Oracy may not always get the same attention as literacy or numeracy, but its importance in shaping confident, articulate individuals cannot be overstated. From group discussions in primary classrooms to debates in secondary schools, oracy equips students with the speaking and listening skills they need to excel academically and socially.

In this article, we’ll unpack what oracy really means, why it matters, and how you can foster these essential skills across all age groups in your school.

What Is Oracy?

Simply put, Oracy is the development and practice of speaking and listening. However, the pedagogical concept of the term is much deeper. It involves effectively communicating, articulating thoughts, and participating in meaningful, balanced discussions while demonstrating relevant body language and linguistic and emotional cues. 

Oracy manifests in various ways throughout daily life. However, an oracy-focused school environment aims to foster students’ confidence in active listening, verbal expression, and constructing and conveying coherent arguments—all necessary for a fulfilled professional and personal life.

The Four Components of Oracy

Since Oracy encompasses many skills, they’re categorised into four components of the discipline (otherwise known as pillars).

Physical

Widely recognised as the foundation of communication, Oracy’s physical component includes non-verbal elements like voice clarity, eye contact, and body language. These skills allow students to engage with their audience (even if that audience is one person) and exude confidence.

Linguistic

When you think of Oracy, you likely thought of the linguistic component of it. It’s a common mistake, but in reality, linguistics (i.e., vocabulary, grammar, and storytelling) is just one of Oracy’s four pillars! It helps students articulate their thoughts and feelings both clearly and creatively. Storytelling projects are a particularly enjoyable way to develop linguistic skills (but more on that later).

Cognitive

This component involves formulating arguments, thinking critically, and organising thoughts. Developing these skills enables students to respond thoughtfully to others and structure their ideas logically.

Social and Emotional

Last but certainly not least, Oracy’s social and emotional pillar revolves around understanding emotions — of those around us and ourselves. Students with these skills will be able to self-regulate, empathise with others, and manage their feelings as they communicate with those around them.

Why Is Oracy Important?

Research has uncovered many benefits of oracy-focused curriculums.

Evidence shows that developing oracy skills improves academic performance across English, maths and science. 

But it isn’t just about academic achievement. Oracy’s advantages extend to improved employability and career readiness, self-confidence, resilience, empathy, self-awareness, well-being, happiness, life chances, and civic engagement and empowerment.

Oracy in the Classroom

The implicit teaching of oracy happens all the time in the classroom. But when you’re looking to take an oracy-focused approach, the following tables guides you through the age-dependent specific skills you should work on with your students and strategies to ensure your classroom effectively involves all four pillars of oracy:

Age-Dependent Oracy Skills

Teaching Strategies for Oracy’s Four Pillars

Oracy vs Literacy and Numeracy

Literacy and numeracy have traditionally taken precedence over other curriculum subjects. But as of 2024, educators, researchers, and scientists alike say oracy should take over—or become as essential as literacy and numeracy, at least. Why? due to its importance, as discussed earlier. It forms the basis of our professional and personal lives, so why shouldn’t it be as important as other widely recognised essential disciplines?

Measuring and Assessing Oracy

While assessing oracy is still largely subjective, the Oracy Skills Framework and Glossary defines a list of attributes to look out for when assessing students’ skills. These include linguistic notions like using appropriate vocabulary in the context, physical attributes like pronunciation clarity, and cognitive choices like maintaining focus on the topic.

Improve Your Students Communication Skills With Oracy

Embedding oracy into your teaching and focusing on its four pillars, you can help your students build the confidence, communication skills, and emotional intelligence they need to succeed academically and socially.

Whether through classroom discussions, debates, or storytelling, prioritising oracy will prepare your pupils for the wider world beyond the school gates.

Explore Oracy Champions today!

Do you think “gamification” is little more than a buzzword? Think again. For a very good reason, the phrase has been popping up all over educational billboards over the past couple of years—it’s a formidable learning tool for today’s digitally focused generation.

As children spend an increasing amount of time on their phones, tablets, and game consoles, parents and educators alike are worried about the rising negative impacts. But adding gamification to the learning environment is the perfect way to turn these worries into relief.

