a few of the most important benefits:

1. There Is An Improved User Experience

When you design for mobile phones first, you are providing the mobile phone internet user with better optimization as well as a well-thought-out experience.

This helps capture the attention of those using their mobile phones to peruse your website. The improved and easier-to-use experience keeps them onsite longer.

2. Accessibility

With a mobile-friendly school website design parents and students can access the school’s website from just about anywhere they happen to be. Plus, you are broadening the target audience as you include disabled and other mobile phone users who may not have access to a PC.

Also, the features like voice commands help drivers and other busy people to turn unproductive time into productive time using voice commands.

3. A Better Website Performance

The better you design your website for mobile phone use, the better the experience for the mobile phone user. Navigation buttons will be easier to use and the website’s loading speed will be more attractive to mobile phone users.

A mobile-first design does help your SEO ranking.

4. Scalability

When you do a mobile-first design, you will find that it is easier to make adjustments for larger screens like PC monitors. Also, it is just easier to add website elements to a PC than it is to remove them to fit a mobile screen.

How To Adapt Your School Website For Mobile Devices

1. Optimize Your Website For Loading Speed

It has been proven that if the web page loading speed is improved by even as little as 0.01%, conversion rates go up by almost 10%. While that applies to retail applications, the improved speed will help your school’s website visitors be in a better frame of mind when they communicate with you.

Loading speed improves the user experience and helps them get to the information they are looking for faster. You want to make sure your website loads up as quickly as possible to keep your students and parents happier.

2. Use A Responsive Design

If you are not sure what a responsive design is, this is a design that automatically detects the device the visitor is using and adapts the page to fit their smaller screen.

You want a responsive design as search engines like Google give higher rankings to websites with this type of design. If you want to be seen, this is one way that helps you get noticed.

Plus, the responsive design integrates with other features on your website quite well. This adds to a seamless user experience that benefits everyone.

3. Keep Your Navigation Simple And Intuitive

Ease of use and a good user experience depends on your navigational design. If buttons cannot be found or touched, then the user will not have a great experience with your website.

To create a great mobile user experience, you have to make sure the navigation is easy to find, easy to use, and very simple to understand. Keep it simple applies to this issue and it will help with your mobile website design.

4. Use Large Fonts And Buttons

A very important topic as smaller fonts and small buttons make it extremely difficult to read your website as well as do any navigation throughout it. It is a nightmare to try to read very tiny print so when you design your website to be mobile friendly, use as large a font that works.

The same goes for your navigational buttons. You do not want them so small that the user cannot use their fingers to push. Nor should they be so small that your website visitor pushes two at the same time. Have your designer select the right sizes for both items.

5. Make Your Content Easy To Read And Scan

When it comes to school websites, you are not trying to impress parents, etc., with your technological know-how. You want them to get the information they are looking for fast, simple and have it easy to scan. Making the site easy to read achieves those goals

Some Additional Words

When you have decided to create or upgrade your school’s website to make it a mobile-friendly school website design, contact us. We have years of experience in experience in web design and can easily do the mobile-first website design for your school. Call us today to see how we can improve your school’s website.

Showing School Spirit

It is not always the easiest to let your website visitors see your school spirit. However, with the right design and images, it is possible for you to showcase the school spirit and get people enthused and inspired.

It just takes a little experience and knowledge to create a great school website design that emphasizes how much spirit your school has. There are a lot of top ideas that will accomplish this goal for you.

One positive result is that the more you highlight your school spirit, the more potential students will join in and continue the traditions of the school.

Why Is It Important To Showcase Your School’s Spirit And Identity On Your Website?

Showcasing your school spirit is not just to gain a higher enrollment. Although that purpose helps, it does not sustain growth or keep students engaged with the school for a long period of time.

One of the main reasons you need to showcase your school spirit and identity is that it reinforces your school’s values. It also reinforces your school mission which is term development that should inspire your students to greater educational heights and achievements.

Then by highlighting your school’s identity, you are helping to instill dignity in your students. Plus, it helps to enhance collaboration, and cooperation, as well as giving a greater student connection to your school.

One of the aspects of school spirit is that it is a unifying force that brings all your students and teachers together. Also, showcasing both school spirit and identity is a way of separating your school from all the rest.

With this advancement, the ability of the students to uphold the school’s values is vastly improved. Not only that, but you should see a rise in educational success among the students.

They are going to work and study harder so they do not let the school down or tarnish its reputation. With the result of a connected community, a better learning environment is formed increasing the students’ chance for success.

Highlight Your School’s Unique Culture And Traditions Through The Website

There are a variety of ways to achieve this objective. While some schools may see more printed content as the key way to highlight their school’s culture, it is not the only way to accomplish this goal.

To start, you can place videos of cheerleaders leading the annual pep rally for athletic success. Or videos and images focused on students cheering on their favourite classmate as he or she races to victory.

Other options would be to place the school logo or coat of arms in high-profile places. Having it on a school shirt is ideal when you are trying to convey the school’s culture and traditions.

