The problem is that while you may be wanting to switch website provider, you might have a few concerns. For example, you may be worried about losing content, downtime for your website, and ultimately disruption to your parents. Therefore, you want that switch to a better provider to go smoothly.

This is a guide that runs you through everything you really need to know about planning, transferring, and ultimately launching your new website.

Step 1 — Review Your Current Website Contract

We’ll assume that you already have a website provider you want to leave. So, before you can leave, you’ll need to know what your website provider requires from you. So, consider:

• Whether you need to give any notice on your current contract.
• Whether there is a renewal date where you will be tied into a new contract.
• Whether there are any charges for leaving the provider.
• Determine whether you own and control the domain, website content, and any assets on the platform. If you don’t, contact the provider to see if there are any fees related to transferring ownership to you.
• See if your website provider will give you your content when you leave.
• Find out whether you need to move your email hosting and other services.

Most of this will be built into your website contract. Most reputable companies will help to make the exit as smooth as possible, including the transfer of ownership of your assets. However, this is something that you really do need to check.

Step 2 — Decide What Your School Needs From Its New Provider

Before you can search for a new provider, you need to decide what you need from that provider. This means thinking about the following:

• Determining what the issues with your current website are. Is it too old? Is it lacking certain features? Is it tough to update? Make a note of what you really need your new website to do.
• It is important that you seek a provider that makes it incredibly easy to edit your content. It should save time and effort, ensuring communication with parents and other stakeholders is simple.
• You should always opt for a website provider that provides ample amounts of support. You don’t want to be left with a website that doesn’t move with the times, right?
• Decide what your budget should be. Not only should you think about your initial budget, but also the ongoing fees for support and website hosting.
• If you run a school trust, then think about a website provider that will allow you to easily manage all your websites within that trust.

Step 3 — Compare Providers and Agree Responsibilities

There are quite a few providers for school websites out there. So, your first job is to narrow down your choices. Here are a few tips to help with that:

• See whether the provider has school website examples. It is important that these are school websites, as you need evidence that the provider has worked on your type of project before.
• Ask for a demonstrated of the Content Management System (CMS) so you can see how it works.
• Determine what the quote from the website provider offers. You want website migration, training, support, and on-going maintenance. If the quote doesn’t offer future support, find out how much it will cost.
• Ask who will handle the transfer of the website, domain name, etc.
• Ask how quickly the website can be online. Make sure that you get everything in writing.

You should spend a while ensuring that you get the right provider for your new school website.

Step 4 — Audit and Back Up Your Existing Content

By this point, you should have chosen a website provider. This means it is time to start auditing your content, and backing it up.

Keep tabs on all of the pages, documents, images, forms, etc. you have on your current website. You’ll want to note what needs to be updated, deleted, and where information is duplicated. At this stage, you may notice that a lot of your website is out of date.

You will want to ensure that you keep a backup of all your content before you ditch your current website provider. This includes content that you may not use again. It is better to have access to it, after all.

Step 5 — Plan Your Domain, Email and URL Transfers

Contrary to popular belief, switching website providers doesn’t mean you need to change your domain name or email address. You will almost certainly own the domain name. You just need to contact your current provider to find out how the domain name can be managed.

You should work with your new provider on switching the domain name to your new website. A good provider will ensure everything runs smoothly. This includes getting you set up with your new email accounts.

Step 6 — Build and Test the New School Website

At this point, your website should be in the process of being built. New content will be produced, old content transferred, etc.

The new school website will also have new forms, calendars, and other functionality built into it.

If you work with a good website provider, they will carry out ample testing for you. However, you may still want to test things out yourself. This means checking the navigation works, that the site works on multiple devices (especially mobile), and that the correct statutory content is there.

Always get approval from all decision makers in the school.

H2: Step 7 — Launch the Website and Train Your Staff

When your website is ready to launch, talk to the new provider about the launch plan. They will help you to ensure everything goes off without a hitch. This includes redirects to the new website, email services, etc.

It is important that you set up some sort of analytics on your website at the same time. This will allow you to track how the website is being used. If you are unsure of how to do this, talk to your website provider.

Finally, train your staff on how to manage the website, especially when it comes to adding new content.

Step 8 — Monitor the Website After the Switch

The final step is to ensure that everything continues to run smoothly after the switch. Make sure that there are no broken links, the forms work correctly, etc.

You should keep tabs on incoming traffic to your website. A drop could indicate a major problem.

We also suggest that you get feedback from staff and parents. They will let you know what is working with the website and what isn’t.

Choose the Right Provider

School Jotter is the leading school CMS provider in the United Kingdom. We only build school websites, and we do it well. Contact us today, and we will talk you through how we can help transfer your current website to a more modern platform. One built for the future.

The post Switching School Website Provider: A Step-By-Step Guide appeared first on School Jotter.

Schools should use lot’s of different advertising formats to ensure that they reach people. This includes newspaper adverts, magazine advertisements, leaflets, and posters. Of course, they also need to be put in the right place. Advertising only works when the right people see it.

Here, we want to look at the five main benefits of print advertising for schools. This means advertising in addition to your digital campaign and school website. Something a bit more traditional, but still effective.

1. Reach Families in Your Local Area

For most schools, advertising in the local area should be the goal. This is where the vast majority of students will come from. Of course, some top fee-paying schools will be the exception to this rule, but for the vast majority of schools, focus advertising on the local area.

You have multiple options here. We suggest researching local community publications, local newspapers, or even leaflet distribution. You can use these methods to promote any school open days, or available places at your school.

