Blessed Christopher Wharton Catholic Academy Trust Workshop

Category: MATS

Published: February 23, 2024

Blessed Christopher Wharton Catholic Academy Trust Workshop

On February 19th, 2024, the Blessed Christopher Wharton Trust Workshop brought together enthusiastic educators, administrators, and tech innovators to share and explore cutting-edge strategies aimed at enriching the educational landscape within BCWCAT. This gathering was not just a meeting of minds but a beacon of collective aspiration towards elevating the standards of education through technological advancement and community involvement. Here’s a deeper dive into the key highlights and the promising future that lies ahead as a result of this productive engagement.

The Dawn of a New Digital Era: Website Redesign with School Jotter 3

The workshop kicked off with an engaging presentation by Becky Cunliffe and Mathew Basierak, focusing on the transformative redesign of the Trust’s website utilizing School Jotter 3. This initiative marks a significant step forward in how the Trust communicates its vision, values, and educational initiatives. The upcoming website, set to be unveiled in late March 2024, is expected to be more than just a digital space. It aims to be a vibrant community hub that showcases the Trust’s commitment to innovation and excellence in education, enhancing interaction among students, educators, and the wider community.

Streamlining Operations with Totara Learn

The introduction of Totara Learn by Arthur Howie was a highlight of the workshop, presenting a strategic approach to simplifying compliance and administrative processes for site managers and non-teaching staff. This system promises to streamline operations within the Trust, making it easier for staff to focus on what truly matters—delivering quality education. The collaboration between Arthur and Nicola, the HR lead, is eagerly anticipated as they explore the full potential of Totara Learn to support the Trust’s mission.

Empowering Student Voices Through Sound Branch

Another innovative tool introduced at the workshop was Sound Branch, championed by Mathew Basierak. This platform stands out as a powerful medium for amplifying student voices, enabling them to share their insights, reflections, and learning experiences through podcasting. Sound Branch promises to revolutionize the way students engage with their learning material, offering a unique avenue for assessment and peer-to-peer learning that prioritizes student expression and active participation in their educational journey.

Overcoming Barriers with Event Anywhere

Sean Gilligan’s presentation on Event Anywhere addressed a common challenge in educational settings: the logistical difficulties of organizing face-to-face training and networking sessions. By leveraging this innovative platform, the Trust aims to foster stronger connections among teachers, facilitate seamless collaboration across schools, and actively involve families in the educational process. Event Anywhere stands as a testament to the Trust’s commitment to overcoming obstacles and ensuring that professional development and community engagement remain top priorities.

Looking Ahead: A Future Filled with Collaboration and Innovation

The workshop concluded on a note of optimism and excitement for the future. The announcement of the Sound Branch platform being provided at no cost, courtesy of the workshop organizers, and the enthusiastic response to proposals for continued collaboration using Event Anywhere, underscored the community’s shared dedication to enhancing educational quality and accessibility.

As we reflect on the insights and initiatives discussed at the Blessed Christopher Wharton Trust Workshop, it’s clear that the path ahead is paved with opportunities for innovation, collaboration, and growth. The Trust stands at the forefront of educational excellence, ready to embrace new technologies and strategies that promise to enrich the learning experiences of all students within its care.

In closing, we extend our heartfelt gratitude to all participants for their invaluable contributions and look forward to witnessing the fruits of our collective efforts unfold in the months and years to come. Together, we are shaping a brighter future for education within the Blessed Christopher Wharton Trust, fueled by a shared passion for learning and a commitment to excellence.

Understanding WCAG: A Guide to Web Accessibility

Published: February 5, 2024

Web Accessibility

The digital world has become an integral part of our daily lives, and ensuring that everyone, including people with disabilities, can use and benefit from web content is crucial. The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are a set of recommendations for making web content more accessible to people with disabilities. This blog post will delve into the WCAG guidelines, their importance, and how they can be implemented to create a more inclusive digital environment.

What is WCAG?