Or you can use images and print content to present the school awards ceremonies, special celebrations, and other events. Letting the community know you honour your students’ achievements is a good way to send the appropriate cultural message as well as communicate certain school traditions.

Then you can also have special web pages where your top administrative staff provide words of encouragement and advice to the students. The options are unlimited when you want to showcase what your school is all about.

The key will be to place them in a top school website template and design to get the maximum benefit from those images, videos, and printed content. Using a person with experience in these matters will enhance your efforts and make it a lot easier to complete.

How To Use Your Website To Connect With Alumni And Parents

If you do not have experience in creating these website options, then this can be a tougher-than-normal task. Here are a few suggestions to help get you started on the right path.

1. Build An Alumni Space On Your Website

One of the best ways to get alumni engaged and stay connected to your school is to make sure they are included in your school’s website and activities. Letting them participate through suggestions, ideas, or offers of help is a good way to ensure they remain connected to the school.

2. Build A Parent Space On The School’s Website

Having the parents know that they can easily get information on their child’s progress or communicate with the teacher through their own space is ideal. Keeping the communication channels open and easy to use ensures better parental involvement and helps them connect with the school better.

3. Start Engagement Before Graduation

This is more for students and alumni than it is for parents but it is an effective way to keep the graduating students involved in school affairs and activities. It also helps them remain connected or provides an avenue for them to reconnect later on. Teaching them how to stay engaged is very useful as well.

4. Support Parental And Alumni Businesses

Connection is a two-way street and providing support for these local businesses generates a lot of interest in the school as well as a desire to stay connected with it.

Supporting their small businesses is a way to support the school as the good feeling is returned by parents and alumni.

5. Hold Non-Money Drives

Everyone gets asked for money more times than you may think. One way to get parents and alumni to remain connected to the school is to hold drives for items students need.

The ideas for these types of drives can come from the parents and alumni themselves.

Some Additional Words

When you want to incorporate all of these ideas into your school’s website design contact our company. Not only are we experts with years of experience in web design for schools but we also are experienced in mobile-friendly school website design.

We can help you keep your parents and alumni connected to your school. Contact us today to see our products and hear our ideas to achieve this objective. We work hard for your success.

It is possible that you may think that a school website design is not very important. Your thoughts may run towards creating educational content that helps your students learn. However, this is not so and while good content is still king, it still needs top supporting players.

Those top supporting website design players are key to getting people to read your excellent content. To make it all work for you there are very good and legitimate reasons why you should create engaging and informative content for your school website

5 Reasons Why You Should

Content is king but there is more to content than web page after web age of printed text. With that kind of content you might as well say you are bringing back educational methods from the 1800s.

School website content needs to be creative, informative as well and engaging. It is a way to open up minds to learning. Here are some reasons why you do this extra work:

1. Website Ranking

No matter how hard you try, search engine ranking is very important. The higher your school’s website appears on the search engine results page, the more traffic your website will get.

It is a known fact that the higher ranking websites get the majority of the traffic. If you want to be a part of that action then you need to create engaging and informative content that is interesting.

To rank high in the search engines you need to follow their SEO rules. It is just the way it is and great content is not going to be enough to get you ranked. Make sure to include the supporting cast of characters like the right keywords, both long and short-tailed.

Also, do good formatting and avoid any strategy that will land you in search engine jail. There are a lot of black SEO practitioners out there, make sure to stay away from them if you want to be seen.

2. Hold Your Visitors Longer

That is one of the key targets when creating a website. There is what is called the bounce factor and that is when your website visitors land on one of your web pages and find it dull, hard to navigate, and so on.

Once they do that, they move on as quickly as they can. Your school website design should be user-friendly, easy to navigate, attractive, and very interesting.

You can have the best content in the UK but if you are lacking in those areas, no one is going to read it. Your school website design should be easy to use, look good, and have engaging activities or content that holds your website’s visitors’ attention.

The longer they stay on your website, the better chance you have of converting them to students or active parents. Your creative content should find ways to engage your website’s visitors and get them interested in your school and what is happening there.

3. Your Students And Parents Need To Know

When people do not know what is going on, they tend to lose interest in the school, its activities, and much more. One good reason you need to incorporate informative content on your school’s website is to tell students and parents what they need to know.

Plus, the information needs to tell them where the activities, etc., are taking place when they are taking place, and more. Providing all the key information they need to know helps both parents and students to arrange their schedules, be more involved, and think highly of the school.

If you want parental involvement and have them care about the school, you need to provide them with the information they need in a very accessible manner. Basic information is not going to be engaging and hold their interest.

You will want to write this information in such a way that piques the readers’ interest and gets them involved with the school.

4. It Is Your Public Face

This is probably one of the most important reasons that tells you why you should write engaging and informative content on your school’s website. How your school’s website looks and reads says a lot about the school and the teachers working there.

To put your best foot forward and make a great first impression, your school’s website should be engaging, and filled with informative content as well as top-quality images and videos.

The better you make your website the better you look. Plus, the more engaging and informative it is, impresses potential students and their parents. Having your school look good on your school’s website is essential.