Before you pay for any advertising, always ensure that the readership for the publication is good for your school. You don’t, for example, want to spend money on advertising only to find that a community newsletter isn’t really read by families. 

2. Build Recognition for Your School

Branding is everything for a school, and your advertising can lead the charge here. If you have consistent logos, colours, and messaging across your advertising then people will start to recognise your school. It will stick in their mind, even if they are not currently looking for a school.

When you advertise, you have an opportunity to highlight what your school offers. This means showcasing any facilities, values, or any strengths your school has.

Repeat advertising helps to build familiarity with the school, which can drive future admissions. 

3. Give Parents Something Tangible to Keep

A parent visiting a website can get information. However, once they close down that website, that is it. That information is gone. Print advertising is different. With print advertising, parents have something tangible that they can keep and, hopefully, keep referring back to.

Advertising, for instance, can include details of admissions, key facts about the school, or promotion for open days. You’ll be surprised at how much more likely somebody is to interact with the information when they have it in their hands.

Remember, your advertising should also have a call to action on it. People need information on the ‘next steps’. For example, you can provide your contact details, guide them to your website, or tell them how to book an open day.

4. Reach Parents Beyond Your Digital Channels

Most parents probably won’t visit your website. Well, not unless they absolutely need to. This means that they are less likely to find you online when they are searching for information about school admissions.

Printed advertising provides an extra opportunity to reach parents beyond your digital channels. In fact, you can use printed advertising to guide people towards those digital channels. This means that you can encourage people to visit a website they may never have visited otherwise.

We highly recommend that you talk to local publications, venues, etc. about displaying your advertising. Even if you reach just a few prospective parents, it may be worth it. Remember – never display advertising where you don’t have permission to display it. This means no putting flyers up in random places. Not that this would really work for schools to begin with.

5. Drive Visits to Your Website and Open Days

You can only share limited information via print advertising. Therefore, you will want to encourage people to visit your website for more information. We highly recommend using QR codes for this. It will allow a person to quickly scan using their phone and find more information. You can also have short links too. Nothing too long, as people won’t bother to use it.

We highly recommend that you create unique links for each of your advertising campaigns. This will allow you to measure how effective your current campaigns are.

How to Make School Print Advertising More Effective

So, now you know why school print advertising could be beneficial, let’s provide a few quick tips on how to make print advertising much more effective: 

• You should keep your print advertising simple. It should have a single clear message. Don’t complicate things. Share key information, and encourage somebody to visit your website to find out more information. The text should be readable, and there should be eye-catching images to ensure that people pay attention to what you’ve written.
• Think about where the advertising will be placed. Tailor advertising to that audience. You might also want to think about the time of year you’re advertising. For example, in the height of admission season, you should place details about how your school is accepting admissions, open days, etc.
• Make sure all details are accurate. You may need to regularly update your advertising to ensure. 
• Print materials and your website information should match up. In fact, you might want to combine both your digital campaign and print campaign together. This type of campaign is much more effective. Use print advertising to drive people to your website. You’ll see way more ‘conversions’.

5 Benefits of Print Advertising for Schools

While many schools focus on digital advertising, you shouldn’t put print advertising on the back burner. In fact, print advertising can be incredibly beneficial, as it will allow you to reach people your website may not be able to reach. 

If you’re interested in school marketing, contact us here at School Jotter. We can help you to plan both your school marketing campaign, and build a school website that helps to boost admissions.

The post 5 Benefits Of Print Advertising For Schools appeared first on School Jotter.

There’s no one answer to this question. A website could be live anywhere from within a day (using a basic template), to a few months (if an extensive site design is required). Essentially, it is all down to the complexity of the project, whether content is ‘ready to go’ and, of course, whether the stakeholders are able to approve the website to go live.

We are one of the leading school website developers in the UK. We have templates that can go live quickly, but also work with custom-designed websites for those schools that need something a bit special.

What Is the Typical School Website Development Timeline?

As cliché as this may sound, the answer to this question is ‘how long is a piece of string?’. School website development timelines can vary wildly.

For example, a template is a ready-built website where information can be quickly slotted in. A template-based website, assuming that all of the content is ready, could go live in a matter of days. On the other hand, a bespoke school website where nearly everything needs to be designed from scratch could take weeks, if not months.

The size of the school will also impact things. A small primary school with just a couple of hundred students will likely require less development time than a website designed for a secondary school, or even a MAT. This is because there will be different requirements with regards to the type of content included on the website.

There is no universal timeline, since every website is different.

The School Website Design Process: Step by Step

In order to better understand why it may take a while to develop a school website, we want to go through the brief stages we here at School Jotter consider when planning a website.

1. Discovery & Planning

The first step is to establish what the goals of the website are. For some schools, it may be to boost admissions. For others, it may be to keep current parents informed of the school. There may even be an overlap of the two. We will review the existing website to determine what works and what isn’t. We will also develop a sitemap, which is our plan for the pages to include on the website.

2. Website Design

Once planning is set in stone, we will start developing the website. The extent of this will be dependent on whether there will be a template used, or if the site will be completely bespoke. Either way, there will be implementation of branding, basic navigation, and the implementation of the first concepts of the site. Changes can be suggested at this point.

3. Content & Migration

Any existing content will be moved over from the original website. If no content is available, content can be produced. This will include relevant text for the website, images, and documents (e.g. a prospectus). School policies will also need to be produced.

4. Website Build

This is the stage where everything comes together. Content will be placed on the website, pages will start to work. Any required functionality e.g. open day booking systems, contact forms, newsletters, etc. will start to work. This is the stage where schools will have a working website. One that is often close to ready to going live.