The WCAG is developed through the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), which is an international community that develops open standards to ensure the long-term growth of the Web. The guidelines are part of the W3C’s Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI). They are designed to make web content more accessible to people with various disabilities, including visual, auditory, physical, speech, cognitive, language, learning, and neurological disabilities.

The Evolution of WCAG

The WCAG guidelines have evolved, with multiple versions being released to address the changing web landscape and emerging technologies. The most widely recognized versions are:

  1. WCAG 1.0: Released in 1999, this was the first version and included 14 guidelines.
  2. WCAG 2.0: Released in 2008, this version introduced four principles (Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, and Robust) and provided more detailed success criteria.
  3. WCAG 2.1: Released in 2018, this update added more guidelines, mainly focusing on mobile accessibility, people with low vision, and people with cognitive and learning disabilities.

The Four Principles of WCAG

The WCAG guidelines are built around four principles, often referred to by the acronym POUR. These principles are essential for anyone who wants to understand and implement web accessibility:

  1. Perceivable: Information and user interface components must be presented in ways that users can perceive. This means that users must be able to perceive the given information (it can’t be invisible to all of their senses).
  2. Operable: User interface components and navigation must be operable. This means that users must be able to operate the interface (the interface cannot require interaction that a user cannot perform).
  3. Understandable: Information and the operation of the user interface must be understandable. This means that users must be able to understand the information and the operation of the user interface (the content or operation cannot be beyond their understanding).
  4. Robust: Content must be strong enough to be interpreted reliably by various user agents, including assistive technologies. This means that users must be able to access the content as technologies advance (as technologies and user agents evolve, the content should remain accessible).

Implementing WCAG Guidelines

Implementing WCAG guidelines involves several steps:

  1. Understanding the Requirements: Familiarize yourself with the WCAG guidelines and the specific needs of various disabilities.
  2. Conducting an Accessibility Audit: Evaluate your current website or application against the WCAG criteria.
  3. Making Necessary Changes: Modify your website or application to meet the WCAG standards. This might involve changes to design, coding, or content.
  4. Regular Testing and Updates: Continuously test your website with various tools and methods and update it regularly to ensure ongoing compliance.

Understanding WCAG

The WCAG guidelines play a critical role in creating an inclusive digital environment. Web developers and content creators can ensure that their websites and applications are accessible to all users, regardless of their abilities or disabilities by adhering to these guidelines, w. In an increasingly digital world, web accessibility is not just a nice to have; it’s necessary to ensure equal access and opportunity for everyone.

How to Ensure an Inclusive Online Web Experience for All Parents

Category: Uncategorized

Published: December 16, 2023

Web Experience for All Parents

Don’t Forget The Details

One of the most important details any school web design fails to take into account is accessibility. This can also take place when you are developing a mobile-friendly school website design.

People are not the same as they have minor defects like colour blindness, hearing loss, and other disabilities that make it hard for them to access your school’s website.

While you may not be able to please or meet everyone’s needs you can still make your website accessible to a large majority of your target audience. When your school website design is inclusive for all parents you can avoid any legal issues that may have arisen if you did not do this work.

Designing School Websites for Diversity: Crafting an Inclusive School Web Experience

When you are going to make this attempt to have an inclusive school website design, you need someone with experience in web design to make the end result perfect.

Also, you need to know who is attending your school and what their parents are like, as well as know your target audience. Crafting an inclusive website means addressing all the needs found in your school’s parents, their children, and potential parents and students.

The reasons you want an all-inclusive website are:

– it broadens your audience

– it creates a better user experience for all who visit the website

– it helps build a cohesive and equal community

– avoids legal issues

Once you understand the reasons for building an all-inclusive school website design, you need to make sure it meets the following criteria- perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust.

An all-inclusive website design is a lot of work which is why you need someone with experience in web design to help you build it.

Ensuring Every Parent Feels Welcome via School Website

The steps to accomplish this goal would be similar to the ones you need to take when parents make a physical visit to your institution. The website is just an extension of the school and should incorporate key welcoming principles so all parents will feel comfortable exploring the website.