Your school message to the public is wrapped up in that presentation and if you want to look good, the content has to look good.

5. It Will Help Enrollment

Another important reason to write engaging and informative content on your school’s website is that it can help your enrollment. Your school’s website is your first contact with many potential students and their parents.

Making the website design engaging gets their attention as well as their interest. Then when they see how informative and open the school is, they start to form a little trust in your school and teachers.

Those attitudes will help build your school. A top-quality website design attracts new students and helps get their parents involved in different school activities.

Some Additional Words

Building a top-quality school website and filling it with engaging and informative content is not always easy. But you do not have to travel this road alone.

Our company has years of experience in website design and we offer our talent, knowledge, and skills to you. The way to take advantage of this offer is to use our contact page to get more information.

Also check out our website, scholljotter.com, and see all of our products and ways we can help you build a top-notch school website. Our aim is to help you enhance your first contact so your enrollment and quality of education rise.

It Is Your First Impression

That is the first guiding principle of using your school’s website to build relationships with parents. How the parents see your presentation will influence how they think and feel about the school.

Creating a top website design breaks down negative barriers and replaces them with positive feelings. A good first impression provides a strong foundation for any parent/school relationship.

When you make a good first impression, it becomes easier to work with parents as they are more willing to be involved in your educational goals. Besides, you want your website to provide an accurate reflection of your school. A bad web design does not accomplish that goal.

What Is The Importance Of A Welcoming And User-Friendly School Website Design?

One of the most important aspects of having a welcoming and user-friendly website is that it builds trust. When parents feel welcomed and have a great user experience, then they are more open to participating in school events or just supporting the school.

Another important factor is that it is convenient for the parents to use. Their schedule is quite full these days and both the mom and dad cannot break away from their employment to talk to teachers or address child behavior issues.

A user-friendly website helps the parents communicate with teachers addressing concerns, etc., from wherever they may be. This ease of communication can resolve many conflicts or other orders of business.

Another important aspect is that a great-looking and easy-to-use website shows the parents that the school cares about education, communication, and their students. This type of website sends the right message to the parents, especially those who have potential students at younger ages.

It is a great way to let the parents feel comfortable about the school, its environment, and its culture as well as see that the school is serious about educating their students.

The Role Of The Website As A Digital Front Door To Your School

The school’s website is a digital front door to the school and its main duty is to provide a seamless, integrated experience that helps users get to the web page and information they need.

Without that characteristic, the school presents a very bad image of their ethics and attitudes toward education and parents. There are 4 things the school website should be doing:

1. It Needs To Be Organized– An organized website enhances the user experience making it a better time for parents and other website users.
2. Attract New Parents– Every school wants to bolster its attendance and one way to do that is to create and implement a user-friendly website that broadcasts a positive message to its readers.
3. To Engage And Inform– Another vital role for the school website. It needs to keep parents informed of all school activities and news.
4. Be Compatible With Devices And Schedules– Parents do not always use the same devices as students do thus the school website needs to meet parents on several platforms.

Then the access should be 24/7 without location restrictions. Parents are not always free to communicate during school hours and making that communication easier to access is a vital role the website has to fill.

What Is The Importance Of Having A Dedicated Portal For Parent-Teacher Communication?

One of the first reasons your school needs this dedicated portal is that it provides flexibility. Parents are not always available from 9 to 5 anymore. With both parents working, being able to communicate during school hours is almost impossible.

The ability to communicate with the teacher outside of school hours enhances the parent-teacher relationship as well as ensures that parents are made aware of how their child is progressing and behaving in school.

Plus, this portal offers privacy for the parents and they can honestly address issues without fear or rejection. They get to communicate their thoughts and keep those thoughts very clear.

It also provides a communication link for teachers to inform parents of their children’s behaviour and other important teacher concerns. With the knowledge of where the student is not performing up to expectations, the parent can address those issues at the appropriate time.

Finally, it is a chance for teachers to gain support from parents. This support is needed if the teacher is going to do their job well.

What Are The Benefits Of Surveys, Comment Sections, Or Contact Forms For Gathering Input From Parents And The Community

Feedback is always important. While not an accurate barometer for how the school is doing, feedback provides the teacher and the school insight into what parents are thinking about their students and the school.

Surveys allow for a school to re-evaluate some of its activities. Without this information, certain students and parents could be isolated from the school community and excluded from some events or special days.

The comment section provides instant feedback without holding back parental emotions. While this can be rough on teachers and schools, the communication does allow them to see where parents stand on certain practices the school employs.

The contact forms will do the same thing as the first two options in this section. It may be the fastest communication format as it instantly places the parental notice in front of someone’s eyes.

The school’s website needs a variety of feedback formats to ensure it is getting well-rounded information on key events, curriculum, and so on.

Some Final Words

When you want to make a great first impression, contact our company. We have years of school website design experience. Our knowledge and experience help us design the perfect first impression for your school.

You can use your phone, email, or our handy contact form to send us a message. We will be glad to get back to you as soon as we can. The best way to take advantage of our knowledge and experience is to contact us today with your concerns and questions.