Believe it or not, fractions (and other “boring” topics) can be taught even more effectively by gamifying the classroom. And in the following sections, we’re going over the six primary benefits that await you and your students on the other side of gamification.

1. Boosts Student Engagement

The most obvious benefit of gamification in a classroom setting is raised student engagement. Adding game-esque elements like scoreboards, badges, and awards to your lessons boosts their appeal in your learners’ eyes. It beats a standard-issue textbook any day of the week.

While every child is different and learns in distinct ways, a growing pile of evidence proves that gamification motivates and engages the masses for overall academic (and personal) performance.

In Analysis of Gamification in Education, a research paper by Andrew Stott and Carman Neustaedter, it acclaims games’ levelled formats for their ability to help learners digest new information steadily: “The concept of acutely designed progression in games has direct links to the concept of scaffolded learning in pedagogy. Both structure learning in planned increments to increase engagement and subdue feelings of disorientation and helplessness.”

2. Increases Motivation and Encourages Healthy Competition

Motivation is a powerful, complex process involving the brain’s reward system. Likeable experiences, such as winning a game, releases dopamine, the neurotransmitter associated with pleasure and reward. This release reinforces the behaviour that led to it, meaning we’re more likely to repeat it to reap the same rewards.

Gamification taps into this little neuroscience trick incredibly well, thanks to the immediate feedback and rewards provided after every challenge/task. Whenever your learners earn points or badges for reaching milestones or completing missions, their brains release dopamine, reinforcing the behaviour and motivating them to keep going.

However, dopamine isn’t the only way gamification raises motivation; it also adds friendly competition to the mix through classroom leaderboards. Learners can instantly see how they rank with their peers—a powerful motivator, particularly for children who are motivated by extrinsic factors (e.g., winning a competition, garnering approval, etc.).

Let’s look at an example to illustrate this competitive factor better. 

A gamified literacy program awards points for correctly comprehending paragraphs and bonus points for the speed at which they were comprehended. The more points your students get, the higher up the leaderboard they’ll appear. This motivates them to work harder and improve their skills to rank better among their peers. As such, the gamified environment fosters a sense of friendly competition, encouraging students to always do their best.

3. Enhances Knowledge Retention

Engagement and motivation are benefits to gamifying your learning environment in their own right, but they also (somewhat inadvertently) bring about another intrinsic advantage — improving information retention.

When students are more motivated and engaged, they will naturally retain more knowledge. Points and leaderboards spur the innate human desire to “win” and be recognised for achievements. This incentive unknowingly helps students process the curriculum deeply, leading to better overall retention.

4. Supports Collaboration and Teamwork

Competition and collaboration may seem like they exist in two wildly separate Venn diagrams, but in the case of gamified education, this couldn’t be further from the truth. While there are certainly solo goals to meet and missions to win, many game-based learning platforms offer a plethora of chances for collaborative learning. 

On the majority of educational game-based platforms, students will work together to achieve common objectives, fostering a sense of camaraderie. Ultimately, this collaborative spirit improves communication skills and teaches children the power of collective effort.

5. Offers Personalised Learning Opportunities

As we’ve briefly alluded to, not every child learns the same way — and effective gamification understands this.

Well-gamified environments give learners genuine choices and adapt to their individual needs, providing a range of learning pathways that achieve the same (or similar) goals. Offering such a personalised experience helps educators implement the Universal Design for learning framework (a.k.a., UDL framework), ensuring students’ unique strengths are catered to and their distinct weaknesses are improved in the most efficient way.

6. Provides Data-Driven Insights for Educators

In a traditional school system, teachers only truly reflect on students’ learning and their progress when marking papers or exercise books. But gamification gives real-time, measurable, meaningful data for educators to take on board and implement every day. Access to such accurate data will only enhance learning for your students, preparing them for the rest of their life more steadfastly than before.

6 Benefits of Gamification

Adding game-esque elements to your classroom improves collaboration, engagement, motivation, and friendly competition while providing highly personalised learning experiences for your students and giving you accurate, real-time data that will undoubtedly improve the efficacy of your teaching efforts.

Looking to attract more pupils to your school? Get in touch to discuss our marketing for schools & school website design.