The first step to doing this is to understand that your school’s website design is your first impression. How it looks will tell every parent what you think of them. Making it an attractive landing page helps make the parents feel welcome.

The second step would be to clearly communicate and communicate well. If this task means having web pages translated into several languages, then so be it. You want every parent to feel welcome and meeting them in their native tongue is one way to accomplish that objective.

Don’t forget to ask parents what would make them feel comfortable when they visit the school’s website. This is vital information that cannot be overlooked.

Creating an Inclusive Online Hub for School Parents

One of the first steps in this process is to make sure to place a meaningful welcome on one or more pages. There can be a general welcome from the school and more specific welcoming messages from individual teachers to parents of their students.

Don’t forget to add check-ins as those help parents feel more comfortable. Then, design your web pages in such a way that parents can see them and their children represented in the culture of the school.

Be sensitive to ethnicity, cultures, and religions, and have that sensitivity appear in the language on signs, posters on the wall, and even key books in your school’s library. All of this can be displayed on different web pages on your school’s website.

Finally, create activities for the whole family to be involved. Of course, these have to be flexible and designed to meet modern parental schedules. You can get ideas through brainstorming as well as learning your students’ parents’ schedules.

Making user-friendly School Web Design

This is a vital element in any school website design as well as its mobile-friendly school website design. Being user-friendly encourages engagement and makes all parents feel welcome.

However, this is not an easy task as many parents do not have the same abilities and cannot access your school’s website in the same way. Here are some key disabilities that your web designer needs to consider and incorporate into his or her website design:

– visual

– auditory

– physical

– speech

– cognitive

neurodiversity

temporary and situational

Unfortunately, it may not be possible to meet all of these disabilities. Trying to please everyone is not an easy task and often you end up pleasing no one.

Strategies for an Inclusive School Web Experience

The following should provide you with the key ideas you can implement:

– semantic HTML elements

– have your site keyboard-friendly

– ensure good colour contrast and make it sufficient for all people

– provide media alternatives

– make use of captions and ALT texts

– include alternative text and content

– enable the keyboard navigation feature

– make sure to include clear instructions and labels

– allow your parents to make customized changes

– watch out for content that triggers seizures

– be culturally sensitive

– then test your website using real people

There are accessibility tools that can help you analyze how inclusive your school website design is. Don’t forget to use assistive technology to gauge the upgrade to your website.

Also, do not be afraid to make any changes that these testers and tools suggest.

Some Additional Words

When you are ready to make your school website design all-inclusive, contact our company. We pride ourselves on helping schools be more inclusive and broaden their audience through their website design.

We have the technicians and the experts who will help you construct a great inclusive website that should be welcoming to all parents. Contact us today to get started on this upgrade and broaden your school’s audience.

It is well worth the time and effort to accomplish this goal.

How To Evaluate The Effectiveness Of Parent Engagement Through School Website

Category: Uncategorized

Published: December 13, 2023

Parent Engagement Through School Website

When you use traditional measuring parameters, it becomes very easy to evaluate the effectiveness of parental engagement. These measuring parameters are better grades, better test results, and similar guides.

However, when it comes to measuring the effectiveness through the school’s website, this task becomes a lot harder. There are different parameters that have to be analyzed to see if parental engagement is where it should be.

Generally, you need someone with experience in web design to know which analytics will provide you with the correct information. Measuring the effectiveness of parental engagement through your school website design is not always that cut and dried.

Measuring Clicks and Engagement: A Guide to Analyzing School Website Effectiveness

The art of measuring the effectiveness of a school website is not always clear. One can only analyze the data that is recorded on the statistical pages on your dashboard.

Some of the data recorded on that page will give you an idea of how effective your school’s website is being and they may help in restructuring your online strategies.