One Of The Best Tools To Use

In this digital world, your school’s website is going to be one of the best tools you have to help students learn and teachers teach. A good website goes beyond the basics to capture all the opportunities students need to learn and teachers need to teach.

Designing your school’s website to enhance both learning and teaching takes time and talent. To enrich your students’ education you need to know what you are doing and how your website can facilitate that education process.

The Basics Of A School Website

The very basics any school website should have would be a solid and informative About Us page. This allows prospective students and their parents to know and understand the school, its culture, as well as its goals, and more.

Besides including the curriculum, your website should also include a staff and teacher web page for the same purpose. Getting to know the staff is essential to facilitate learning.

On top of that part of the basic school website information will be the upcoming events and special occasions. This information lets parents and students be aware of what is happening throughout the school year.

A web page for photos and videos will also help the students get to know the school and what they can expect when they enrol. Also, you should have a contact page or contact information that is easily accessible for parents to contact the school to ask questions about their children’s progress or to talk to their teachers.

These are just some of the basics you will need for your UK school’s website.

Features Of An Effective School Website

Having the basics is a good start. It is a simple way to initiate interaction between the school and the parents and or students. But the website needs more to make students, etc., want to come to the website and take advantage of all that is on it.

One of the ways to do this is to develop a system that is compatible with PCs, laptops, tablets, and mobile phones. Having a responsive website makes the school’s website more attractive and user-friendly.

Then you can add features like maps so parents can find the school easily. Along with adding a map to your school’s website, you can place all the necessary forms on it in a downloadable format so filling the forms out will be easier and faster.

Along with those features, making it accessible from anywhere at any time allows for parents to know when there will be school closings, special events, and field trips, as well as being able to make appointments.

Other features should include a school calendar, multi-platform as well as easy-to-use navigational tools. The most important feature will be website speed. The school’s website should load up very quickly so parents do not have to spend a lot of time waiting for the page they need.

Ways To Engage Students Through The Website

There are many options you can implement when you want to engage your students through your website. One that works for both students and parents would be to include some surveys to gauge how your students think about the school and what goes on.

These surveys can help the administrative staff tweak programs, eliminate the less popular ones, or learn how to make them better, and so on. Getting feedback from the students is a great way to improve learning through the school’s website.

Another option would be to place questions online through different software programs or apps. Then let the students answer the questions independently before joining together in a joint online session through your website.

A third option would be to create a social engagement area on your website and let teachers interact with the students. This digital social engagement space is a great tool to help students trust teachers, staff, and each other.

This can be done through asking different questions, an activity designed to get people talking to each other, and a myriad of other possibilities. With the right professional help, you can add more ways to help engage students on your school’s website.

How School Websites Can Benefit Teachers

School websites are a boon to teachers as they can use them in their own time when they are free. This is probably the biggest asset a school website offers teachers.

The teacher is not tied to just school hours to communicate with their students nor do they have to sacrifice quality family time to do the same thing. The school’s website allows a teacher to schedule the time for interaction that fits their personal needs.

Also, the teacher can place mandatory work assignments on the website making it easier for students to know what they need to do, or if they have been absent, they will know what work they need to do to catch up with the rest of the class.

Also, when time is limited for both teachers and parents, the school website allows for easier communication when it is most convenient for both parties

The Role Of The School Website In Keeping Parents Informed And Engaged

This is an essential feature of the school. Parents want to know how their child or children are progressing and the school website makes that communication smoother as well as more convenient.

Parents can log in and navigate to the web pages that concern them and their students and see what I going on. Or they can have virtual meetings with teachers to understand what is happening in the classroom.

The school’s website also keeps parents up-to-date on school events, and other activities so the parent is aware of those events as well as any cost their child needs to pay to participate.

Some Final Words

If you need help in constructing your website to enhance teaching and learning, then contact our company. We have the tools, skills, and know-how to create a website that will promote both teaching and learning through your school’s website. Contact us today to solve this issue faster.

Bullying has always been a problem. This is a fact that has to be acknowledged and understood. There will always be those kids who like to bully weaker, smaller children but understanding the problem is only the first step in helping children being bullied.

This is not a problem that will go away any time soon. Learning how to handle bullying and teaching those tips to your students is essential in reducing the number of bullying incidents.

Recognize The Signs Of Bullying In Primary School

Unfortunately, there are too many signs that indicate a student is being bullied at school. Here are just a few of those signs to get you on the right path to recognizing when bullying is taking place:

1. The child refuses or does not want to go to school
2. The child’s eating habits change
3. The child is not sleeping very well
4. The child’s belongings are damaged, lost or the child has visible injuries
5. The child avoids taking the school bus to school.
6. Their emotions change and he or she can become more withdrawn
7. The child gets sick more often and too frequently for real illnesses to be the source
8. The child experiences a loss of friends and they are always on their own

Encourage School Children To Tell You If They’re Being Bullied

It can be difficult to get a child to tell their parents or teachers that they are being bullied. The reason for that reluctance is that telling on the bullies only makes the situation worse and the bullies angrier.