5. Testing & Review

Before the website can go live, a few more things need to happen. The site will need to be tested on mobile devices to ensure it works. The site will also need to be checked for accessibility (e.g. alternative text for images, readable text size, etc.) to ensure everybody can access the website. Forms need to be working. Links should actually go somewhere. Stakeholders in the project can provide feedback.

6. Website Launch

Once everything is approved, the site can go live! Of course, updates will continue on the website to ensure it continues to meet the needs of the school.

What Can Delay a School Website Project?

Unfortunately, like most projects, school website development can be delayed. However, if you’re aware of the common bottlenecks for school website development projects, then the chances of a delay are considerably lower:

• Always have your content and photography ready to go. Most school website designs are delayed because there is simply nothing to put on the website.
• The more stakeholders that need to give approval, the slower things go. Keep the project to one or two stakeholders, maximum.
• If the scope of the project expands (e.g. new features), then delays happen.
• Complex features can delay the project.
• If there is a LOT of content to migrate, then things slow down massively.

Honestly, as long as you have the bulk of your content ready to go, and stakeholders ready to give feedback every step of the way, then the chances of the project slowing down are minimal. Most site developers often report these as the two ‘sticking’ points for projects.

How Can Schools Get Their New Website Live Faster?

We want to share some tips, a sort-of checklist, that will help schools get their website done faster:

• There should be one project lead. One person that interacts with the developer, provides feedback, and determines the scope of the project. Any feedback from other stakeholders can be fed through this project lead. The project lead should have the final say on everything to ensure that the website is developed quickly.
• Prepare content, including text and images, early. Ideally, you’d want to supply this to the developer near the start of the process.
• Audit existing pages on the current school website to see what information requires updates, and what is missing. Outdated content should never be placed on a new website.
• Gather all of your policies, documents, and assets early on. This allows faster upload to the school website. Talk to your website developer to determine what information is required.
• Agree who the decision-makers are in relation to the website. Cut down on stakeholders offering feedback. Consolidated feedback works best. So, like the ‘project lead’, try to provide feedback through just one or two people. Projects can get a bit muddled, and slow, when multiple people are sharing information with the website developer.

Template vs Bespoke School Websites: Which Is Faster?

School Jotter offers both school website templates and bespoke school website design.

School website templates will be the fastest way to get your new school website online, but this will come at the expense of full customisation of the website. However, templates are the cheaper option for schools facing a budget.

Fee-charging schools often work best with a bespoke school website design. This is because it enables the website developer to produce a solution that encourages admissions, and really streamlines the admissions process. This is something that would be different for all schools.

Ready to Start Your New School Website?

School Jotter is the leading school website design service. We have developed a school-specific CMS to ensure websites can be up and running quickly, while also offering all the features that schools require.

Contact us today. We will help you to decide whether a template website design or a bespoke project is right for your school.

The post How Long Does It Take To Build A School Website? appeared first on School Jotter.

This means that your ROI needs to be measured in different ways. That’s what we want to look at here.

What Does School Website ROI Actually Mean?

Your school website return on investment (ROI), essentially looks at whether your website is accomplishing what the site sets out to do. For example, if the goal of your website is to encourage admissions, then you will be looking at whether admissions go up as a result of your website.

Many schools are measuring their school website metrics incorrectly. They look at the number of page views that their site gets. This is somewhat of a ‘vanity’ metric. Sure, a high number of page views looks amazing, but if those views are not translating to a ROI, does it really matter how many people are looking at your website?

The Five KPIs Every School Should Track

While there are a variety of statistics that a school could be tracking, we believe that five are more important than anything else. This is because these KPIs indicate that a parent may be considering the admissions process for their child.

Prospectus Downloads

Parents want to learn more about a school before they even consider continuing with the admissions process. Generally speaking, a parent will only download a school prospectus if they are giving serious consideration to a school. It is one of the biggest earliest indicators of intent, and if a high number of website visitors are downloading the school prospectus, then the website is converting well.

Schools will want to analyse downloads of the prospectus over time. If downloads are increasing, then the website is doing something right.

Admissions Enquiry Form Completions

After downloading the school’s prospectus, the parent may wish to learn more about the admissions process, and maybe will want to reach out to the school. Any quality school website will have an admissions enquiry form in place. Monitor how many people complete these forms after downloading a prospectus. This will give you a conversion rate.

Open Day Bookings

Perhaps the strongest signal that a school website is converting visitors is open day bookings. This is because booking an open day is something that requires ‘effort’. People don’t book open days on a whim. It is because they are seriously considering a school.

Open day bookings can be tracked via a landing page, something your website developer will be more than happy to set up.

Contact Clicks

Track when people seek out contact information. Phone numbers, email, or WhatsApp. This indicates that a person wishes to get in touch with the school. This, again, is something that requires effort. It is more than just browsing.

Returning Visitors

Finally, keep tabs on returning visitors. This likely means people are carrying out research on the platform.

Which Pages Should Schools Monitor Most Closely?

While it is a good idea to have an overall view of how your school’s website is performing, there are some pages that you’ll want to focus on the most. These are your ‘high value’ pages i.e. the ones that could potentially lead to new admissions for the school.

Admissions Pages

Any page related to admissions needs to be tracked heavily. This means key information about how the admissions process works, details about the school, etc. This will often be your site visitors first port of call.

Prospectus Pages

As we mentioned previously, prospectus downloads, or page views, indicate that a person wishes to know more about what the school offers, likely because they are considering sending their child to the school.