A well-designed website is more than just an online presence for a primary school. It is a vital communication tool between the school, parents, and students. When a website is user-friendly, it makes staying informed easy for everyone involved.

The website also helps build engagement and a sense of community. It allows parents to connect with what’s happening at the school and helps students feel more involved. The whole school community can unite by sharing news and events online.

This article will explore six essential tips for designing an effective primary school website.

1. Prioritise User-Friendly Navigation

Keeping the website navigation simple is crucial. A straightforward menu helps visitors find what they need without frustration. When parents and students can easily access information, their experience is much better.

It’s also important to use clear labels for menu items. Choose words that everyone understands to avoid confusion. This way, visitors know exactly where to click to find what they want.

Adding a search bar is another helpful feature. It allows users to quickly find specific information without browsing through many pages, saving time and making the website more efficient.

2. Implement Responsive Design

Your website must work well on all devices. Whether someone uses a desktop, tablet, or smartphone, the site should be easy to use and look good. This way, parents and students can access information no matter what device they use.

Starting with a mobile-first approach is a smart move. Many people use their phones to browse the web, so designing for mobile users first makes sense. You can then adjust the design for larger screens like tablets and computers.

Optimising images and media is also key. Large files can make your website load slowly, especially on mobile devices. Reducing the file sizes without losing quality helps your site load faster and provides a better experience for everyone.

3. Highlight Important Information

It is essential to ensure that contact details like phone numbers and the school’s location are easy to find. Having this information handy saves time and reduces frustration when parents or visitors need to reach out.

Keep the school’s calendars updated with current hours, events, and important dates. Parents appreciate knowing about upcoming activities, and students can stay informed about what’s happening at school.

Feature the latest news and announcements prominently on the homepage. You keep the school community engaged and aware of what’s going on by showcasing recent updates.

4. Incorporate Engaging Visuals

Using high-quality images can make your school’s website more appealing and inviting. Professional photos of the school environment, staff, and students help visitors get a real sense of your school. These images showcase the friendly faces and vibrant spaces that make your school unique.

Adding multimedia content like videos and slideshows brings the website to life. For example, include a virtual tour of the school, clips from recent events, or slideshows of student artwork. This kind of content engages visitors and connects them to the school’s activities.

Consistency in branding ties everything together. Applying the school’s colours and logos throughout the site creates a cohesive look that strengthens your school’s identity. Consistent branding helps visitors recognise your school instantly and builds trust through a professional appearance.

5. Ensure Accessibility Compliance

It is vital to make your website accessible to everyone. Inclusive design means people with disabilities can use your site easily, which shows that your school cares about every community member.

Providing alt text for images is important. Adding descriptive text to each image ensures users with vision impairments can understand what the pictures show and don’t miss any content.

Using readable fonts and good colour contrast makes your site easier to read. Choose clear fonts. Make sure there’s a strong difference between text and background colours.

6. Optimise for Search Engines

Optimising your website for search engines is important because it helps more people find your school online. When your site ranks higher in search results, it’s easier for parents and the community to discover what your school offers.

Relevant keywords are a key part of SEO. In your content and metadata, include words related to primary education and your school’s name. This helps search engines understand what your site is about and connects you with people searching for those terms.

Providing quality content is also crucial. When you offer valuable and original information, visitors are likelier to stay on your site and explore. This positive engagement signals to search engines that your site is useful, which can improve your rankings.

Remember technical SEO. Ensure your website follows best practices like a clear structure, fast loading times, and mobile-friendly. Use descriptive URLs and allow search engines to crawl your pages. These steps help search engines properly index your site so it appears in search results.

6 Primary School Website Tips

To make your school’s online presence shine, focus on creating a website that:

• Is easy to navigate
• Works well on all devices
• Showcases important information
• Includes engaging visuals
• Is accessible to everyone
• Is optimised for search engines

Combining these elements means building a site that informs and connects with your community. These strategies enhance the experience for parents, students, and staff, fostering better communication and engagement within your school.

Looking to improve your website? Get in touch with School Jotter today to learn about our primary school website design.

Parental involvement plays a crucial role in student success. When parents are engaged, students often perform better academically, show improved behaviour, and feel more supported in their learning journey. Schools also benefit from a collaborative environment between teachers and parents, which forms a positive and supportive school culture.