To get the child to speak up, they need to feel safe and be in a safe environment that enhances their confidence in their parents or teachers. Some of the things that do not encourage the student to tell what is going on in their lives is to not make it a group activity.

The student should not have to talk about it in front of the class, nor should then be forced to be in the same room as the bully. Avoiding the don’ts of this problem is one good way to encourage the student to open up and let teachers or parents know what is being done to them.

Also, do not force the child to tell. Give them the opportunity and let them decide if they will talk or not.

Teach Your Child How To Cope With Bullying In School

There are different methods you can use to teach your child how to cope with bullying. One good method is to get them involved in after-school activities that do not involve their schoolmates.

This provides the bullied child a chance to make new friends. They will not be isolated anymore. Or teach your child to spend more time in groups. This will cause the bully to hesitate somewhat as they prefer two on one, etc., contact and not when the odds are against them.

Then, teach your child that bullying is not their fault. They did not do anything wrong, usually, that incited the bully to attack them. Give them a reason why the bully is targeting them and one good reason is that the bully is jealous of them.

One important lesson that helps a child cope with bullying is to believe them. Don’t pass it off or give a superficial response. Take the child seriously and then help them deal with the problem.

Be Aware Of Any Signs That The Bullying Is Continuing Or Getting Worse

Getting to know the signs of bullying is very important and those signs are listed above. But knowing those signs is not enough as in many cases they do not indicate that the bullying activity is getting worse.

One sign of excessive bullying would be how the child acts. He or she can fall into depression when the bullying only intensifies. Declining grades will be another sign that bullying is getting worse.

A loss of interest in hobbies, sports, or other favourite activities will be another indication that the bullying has not stopped but has increased.

Create A Safe And Supportive Home Environment In Every School

The steps to achieving this objective are many. One good option to use is to reward those students who practice the proper inclusive character that all students need to feel.

Another is to teach teachers how to spot bullying and bullies and give them the tools to stop it before it gets worse. One of those tools can be an anonymous reporting process. This can be done by phone or through the school’s website.

 

A fourth option would be to monitor any possible bullying hotspots that are located around the school. These are areas where teachers and staff do not have a clear field of vision or cannot see at all.

These hidden areas are a bully’s prime spaces to act out on smaller, weaker children.

Get Involved In The School Community

One of the best ways to learn about and witness bullying is to get involved with the school and other parents. This involvement provides you with more opportunities to see what is going on directly and who is initiating the bullying.

This involvement also provides the opportunity for teachers and parents to enforce the school’s rules. Bullying can be reduced if bullies are punished properly and they see there are consequences for their actions.

When You Need Help

Bullying is a tough problem to solve as more and more cultures interact with each other at school. To get some more guidance on bullying and how to deal with it, or create safe anonymous communication on your website, contact us.

Our company has experience in helping schools create safe website spaces to help children who are a victim of bullies. Our contact information is located here and on several web pages for your convenience.

Together we can help reduce the number of bullying incidents and victims.

Multi-Academy Trusts need a good school website design. This goes without saying as a poorly designed website can and will turn many prospective audience members from reading your website or being interested in your academy.

With our 20 years in this industry and designing dozens of MATs websites, our company offers your academy a wealth of talent, experience, and know-how so you get the website design that fits your school.

Tap into our expertise to see how we can make your website even better.

Bespoke Design For Website For Schools

The term ‘bespoke’ means to speak for. That is what your website is doing for your academy. It is speaking for you online to many people who happen to land on your website home page.

This means that what is on your website, either good or bad, will tell your website visitors a lot about you and your academy. This is an area that School Jotter can improve to make your school look better.

We take out the bad and replace it with top-grade information, images, and other interesting website content to attract and keep your target audience engaged.

Your website is often the first impression for your academy, so let us help you make a great first impression and build your online presence with our talent and innovative spirit.

Broaden Your Presence With Shared Vacancies

One of the ways our company helps boost your online presence is through a shared vacancy method. This is where we optimize and maximize your presence through high-profile websites like social media outlets.

We also take steps to prevent cloned policy documents. This problem is where your web pages are cloned and used on another website. This problem can steal some audience from your website by having the cloned pages rank better than your web pages.

Streamlining Your School Website Design

This is one of the most important challenges that most MAT websites face. At one time there were multiple schools using multiple platforms to host their websites as well as helping their website design.

This created an overloaded work schedule for many people as they had to continually go through their websites to make sure the websites were MAT compliant.

Also, it took a lot of time and effort to ensure the content was consistent and published regularly. The solution School Jotter came up with was simple and easy to implement.

Our company designed one platform to make sure all schools in their group had consistent designs, branding, and content. This enabled standardization for all schools and made the websites easier to navigate.

With this one platform design came a user-friendly interface that enabled administrators to manage their website content better while remaining in compliance with governance regulations and requirements.

Then the seamless integration with the central MAT website made it possible for consistent and accurate information across all schools’ websites. Our platform takes the hard work out of maintaining your multi-academy trust website and makes it easier to read and navigate to all web pages.