Open Day Pages

Always track open day pages. Schools will want to pay special attention to who books an open day via the website. Anybody booking an open day is close to offering a ROI, as people tend only to book open days if they are in the final decision making process.

Sixth Form or Nursery Pages

Nursery pages and sixth form pages need to be heavily tracked. It is at this stage that parents are often considering more about where their child attends school. Nursery pages are often a ‘big’ one for schools, since most students will join at nursery level.

Fees Pages

If your school has fees, they need to be clearly listed. Parents will use this as part of the decision making process. If you’re seeing very few people continue with the admissions process after viewing the fees, this could indicate that either the fees are too expensive, or not clearly labelled.

How to Measure Website Conversions

A good website developer will implement multiple methods in a website to track data. Conversion tracking is rather simple. You compare the number of website visitors vs the number of people completing a set action. The higher the number of people that complete the action, the better your website is performing.

We recommend that schools track the following, as all are indicators that a person is serious about the admission process:

• Prospectus download completed
• Open day booking submitted
• Admissions form sent
• Contact button clicked

Turning Website Data Into Marketing Decisions

Collecting data isn’t enough. Schools should work with their data to improve how their website performs.

Improve Low-Converting Pages

Any pages that seem to be low-converting may need to be changed. Schools must decide why a page may be low converting. For example, it may not provide the right information, or there may be no obvious way to continue with the conversion. Many schools will engage in split testing. This means developing two versions of a page, and seeing which one converts the best. They continue with this split testing, hopefully producing higher and higher converting pages.

Identify High-Performing Campaigns

Use your tracked stats to determine which advertising campaign works best for your school. Invest more in this campaign, or work out why others are underperforming.

Optimise Open Day Promotion

Not many open day conversions? Then there may be something wrong with the open day promotion, marketing, or the pages that lead to open day bookings. Determine what may be causing the short fall and establish a campaign that seeks to boost open day conversions. Optimise marketing campaigns to really focus on the ‘benefits’ of attending an open day.

Refresh Popular Content

Content that is popular and converting highly should be regularly ‘refreshed’. Do not have out of date information on your website.

Common School Website Analytics Mistakes

Many schools, most of whom are new to website analytics, often track the wrong information. Let’s run you through the common pitfalls.

Focusing Only on Traffic

Don’t measure just website traffic. In the grand scheme of things, traffic doesn’t matter too much. What matter is how much of that traffic you are converting. Remember, most of your website traffic won’t convert. Most won’t care about your school all that much. They may have landed on your website randomly. This is why you need to track conversions instead. Use website traffic as a tool, but don’t rely on using it to determine how well your site is performing. You could have 1,000,000 website views and 0 conversions. This wouldn’t mean your site is performing well, right?

Ignoring Mobile Users

Mobile users are just as important as those visiting from their computers. Don’t forget to track them.

Not Tracking Enquiries

Many schools will track the number of people admitted to their school, but this should not be the only thing you track. Also track enquiries. This indicates somebody is interested in the school. If enquiries are high and admission conversions low, then this indicates there could be a problem with how enquiries are handled.

Measuring Vanity Metrics

This means useless information, such as website traffic. Basically, any metric that won’t give you important information about how your website is converting.

How Often Should Schools Review Website Performance?

Ideally, there should be some form of performance review every single week. We recommend the following:

• Every week keep tabs on the number of enquiries and open day bookings. If there is a fall over the course of a few weeks, try to work out why. It is better to fix the problem sooner as opposed to later.
• Monthly check whether website conversions are trending up or down. Remember, there will be some parts of the year where conversions will be naturally higher, often around the time admissions open up.
• Termly: check how your school admissions are. See if any parts of the admission process on your website are performing poorly. Fix the problem.
• Yearly will be your ROI review. See how things are shaping up for admissions via your website, and whether the website is generating you a return on your investment. If everything goes to plan, it should.

How School Website Analytics Supports Admissions Growth

Your school’s website should have commercial value. It needs to work to bring in admissions which, ultimately, means more money from the school. Properly analysing your website’s statistics can lead to a boost in enquiries, open day attendance, and to properly inform marketing decisions.

We highly recommend that you use a CMS for schools, such as School Jotter, which have in-built reporting and conversion tracking, allowing you to always stay on top of how your school’s website is performing for you.

The post How To Measure Your School Website ROI: The Metrics That Actually Matter appeared first on School Jotter.

Educational establishments have requirements that are worlds apart from typical businesses. And whether general-purpose CMS platforms like WordPress have the capabilities to meet such intrinsic needs is the question we’re answering here.

Is WordPress Good for School Websites?

WordPress has the power to create professional and highly customised school websites with relative ease — all without spending a pound.

Adding to this power is the massive ecosystem of themes and plugins. From an entire school theme complete with a calendar, news section, and faculty directory to contact forms to photo galleries to LMS integrations, there’s a ready-made plugin for almost everything, helping you create a seamless site that students and parents will find easier to use.

Provided you have technical expertise available, you could consider WordPress to be your one-stop school website shop. However, all this flexibility and endless plugin options add to its complexity. The initial website build may be straightforward enough, but ongoing management (a crucial part in any school website) is another ball game.

Despite its brilliance for many businesses, WordPress isn’t the best choice for school websites for the following reasons:

1. WordPress Isn’t Specifically Designed for Schools

WordPress started life as blogging software, transitioning somewhere along the line to become a general-purpose CMS. At its core, it’s a posts and pages data model, meaning everything you need to make your site function as a school website, such as student portals, parent communications, curriculum information, calendars, grade viewers, payment integrations, and enrolment forms, must be bolted on using plugins and/or custom development.