Some of the data you can use will come from the following areas:

– average time parents spend on a given web page

– average session time for each parent

– the number of page views each visitor does

– the number of pages they visited per session

– the bounce rate of each visitor

– the exit rate of each of your visitors

High numbers in most of these categories will help you determine your school’s website effectiveness. The area where you want low numbers would be bounce time. You will want to see the school’s website visitors have long sessions and not leave too quickly.

Get Data-Driven Insights by Evaluating Parent Engagement on School Website

What makes this difficult is that many of your school’s website visitors may not be current school parents. The data doesn’t always indicate who is or isn’t a parent and a lot of your website activity could be done by visitors who came across the site for various reasons.

One way to get data-driven insights would be to look at the number of returning visitors. Most non-school parents will not return to the site unless they have school-age children and are looking for a good school to send them to.

The majority of returning visitor data would indicate a healthy engagement by current school parents. Another good source for data-driven insights would be the click rate and scroll depth.

This analytic option records how many clicks your school’s website visitor made on the website and tracks how far down the web pages they scrolled. This information provides you with an idea of how well your current parents are engaged with your website. And school.

Of course, there is no way to separate the data from school parents and interested potential school parents.

What are the Key Metrics for Assessing Parent Interaction

The key metrics that can be used for assessing parental interaction can come from the ones already listed above. How much time they spend on the school website, their click rate, scroll depth, as well as length of time they spend on the website are good indicators.

However, those metrics do not tell a clear and full story. While parents can spend little time on the school’s website yet be fully involved and have good interaction with their child’s teachers.

The best metrics to use also include their length of session time, page views, pages per session as well and access to the teacher-parent portals to check on their child’s progress.

The drawback to most of these metrics is that it is hard to distinguish between a current school parent and an interested potential parent. The latter may spend a lot of time on the website to see if the school is where they want to send their children.

Understanding the Parental Experience on School Websites

The way to achieve this objective is to put yourself in the current and prospective parents’ place and analyze your school’s website, navigation, pages, and other features.

You have to think like a parent to get a better understanding or even an idea of their understanding before you can fully appreciate what parents have to go through to be engaged with your school through its website.

The drawback to this method is that the web designer has to accept the perception as reality which may not be true in a majority of cases. The best way to understand the parental experience is to talk directly to the parents and see what they say.

Do not dismiss their critiques or experiences but use them to help guide your upgrading of the website. Keep in mind that what one parent likes another may not so you may end up pleasing one parent while excluding another.

Using Parent Input to Gauge School Website Effectiveness

This is the best and most plausible method you can use. Opening up communication channels and engaging parents by asking for their input are the clearest and simplest methods you can use.

There are different techniques you can use to get that input. Surveys, multiple-choice questions, or direct questions are the most effective methods to get parental input.

Then you can take that information and analyze it to see where improvement can be made on your website. Clear communication is the key to this option.

Some Additional Words

When you need to do this evaluation contact our company. We have had years of experience identifying and analyzing key metrics to gauge parental engagement through the school website and its effectiveness.

Our company has experts on analytics ready to help you in this tough process. Using people who know what they are doing and what to look for is essential if you want accurate results.

Contact us today to see how we can work with you in this area of your school website. Helping you get the information you need is just part of what we do, so contact us today for all your school website needs.

Mobile-First Design: Adapting Your School Website on the Mobile

Published: December 7, 2023

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.

Benefits Of Integrating Social Media Marketing Into Your School’s Web Strategy

Category: Uncategorized

Published: December 4, 2023

social Media in Enhancing School Web Design

Go Where Your Target Audience Can Be Found

It used to be easy to find your target audience. You could put an ad in the newspaper or a giant billboard up for all to see. Or all you need to do is advertise in the right magazines.

Today reaching your target audience is a bit more difficult. They are spread all over the internet on a variety of social media platforms or they may not be there at all. But if you are looking to increase your school’s enrollment then you need to incorporate social media marketing in your school web design.

What is The Role of Social Media in Enhancing School Web Design?