Building A Website For Schools

This can be a difficult task for even the best of web designers. Remaining original, creative, and innovative while creating an engaging site is tough work. Web design is not for everyone, which is why our company has compiled a team of experts to work with you to create something special for your school.

Our team has extensive experience in the SEO world and educational technology. They can guide you to the best design that will engage your target audience and be informative at the same time.

With the experience gained over the past 20 years, we can guide you every step of the way from building an original website to updating an older one. Not only do we understand all the challenges for both web design options, but we also have the solutions that will help build an attractive website and give it a boost online.

On top of all this, our professionalism as well as our attention to detail enables your school to get one of the finest website designs that will impress your target audience.

When our work is done, communication between you, parents, staff, and others should be greatly improved.

Boost Your Online Presence

There are some creative and innovative methods that we can implement to help your school’s website get a boost in the search engine rankings. Our products are designed to make your school accessible as well as work in the 21st century.

We offer a 30-day free trial so you can see how your website will look and perform. This gives you a chance to work out any bugs that interfere with your online look.

Also, we can provide drone footage to give your target audience a unique perspective of your school. Videos are key to enhancing your online presence and this is a creative way to reach that objective.

Finally, we offer a mobile app for you to reach more parents. More and more people are escaping their laptops and PCs and using their mobile phones to get the information they want.

Implementing this mobile app helps you to communicate better with parents. They do not have to interrupt their day to catch up on the news or other important information about their children’s schools.

It is all there on their mobile phone. After your 30-day trial, your fees to continue are reasonable and affordable.

How School Jotter Works With Your MAT

It is a simple question to answer. We provide you with an easy-to-use platform that makes it easier to remain compliant with MAT requirements as well as build you a better way to communicate to your audience.

To see more of what we can do for your school, call or contact us today. Our team is ready to guide you through the process to make sure your school stands out from the crowd while boosting your online presence.

In an increasingly digital world, Multi Academy Trusts (MATs) face a unique set of challenges. From attracting prospective students to engaging with parents and stakeholders, MATs must establish a compelling online presence. One highly effective way to achieve this is through the strategic use of Organic Search Engine Optimization (SEO). In this article, we will explore the vital strategies and techniques that MATs can employ to enhance their online visibility and ensure they reach their target audience effectively.

Improving your MATS Online Presence With Organic SEO

As the digital landscape continues to evolve, organic SEO has emerged as a powerful tool for boosting online presence. Organic SEO focuses on optimizing a website to rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs) without relying on paid advertisements. This is particularly important for MATs, as it can help them stand out in a competitive educational environment.

1.      The Role of Keywords

Effective keyword research is the foundation of a successful organic SEO strategy. MATs need to identify and target the keywords and phrases that potential students, parents, and stakeholders are likely to use in their online searches. This process not only improves the visibility of your MATs’ website but also ensures that it ranks for the right queries.

2.      Audience Research

This is a challenging task to do when you do not have an audience to ask questions. But if you have even a small loyal audience, you can ask them some key questions, such as:

• What do they like?
• What they do not like?
• What do they want to see more of?

Their answers should help you adapt your school website to those needs and create a better online presence.

3.      Quality Content Optimization

Content is king in the world of organic SEO. MATs should invest in creating high-quality, informative, and engaging content that caters to the needs of their target audience. This could include blog posts, articles, videos, and other educational resources that showcase the institution’s expertise and commitment to quality education.

Find new content that your audience will like and publish in creative ways that help your website be engaging, attractive, as well as current. Your audience research will help you with this task.

4.      Update And Optimize Current Content

If you have had a website for a while and an audience, then you may have older content that may be out of date. Refresh that content and bring it up to date. Remove or edit sales pitches that can turn many of your audience members off.

Other improvements can be to enlarge previously shorter posts to add new and important information. If you have lists on your website, make them longer and more comprehensive.

These changes should engage your audience more and keep them on your website longer.

5.      Do An Onsite SEO Audit

What this audit does is help you clean up your website making it easier for search engines and your audience to read. The audit helps find duplicate pages, improper direct or indirect chains, broken links, URL structure, and much more.

Once these problems are resolved, search engines can read your website and rank it properly. Also, you want to see how fast your web pages load. If they load up in 3 seconds or more, it is time to speed that loading time up.

6.      Technical SEO and On-Page Optimization

Technical SEO involves fine-tuning various elements of your website, such as meta descriptions, alt tags, and header tags, to enhance its visibility in search results. On-page optimization, on the other hand, involves optimizing individual pages for specific keywords, ensuring that search engines can easily index and understand your content.

7.      Link Building Strategies

Link building is another essential component of organic SEO. MATs can enhance their online presence by earning high-quality backlinks from reputable websites, educational organizations, and industry-related platforms. These backlinks signal to search engines that your website is a trusted source of information.

8.      Recreate Your Homepage And Navigational Tools

A user-friendly website is not only vital for retaining visitors but also for SEO. Google and other search engines reward websites with good user experiences. MATs should focus on mobile responsiveness, easy navigation, and quick loading times. A well-organized website with clear calls to action can significantly improve user engagement and satisfaction.