Your WordPress-built “school website” is just a blog in school’s clothing. The moment you begin adding all the specifics required by school websites is the moment you begin fighting the platform.

With a purpose-built school CMS, like School Jotter, however, all education-focused functionalities are included as standard, ensuring the platform works seamlessly from the get-go.

2. Website Management Can Become Complicated

Different WordPress themes and plugins make management complicated where it should be easy. Updates must be done separately for each addition and skipping for a few months can lead to disastrous consequences. In the same breath, blindly updating plugins can lead to breakdowns and unforeseen downtime.

Generally speaking, school websites are managed by staff members who aren’t developers, marketers, or have any tech experience. And when each plugin works differently, making quick, everyday changes becomes nightmarish.

With School Jotter’s school-specific CMS, you’re afforded drag-and-drop functionality, simple page organisation, and structured file storage to streamline web management processes, saving time and money.

3. WordPress Plugins Create Additional Dependencies

Beyond the core data model, WordPress’s functionality stems from third-party plugins. Said plugins are designed and maintained by a plethora of developers who can discontinue or change them as they wish. The latter can cause incompatibilities or complete breakdowns if left unattended.

While plugins are certainly useful, they bring additional management dependencies that your school likely doesn’t have the time or technical resources to oversee. As such, purpose-built school CMS platforms tend to be better suited — no third-party plugins to add extra management requirements.

4. Security Requires Ongoing Management

Security is important for all businesses, but especially for schools. Unfortunately, retaining such web security on WordPress can be difficult due to the various components — core, plugins, and themes — that require regular updates to patch vulnerabilities. Failing to update in a timely manner can cause security issues.

Schools should seek a one-stop platform has clear responsibilities for hosting, backups, updates, and monitoring, like School Jotter’s CMS. Our managed platform reduces your staff’s technical responsibility, allowing our professionals to do the back-end work.

5. Training Can Be More Difficult to Standardise

As mentioned, different WordPress websites have entirely distinct themes, page builders, and plugins. Frustratingly, moving between WordPress websites doesn’t mean the editing experience will be the same — it might be, but it’s likely there will be fundamental differences.

Why does this matter? Your staff may need regular retraining, and new hires may require additional training just to use all the features correctly. The problem of not-so-standardised training compounds for MATs with multiple websites.

With one, school-specific platform, however, you receive ongoing support and training (throughout the UK with us at School Jotter), ensuring the whole team is on the same page at all times.

6. Managing Multiple School Websites Can Be More Complex

Speaking of MATs and larger organisations, maintaining separate WordPress installations can create additional administration that costs time, resources, and money.

When numerous school websites are at play, branding, updates, and permissions consistency becomes vital. Unfortunately, these are hard to achieve with disparate WordPress iterations.

A central management hub makes life much easier for MAT teams, reducing admin spend and complexity. Through School Jotter’s MAT Dashboard, you can access all trust-led websites through a single platform.

7. School-Specific Features Can Reduce Admin

Specialist school-specific software isn’t just easier or better than WordPress; it’s a complete set of functionality features designed around typical school requirements. No adapted generic web plugins here.

Individual schools and MATs alike stand to gain a myriad of much-needed features from a purpose-built school CMS like School Jotter. Some such features include:

• Policy review alerts
• Ofsted detection alerts
• Calendar synchronisation
• Attendance features
• Enrolment forms
• Accessibility tools
• Push notifications

Everything you need for an optimal school website is at your fingertips.

WordPress VS a School-Specific CMS: Which Should You Choose?

WordPress offers incredible flexibility and customisation, thanks to its of high-powered themes and plugins. For general purposes, its free, open-source nature is a no-brainer. However, for schools and their specific requirements, it can cause more problems than it solves.

You need a platform that won’t put up a fight when asking it to fit your needs. And that’s precisely what our purpose-built-for-schools CMS at School Jotter provides. Packed with essential features and a central management hub, it’s a one-stop-shop for all your individual school or MAT website needs.

The post Why WordPress Isn’t The Best Choice For School Websites appeared first on School Jotter.

The proposals cover almost every aspect of school life: SEND and inclusion, curriculum and assessment, attendance, workforce development, accountability, school structures, and digital technology and AI.

Many of the changes will roll out gradually, and some will need further consultation or legislation before they take effect. But the direction is clear. Schools will be expected to become more inclusive, make better use of data and technology, strengthen communication with families, and step in earlier when pupils need extra support.

Here are the key changes school and trust leaders should have on their radar.

National ambitions for 2030

The White Paper sets out several national ambitions for the end of the decade:

• Raising the national Attainment 8 score to 50
• Halving the Key Stage 4 disadvantage gap, from 15.5 to 7.7
• Cutting national absence to 5.85%
• Raising the proportion of pupils reaching the expected Key Stage 2 standard to 64.9%
• Raising the proportion of disadvantaged pupils reaching that standard to 51.3%

Behind these targets sits a broader push on attendance, inclusion, strong teaching and earlier intervention.

Major changes to SEND and inclusion

SEND is one of the biggest areas of reform.

The Government wants a more consistent national system, one where pupils’ needs are identified earlier and schools can get specialist support faster.

Proposals include a new Experts at Hand service, giving schools routine access to therapists and specialists, and Individual Support Plans for pupils who need targeted SEND support.

There’s also a proposed three-layer model, Targeted, Targeted Plus and Specialist support, alongside National Inclusion Standards from 2028.

Schools would be expected to publish an Inclusion Strategy, and a new Inclusive Mainstream Fund would help pay for provision.

The plans include expanding specialist provision and inclusion bases, with the longer-term aim that every secondary school has access to one.