One of the most important roles social media has when incorporated into your school web design is that it fosters engagement. Your students and their parents can feel part of the school through this strategy.

Another important role is that adding social media to your mobile-friendly school website design is that information is easier to share. Students can pass along vital school information to their friends a lot faster and easier.

It makes for a better user experience and allows everyone connected to the school to know what is going on. Plus, the school can showcase its products, schedules, and activities, as well as make communication better between teachers and parents.

Incorporating social media in your school website design is helping the school go where its target audience spends most of its time. That makes communication run smoother and people get the information they need before it is too late.

Social Media’s Impact on School Web Design

The biggest impact social media has on a school’s website design is that it filters out extraneous information and helps you define your school and its brand a lot more coherently.

The social media platforms help you develop a voice for both the website and your social media accounts. The two are not necessarily the same. Plus, social media usually has its own set of goals created by the school.

These goals may differ slightly or vastly from the goals you have for your regular website. This extra set of goals helps you define your school in much easier-to-understand terms.

In addition to that, the social media impact means that your regular website should be mobile-ready. Most people access websites through their mobile phones and being social media-ready means you have taken care of two birds with one stone.

Social Media Boosts Enrollment via School Web Platforms

This is a positive result that should be expected. When you design your website to go where your target audience spends its time, then chances are you will increase enrollment.

Social media participation says a lot about your school to your target audience and gets them interested in what your school is all about. With over 57 million social media users in the UK alone, you have a large audience to reach.

Going where your audience is the premium strategy for any school that wants to increase enrollment and be seen as a successful academic institution. What helps accomplish this goal is that your social media marketing can be more targeted.

It also provides key information for those people searching for information on a specific school. This type of marketing has been described as similar to a shop window open to the street.

People get a glimpse of what your school is all about and when interested they can enter and explore

Social Media Integration in Modern School Web Design

This is not something that can be done overnight. First, you have to make sure your website design is aligned with your social media marketing strategy. The next step is to make sure your website design is fast and responsive.

Mobile phone and social media users are very quick on the draw and can bounce off your slow-moving website very quickly. The third step for proper social media integration is to have your website design including social media icons and share buttons.

The fourth step is as important as the first three but maybe slightly more important at the same time. When integrating social media into your modern school website design you still need riveting content to hold their attention.

This content needs to be entertaining as well as shareable or it may not capture the interest of your website’s visitors. Don’t forget to track the performance of your website design.

Staying Current with Social Media in School Web Strategies

This means that you have to stay current with popular trends, be able to see what new trends are developing and know when to switch from older trends to newer ones.

The trends that are being suggested currently are:

– use posts and X to broadcast updates and alerts

– use live streaming for lectures and discussions

– use Instagram for digital storytelling

– and more options

Staying current means watching what social media trend becomes popular and which ones have lost favour with your target audience. Then adapt to the changing landscape.

Also, you should have social media icons on your web pages so your target audience can easily access those accounts and see what you are doing on those platforms.

The reason you use social media outlets like YouTube is that if you are not telling your story, someone else is and the information may not be accurate or flattering to your school.

Some Additional Words

When you are ready to incorporate your school website design with social media accounts, contact our company. This is what we do. Our company is dedicated to upgrading and enhancing school website designs.

We do the hard work for you and can help you create a great social media marketing plan that should reach your target audience. This is not that hard to accomplish when you have our experts working with you to create a great social media marketing strategy.

How To Use The School Website To Showcase Your School’s Spirit And Identity

Published: December 2, 2023

How To Use The School Website To Showcase Your School's Spirit And Identity

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.

5 Reasons To Create Engaging And Informative Content For Your School Website

Published: November 27, 2023

Create Engaging And Informative Content For Your School Website

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.

How To Use Your School Website To Build Relationships With Parents And The Wider Community

Published: November 8, 2023

Use Your School Website To Build Relationships With Parents

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.

How To Use Your School Website To Support Learning And Teaching

Published: October 30, 2023

Use Your School Website To Support Learning And Teaching

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.