This should be done with your audience in mind. Making the home page more attractive, and easier to read helps deliver a stronger online presence. Plus when you make the navigation simpler to use, your visitors should find it easier to navigate and to explore your website.

When the homepage is unattractive and hard to use, then your audience will not like reading your website. Make these changes to get your audience to like them and you should see an improvement in your online presence.

9.      Investigate Your Competitors’ Websites And Strategies

Getting motivation from what other people are doing is a great way to update and upgrade your website. See what they have done and then try similar approaches to your website.

Plus, you can get motivation from those companies outside of the MATS sector. Every little bit of research can help you improve your MATS website and gain a bigger online presence. Here are some areas to research:

• Search result rankings
• Social media
• Paid ads
• Local directory profiles
• Email marketing campaigns

This investigative work will take some time but can be done quicker when you employ the proper SEO tools.

10.  Use Local Directories To Boost Your Online Presence

Even if your academy is not limited to your local area, these local directories can boost your online presence. Searchers can find information about your academy without going to your website.

Although you want them to come to your website, getting your information in front of people through a variety of methods is the best way to get known and build searches for your website. Plus, the local directory will have a link to your website to make that search easier.

It takes time for any and all SEO strategies to build your online presence. This is not something that will happen in a day or two. You need to trust your strategies for the long haul and give them time to work.

After a while, if they are not working, make your changes.

Some Final Words

If you are not ready to handle a MATS website design for your academy, or it is a bit over your skill set to do, contact our company. We have the experience to build a great-looking website that will be multi-academy trust website compliant along with building your online presence through organic SEO.

The Purpose Of Primary School Website

It is possible that you may think that primary schools do not need a website or even a well-designed one. But the way for any primary school to showcase its unique identity is through a very good school web design.

Such websites are not just about promotion. They present a peek into the educational journey awaiting prospective students, allowing them to get to know the school before they arrive for their first day of learning.

To learn more about this topic just continue to read our article. It has the information you want to know about so you can present your school’s unique identity to everyone in your area.

Explore Your School’s Unique Identity

Every primary school website is a project that demands time and effort. One of the key steps in the process is to explore your school’s identity. While every school has some similarities between them, there are unique differences that help your educational institution stand out.

You can find these differences by exploring your school’s identity. Once you know these unique differences, you have the information you need to start constructing a great school website that highlights that uniqueness.

Understanding your school’s identity is vital to your school meeting the educational needs of the surrounding community. Knowing what matters to your school the most helps you create, develop, and implement key learning programs that put your students ahead of the curve.

This information also helps you develop a great and unique school website that helps you stand out from all the other schools.

Defining Your School’s Branding And Messaging Through Website

An important reason why there are websites for primary schools to showcase their ethos to the community. What better place to showcase who you are than on a well-developed and creative school website?

Your branding goes beyond logos, school colours, and attractive fonts. It is the total package of who you are, what you do, and where you will take your students.

Your brand and message talk about your history, your vision for your students and the school, and where you want to be in the future. To communicate your unique identity to all your website visitors and parents, you need to understand and develop those key issues.

To define your school’s brand and message here are some questions to answer:

1. What is Our History?
2. What is Our Mission?
3. How Do We Market Our School To Parents?
4. Are We Consistent with Our Message?
5. What Do Students Love About Our School?
6. Are We Engaged and Building Community?
7. What About MY Child?
8. Why Choose Us?
9. What’s our future?

Creating A Compelling School Logo And Visual Identity

The first step in this creation is to understand the power behind visual communication. A bad logo will communicate the lack of creative talent, boredom, and many other negative aspects that are associated with a bad logo or other visual images.

To shape parents’ and other adults’ perceptions and build a positive impression on them, you need to create a unique, interesting, and colourful logo and other images.

These creative images help draw people to your website and create a desire to learn more about your school. Your logo and other images are the most persuasive elements you can use to attract students and gain parental support.

To design your logo and images, you need to know your brand and tell a compelling story all the while keeping it nice and simple. Then do not design for the extremes but for the middle and make sure to know when to step back and when to highlight achievements.

Showcasing Your School’s History And Values

When showcasing your school’s history keep it creative and interesting without going too far. Use your history to help build community as well as school spirit.

You can use your school’s yearbooks or other photo histories to enhance the content of the page. Then when you want to highlight your school’s values, put them in a vision statement.

This outlines the school’s philosophy and aspirations but do not include your values in your mission statement. This needs to be filled with content that reflects your current goals and how you will achieve the objectives laid out in your vision statement.

 

Highlighting The School’s Unique Programs And Extracurriculars

Less is more. You do not want to turn prospective students and parents off from attending your school. Your web pages should be designed to make these aspects of school life exciting, fun, and something a student would want to be a part of.

Use more images and less writing to bring the message you want to send to students home. Provide short testimonials from students containing what they think of this part of their school life.

Let the images reflect the values of the school as well as show that all parts of school life help meet the school’s mission and vision.

Evolving Your Unique Online Identity

Your online identity needs to build trust. This is building trust in the parents and the potential students that what they read is really who your school is. Trust is everything, especially in this digital age.