EHCPs would continue for pupils with the most complex needs, while future support would sit increasingly within defined Specialist Provision Packages.

The SENCO role is also set to become more strategic: less admin, more responsibility for building inclusive practice across the whole school.

Greater focus on early years and primary education

Early identification and smoother transitions between early years settings and schools are another major theme.

The proposals include expanding Best Start Family Hubs, extra early-years inclusion funding, more school-based nurseries and wider access to Mental Health Support Teams. National ambitions here include:

• 75% of children reaching a Good Level of Development by 2028
• 90% reaching the expected standard in the phonics screening check

Schools can also expect firmer expectations around information sharing between early-years providers and primary schools.

A refreshed curriculum is planned for first teaching from 2028, backed by new Reception networks meant to spread effective practice.

Changes to secondary curriculum and assessment

Secondary schools face significant curriculum and assessment changes.

New GCSEs are planned from 2029, alongside consultation on the future of Progress 8.

Other proposals include statutory reading and maths assessments at the end of Year 8, and a combined framework covering oracy, reading and writing.

There’s also more emphasis planned on:

• Digital literacy
• Media literacy
• Financial literacy
• Cognitive skills
• Communication and oracy

The Government also wants schools to deliver a full three-year Key Stage 3, backed by a new national KS3 Alliance.

That could push schools to show clearer curriculum progression from Year 7 onwards, rather than treating Key Stage 3 mainly as GCSE preparation.

Enrichment, careers and life skills

The White Paper also expands what’s expected around pupils’ wider development.

A new National Enrichment Framework is expected to cover things like civic engagement, culture, sport, outdoor learning and practical life skills.

The Gatsby careers benchmarks will be updated, and every young person would be expected to complete two weeks of work experience.

New vocational V Levels are also proposed, sitting alongside A levels and T Levels.

Better data sharing between schools, local authorities, colleges and other post-16 providers is meant to cut the number of young people who leave school without a clear next step.

For schools, that likely means enrichment, careers and preparation for adulthood become a more visible part of what they offer.

Attendance, behaviour and pupil engagement

Attendance remains a major Government priority, with a national ambition to get it above 94%.

But the White Paper goes beyond simply measuring absence.

By 2029, schools would be expected to track pupil belonging and engagement too, supported by a new Pupil Engagement Framework and annual national pupil experience data.

There are also proposals for refreshed guidance on behaviour, suspensions and reasonable adjustments, plus Reintegration Support Partnerships for pupils returning after a suspension.

School leaders should also note the greater weight placed on the quality of home-school relationships and communication with parents and carers.

A new digital system is proposed to streamline the national complaints process.

Disadvantage and targeted funding

The Government plans to consult on how disadvantage is measured and funded.

Rather than relying only on existing indicators, a future model could factor in the duration and severity of low income, as well as geographical disadvantage.

Schools can also expect more support for using the pupil premium effectively, including digital tools and funded reviews of pupil premium strategies.

Regional programmes such as Mission North East and Mission Coastal are meant to tackle entrenched geographical inequalities.

Teacher development, leadership and retention

None of this works without the school workforce, and the White Paper proposes a long list of changes there too:

• A strengthened Early Career Teacher Entitlement
• Reformed NPQs with more content on SEND and people leadership
• Expanded development programmes for experienced teachers and leaders
• A Teacher Training Entitlement across the whole workforce
• A national teacher retention programme
• Better professional pathways for school business professionals
• A national approach to supply staffing
• Longer-term investment in school buildings and maintenance

There’s also a proposal to extend maternity provision for teachers to eight weeks at full pay.

For trusts and schools, ongoing professional development is likely to matter even more, particularly around SEND, inclusion, leadership and digital skills.

All schools moving towards trust membership

One of the biggest structural changes is the expectation that every school will eventually join a trust.

The Government proposes a clearer division of responsibilities between local authorities and trusts, inspection-based accountability for trusts, and new Trust Standards covering:

• Educational outcomes
• Inclusion
• Value for money
• Community impact
• Effective governance and leadership

There would also be mechanisms to move schools out of trusts that are underperforming.

In practice, trusts are likely to be judged not just on results in individual schools, but on what they contribute to education across their wider communities.

Digital technology and AI in schools

The White Paper treats AI and EdTech as a growing part of the education system, not just an add-on.

Proposals include national safety and efficacy standards for AI and education technology, investment in assistive technologies, and better digital connectivity.

The Government also wants to develop and trial AI tutoring tools for secondary pupils, and train staff to use AI and digital resources with more confidence.

Better data-sharing infrastructure is another priority.

For school leaders, the question is no longer whether to use AI, but how to use it safely and well. That means clear policies, staff training, safeguarding arrangements and a process for evaluating new technologies before rolling them out.

What does the White Paper mean for schools now?

Many of these reforms will take years to bed in, so schools don’t need to overhaul everything overnight. Still, there are a few areas worth starting on now.

Schools should look at how well they identify and support SEND, check whether their website clearly explains their inclusion offer, strengthen attendance and parent engagement work, review curriculum progression through Key Stage 3, and make sure staff can access the right professional development.

It’s also worth checking how information reaches parents and the wider community. As expectations rise around SEND, inclusion, attendance, enrichment, complaints, policies and accountability, school information that’s accurate and easy to find will matter more than ever.

How School Jotter can help

At School Jotter, we work with schools and multi-academy trusts to make communication simpler and help them run accessible, compliant, easy-to-manage websites.

School websites will stay one of the main places for sharing policies, SEND and inclusion information, curriculum details, enrichment opportunities, attendance expectations and support available to families.