Active parent participation goes beyond individual families—it strengthens the entire school community. Engaged parents connect, contribute fresh ideas, and help bring school events to life.

This article will cover five practical tips for boosting parental engagement and creating lasting benefits for students, staff, and the whole school.

1: Improve Communication Channels

Reaching parents where they already are—through emails, SMS, school apps, and social media—makes communication more effective. Using multiple channels ensures parents receive important information most conveniently, increasing the likelihood they’ll stay connected and engaged with school updates.

Consistency is also key. Sending regular updates, like weekly newsletters, event reminders, and progress reports, helps parents feel informed and included. When parents know what’s happening at school, they’re more likely to get involved and support their child’s learning. Reliable, steady communication builds trust and makes it easier for parents to participate actively in the school community.

2: Organise Regular Parent-Teacher Meetings

Scheduling parent-teacher meetings at different times—or offering virtual options—can make it much easier for parents to attend. Flexibility shows consideration for parents’ busy schedules and can increase attendance, ensuring more families stay involved in their child’s education.

These meetings should be collaborative, focusing on supporting the student’s growth rather than only discussing grades. Schools can build a supportive partnership by involving parents in setting goals and creating strategies for their child’s development. This approach helps parents feel valued contributors to their child’s success and strengthens the connection between home and school.

3: Create a Welcoming School Environment

Hosting events like cultural nights, sports days, and community fairs can make the school feel inviting and open to families. These events allow parents to engage in a relaxed setting, meet other families, and feel more connected to the school. When parents enjoy being at school, they’re more likely to get involved.

Encouraging inclusivity through cultural awareness is also essential. Recognising and celebrating the diverse backgrounds of all families ensures that every parent feels welcome and valued. Creating a space where everyone feels accepted can create a stronger, more supportive community that benefits students, staff, and families alike.

4: Encourage Volunteering and Participation in School Activities

Providing various volunteer opportunities that fit different schedules can make it easier for parents to get involved. Whether it’s helping with event planning, assisting in the classroom, or joining school trips, flexible options allow parents to participate in ways that work best for them.

Recognising and appreciating parents is equally important. Simple gestures like a thank-you note, a mention in the school newsletter, or a small appreciation event can go a long way. Acknowledging their efforts reinforces their value in the school community and encourages ongoing participation, creating a supportive network that benefits students and staff alike.

5: Use Technology to Enhance Engagement

A dedicated school app can speed up and simplify communication with parents. With features like event reminders and important announcements, an app keeps parents informed in real-time, reducing the chances of missed information. Everything in one place streamlines the experience, making it simple for parents to stay connected.

Another critical tool is a regularly updated school website, which serves as a go-to resource for parents. It provides essential information about school policies, events, and news. When parents know where to find current information, they feel more engaged and included in the school community.

5 Tips to Improve Parental Engagement in Schools

Parental engagement is crucial for student success. When parents are involved, students often achieve higher grades, have better attendance, and show more positive attitudes toward school.

We encourage schools to adopt some or all of these strategies to build a more connected community. Even small steps can make a big difference.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

There’s no doubt that the COVID-19 pandemic, and resulting guidance from the Department for Education, has continued to effect the way our schools are able to run now and will do so moving forwards.
When it comes to working with our school customers, we want to help you stay on top of what’s happening in as many ways as possible, so as well as ensuring you have regular contact from our team direct, whether that’s by email or phone call, we’ve also continued to create some great and informative new episodes of the School Jotter Podcast. Here’s an overview of some of the latest episodes, available on Google Podcasts and on Spotify.

New Coronavirus Act 2020

Sean talks with Sharon and Lawrence about the new Coronavirus Act 2020 and about how schools need to ensure education continues.

Parents Evenings

Sean talks to Arthur and Lawrence about how schools can handle parents evenings in the current social climate.

Remote Education in Local Lockdowns

We examine different approaches to remote education during recent local lockdowns. We explore the use of video, learning platforms and the use of off-line work packages.
There are many more episodes of the School Jotter Podcast available, if you’d like to find out more about any of the topics covered or you’d like to suggest a topic yourself, please do contact us.