Evolving your unique online identity means reaching for this vital goal. Without trust from the students and parents, it will be very difficult to meet the community’s educational needs and achieve the objectives outlined in the school’s vision and mission statements.

The purpose of the school website is to create that trust before the student attends their first day.

Ensuring Ofsted Compliance for Your Primary School Website

Ofsted (Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills) plays a pivotal role in maintaining and enhancing educational standards in the UK. As primary schools increasingly integrate digital platforms into their operations, ensuring that school websites are Ofsted-compliant is essential.

Some Additional Words

This may all sound difficult and above the heads of many teachers but there is good news. If you feel overwhelmed by developing a school website, then contact our company.

We are School Jotter and we have the experience, knowledge, and products to help you create a top school website which will Ofsted Compliand and will reflect your unique school identity. Contact us today to see what we can do for you.

Traditional communication methods are giving way!!

This seems to be the trend since the digital age has entered society and school life. It seems that more parents are moving away from the traditional forms of communication, handwritten notes from teachers, face-to-face conversations with teachers, and calls from the school to the home.

Many parents of primary school children feel these old-fashioned methods just do not work anymore and prefer a more modern approach viz modern technological communication options.

Instead, they prefer a digital communication system that lets them receive text messages, videos, and other information straight to their mobile devices or computers. These alternative methods is useful for parents and school for communicating unforeseen events like school closure due to weather conditions or providing information about important upcoming seminars or conferences.

The Importance of Parent Engagement

The consensus among education experts is clear: Parental engagement significantly influences a child’s academic and social growth. A few of the universally accepted advantages include:

• Academic Performance- Good parental engagement is seen as a vital reason for students performing better grade-wise. They do their homework, get better grades, and learn better with this support.
• Behavioural Impact- Good parental engagement helps their children to choose healthier activities and behave in a socially healthy manner. Without this support, the behaviour of the students is not exemplary but adds to the stress teachers have to endure.
• Social Skills Development- Finally, parental engagement is important for students as the latter develop better social skills. This can cut down on bullying, and negative interactions with other students and make school life more tolerable for all students.

Also, parental engagement seems to pay off as more students fail to develop a smoking habit and turn to physical education activities. They have a better attitude and perspective on life giving each student a better foundation to succeed in life.

This engagement needs a little help from the primary schools and this help can come in the following ways:

1. Creating a vision for parent engagement
2. Preparing school staff to work with parents
3. Assessing and improving the school’s strategies for involving parents
4. Assessing what parents and families need to be more involved in school health

Designing a Parent-Centric User Experience of the school mobile apps

While children and teens are very good at downloading and using apps, more often than not, their parents are not gifted or agile. It is important to create a parent-centric user app whose design allows the less technological advanced parents to use the app easily and without hassles.

To accomplish this objective, the user-centred design method is the go-to option. This allows designers to create an app for adults to use. Its simplicity enables all adults, including the less technologically advanced ones, to use the school mobile phone apps and communicate with teachers, learn about events, the news, and more.

Often parents miss the information needed because they do not have the technological ability to use the different apps and they are in a job that keeps them from accessing this information and more.

These parent-centric user mobile apps create a better experience for parents as they get to access important information concerning their children without trouble.

Various Communication Tools For Parent-School Interaction

The digital age has brought innovation and new tools for parent/teacher communications. There is a vast array of these tools that have moved parents away from the old-fashioned methods used by their parents and grandparents.

One tool is Jotter 3.0 which provides access to school information if one has a QR code. Only the parents will have this code giving them privacy to see what is going on in their child’s school life.

There are various other tools available, all of which include text messages, videos, and alerts that parents need to know about and see. Parents should be able to interact with their children’s teachers with the help of these tools.

Last but not least, there are a host of social media outlets where parents can connect with teachers through private social media accounts.

The digital age has supplied enough tools that parents do not have to take time off from work to communicate with a teacher.

How To Use The Priamry School Mobile Apps To Share Student Accomplishments

These mobile apps come with built-in features that allow teachers to easily upload and share student accomplishments. The instructions are usually found in the operational information that is a part of each app.

The key would be to access the menu to reach the appropriate function that allows you to send student accomplishments to their parents. All mobile apps should be easy to use but some are not as simple as others.

The complicated operation tends to deter parents from using those apps and learning about their children’s success. Then with the direct communication features, parents can interact with their children’s teachers no matter where they happen to be.

This access is also 24/7 so even if you come home late you can still take the time to access the information and learn about your child’s day without waking them up.

Each app will have its own method of operation which may not be the same as another app. Make sure to read the instructions so you understand what to do.

Some Additional Words

While the journey to maximising parental engagement in primary schools has its challenges, leveraging the right technological tools can significantly bridge the gap. With Ofsted compliance in the UK underscoring the importance of effective communication between schools and parents, such platforms become even more critical.

Our suite of products at School Jotter is designed to make this engagement seamless. Visit our website to explore our offerings, and don’t hesitate to reach out with any questions. Your child’s academic success may be just a click away.