Given the growing role of AI in schools, it also matters more that new technologies are introduced carefully and with the right safeguards.

We’ll keep following Every Child Achieving and Thriving and share practical guidance as consultations, implementation dates and statutory requirements are confirmed.

The reforms will likely stretch into the 2030s. But the general shape is already visible: more inclusion, earlier intervention, closer contact with families, and heavier use of digital technology in how schools operate day to day.

The post Every Child Achieving and Thriving: What the New Education White Paper Means for Schools appeared first on School Jotter.

For many years, photographs of smiling pupils have been a normal part of school websites.

They help prospective parents see what school life looks like, celebrate achievements and bring a school’s values and community to life.

But advances in artificial intelligence are forcing schools to think differently about the images of children they publish online.

A recent Guardian investigation reported a significant increase in children reporting sexually explicit AI-generated deepfake images made using their likeness.

According to the report, the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) and NSPCC’s Report Remove service received 420 reports from children in the first half of 2026 alone — already more than the total recorded during the whole of 2025.

The concern for schools is straightforward: an innocent photograph of a pupil published publicly online can potentially be downloaded, copied and manipulated using increasingly powerful AI tools.

That creates a safeguarding question that schools may increasingly need to consider:

Do we actually need to publish identifiable photographs of real pupils on our public website?

The risk has changed

Schools have always had to think carefully about consent and safeguarding when publishing children’s photographs.

Generative AI introduces another dimension.

Modern AI tools can manipulate photographs with alarming realism. The Guardian has previously reported warnings that schools should reconsider publishing identifiable photographs of pupils because images available publicly online could potentially be used to create manipulated or explicit material.

This isn’t simply a theoretical technology issue. AI-generated imagery is becoming part of the safeguarding landscape schools need to understand.

The Department for Education’s updated guidance and resources also recognise the growing importance of AI safety. Its guidance on the safe use of generative AI specifically identifies safeguarding, ethics and data among the risks schools should consider when adopting AI.

From September 2026, schools in England will also be working under the new Keeping Children Safe in Education 2026 statutory guidance.

The technology is changing quickly, and schools’ approach to publishing images may need to change with it.

A different approach: AI-generated school imagery

At School Jotter, we believe schools should be able to have attractive, modern and engaging websites without unnecessarily exposing the identities of pupils.

That’s why we’re introducing an AI Imagery Service for schools.

Instead of relying on photographs of identifiable children, we can create bespoke AI-generated imagery designed specifically around your school website.

For example, a school might need an image showing:

• children reading together in a primary classroom
• pupils taking part in a science lesson
• children playing sport
• a school assembly
• pupils using computers
• children enjoying an outdoor learning activity
• a welcoming classroom environment
• pupils representing the school’s values and ethos

These images can communicate the same idea and emotion as traditional school photography without publishing the photograph of an actual pupil.

Keep the personality. Remove the identity.

We don’t believe safeguarding should mean school websites become bland or impersonal.

Parents still want to see a vibrant school.

The objective is therefore not simply to remove children’s photographs and replace them with generic stock photography.

Our designers can create imagery appropriate to the school’s age range, environment, activities and website design so that the finished school website continues to feel warm, engaging and relevant to the school community.

The difference is important:

The children shown don’t need to be real pupils attending your school.

That reduces the amount of identifiable pupil imagery being made permanently available on the open web.

Existing websites can be reviewed too

This isn’t only something schools need to consider when launching a new website.

Many established school websites contain hundreds — sometimes thousands — of photographs accumulated over several years.

They may appear within:

• homepage banners
• galleries
• news articles
• curriculum pages
• staff and class pages
• archived newsletters
• downloadable documents
• old blog posts

Some may feature pupils who left the school years ago.

School Jotter can help schools review how pupil imagery is being used across their existing website and identify areas where alternative imagery could be considered.

Where appropriate, our team can then create replacement AI imagery and help update the website.

AI should help solve safeguarding problems — not just create them

There is understandably considerable discussion about the risks AI creates for children.

Those risks are real and schools need to understand them.

But responsible AI can also be part of the solution.

Using artificial intelligence to reduce the number of identifiable photographs of children published openly online is a good example.

A school can still celebrate its curriculum, communicate its values and have a beautiful website while taking a more privacy-conscious approach to pupil imagery.

Technology has changed what can be done with a photograph.

It therefore makes sense for schools to reconsider what photographs they make publicly available.

Ask School Jotter about an AI Image Safeguarding Review

School Jotter can review your existing school website and help identify where publicly accessible pupil photographs could potentially be replaced with purpose-created AI imagery.

Our team can then produce a bespoke collection of safeguarding-conscious images suitable for your website.

Protect pupils’ identities without losing the personality of your school website.

Speak to the School Jotter team about an AI Image Safeguarding Review and our bespoke AI Imagery Service for Schools.

The key evidence behind the article is strong: The Guardian reported yesterday that Report Remove received 420 reports in the first half of 2026, already exceeding 2025’s total, with AI manipulation and “nudification” tools contributing to the problem.   The Guardian also reported in May that experts were advising UK schools to reconsider identifiable pupil photographs online because publicly available images can be exploited for AI-generated abuse and sextortion.

There is also a useful official-policy connection: DfE’s current AI materials explicitly cover safeguarding, ethics and data risks and say AI use should align with KCSIE.   The final KCSIE 2026 guidance has been published and comes into force on 1 September 2026.

The post Should Schools Still Put Photographs of Pupils on Their Websites? appeared first on School Jotter.

Let’s discuss what this means.

What is a Parents’ Evening Booking System?

A parents’ evening booking system is, essentially, a website that allows parents to book a timeslot for their parents’ evening attendance. For staff, there is very little administration involved. Parents are sent a link with available booking times. The parents book. It is that simple.

The booking system contains all available time slots and bookings, and parents, teachers, and administrative staff can refer to this whenever needed. The booking system takes some of the headache out of running a parents’ evening.

Why Schools are Switching to Online Parents’ Evening Bookings

As we said before, there is already a lot of effort running a parents’ evening. A lot of administration. Schools are looking to reduce the headache wherever they possibly can. One of these methods is to ‘automate’ bookings as much as possible. Schools are opting for online booking systems because it reduces the need for staff to dedicate their time to managing bookings, and it gives parents a lot more control over the time they want to attend.

The Benefits of an Online Parents’ Evening Booking System

In this section, we want to go through the benefits both schools and parents can enjoy with a well-implemented parents’ evening booking system.

Reduce Administrative Work

Having an online system drastically reduces school administrative work. All schools need to do is set up the system (which is simple if the right solution is selected), set the times available, and allow parents to book.

Since parents choose their own time online, there is no need for the school administration to try and work out how to schedule parents, or to constantly field booking telephone calls from parents. This is something which normally takes up a hefty amount of time around parents’ evening.

Allow Parents to Book Appointments Online

Parents can book their parents’ evening appointment at their leisure. No need to contact the school and find out what times are available. If they click their link to the booking system, they can see what slots are available and book within seconds.

Prevent Double Bookings

An online booking system will prevent double bookings. This means schools won’t have two sets of parents arriving at the same time, hoping to speak to the teacher. This was a common problem in the past when you had multiple people trying to manage the administrative side, and everything was done on paper.

Improve Parent Engagement

This is a minor benefit, but a benefit nonetheless. Many schools believe that introducing a booking system like this improves parent engagement. Parents will be taking an active role in booking their time slot, rather than being told when to turn up. This may encourage parents to engage with the school in other ways too.

Save Teachers and Office Staff Time

We’ve covered this extensively already. An online booking system saves teachers and office staff a lot of time. A proper booking system doesn’t necessarily mean they won’t have to do anything, but if it takes more than a few minutes each week to manage bookings, we’d be surprised.

How Our Online Parents’ Evening Booking System Works

To demonstrate why our online parents’ evening booking system is so beneficial, we want to go through how our system works.

Create Your Event

Teachers/administrators start by setting up the event in the online system. This takes a few minutes. While we are discussing using the system as a parents’ evening booking system, you really could set up any event that requires booking select times within the system.

Set Appointment Times

Available appointment times are set. You can adjust the length and time of each appointment slot.

Share the Booking Link with Parents

Parents will be sent their own unique booking link for the system. They must click this link to book an allotted time.

Parents Choose Their Preferred Time Slot

Parents can see which time slots are available. They can book any available time slot. Of course, the earlier they book, the more opportunity they have to get a time that is right for them.

Manage Bookings and Changes

On the rare occasion that a parent needs to make a change to the time they’ve booked, teachers and administrative staff can help. It takes less than a minute to change bookings.

Common Challenges Schools Face with Parents’ Evening Scheduling

Running a parents’ evening is tricky at the best of times. Scheduling, for instance, is particularly difficult. Schools need to manage:

• Ensuring that parents get the time slot that is most suited to their schedule.
• Ensuring double bookings do not happen.
• Having to stay in contact with the parents, which takes up a huge amount of time.
• Ensuring that the correct available times are shared with people.

Working with an online school parents’ evening system can reduce almost all of this workload, allowing schools to focus on more important parts of a parents’ evening.

How Parents’ Evening Booking Software Improves Parent Communication

A parents’ evening booking system improves parent communication by encouraging parents to actually engage with the school. Parents will have a full list of all available times for the parents’ evening, and they are free to choose whatever available slot they wish for. No hassle. Parents love the fact that the school is so brilliant at communicating available booking slots, something which was a major problem in the past when everything was done on paper.

Choosing the Right Parents’ Evening Booking System for Your School

When choosing a parents’ evening booking system, it is essential that you opt for the right system. The best system would be one used in real-world situations and developed especially for these types of bookings. We highly recommend the software developed here at School Jotter. It is used by countless schools already to manage their parents’ evening scheduling. Why not yours too?

Get in touch to learn more about our parents evening booking software, school website design or our marketing for schools.

The post Parents Evening Booking Systems: The Complete Guide For Schools appeared first on School Jotter.

The Trust partnered with us at School Jotter to alleviate their CMS difficulties and achieve brand cohesiveness while retaining each school’s individuality. For six years, our partnership has proved successful; this latest project of migrating them to the updated J3 platform and redesigning web presence across the trust has been no different.

The Challenge: Bringing Multiple School Websites Together

No matter the organisation, consistency throughout all digital presence is important. But when that organisation has 17 separate websites to contend with, this can be easier said than done. Not only is brand uniformity imperative, but so is ensuring that each school’s unique identity remains apparent.

Beyond design aesthetics, the websites need to come together under one roof to make trust-wide governance a breeze. From content management to compliance, the Trust required efficiency and cohesiveness across their entire web-based ecosystem.

Creating a Cohesive Website Design Across the Trust

With the challenge in mind, we crafted a modern, streamlined school website design that’s evident from the Trust’s main website to each school’s web presence.

A Shared Trust Identity

We ensured each website uses the Trust’s brand colours and implemented an easily navigable structure to guarantee cohesiveness from the start. Whether browsing White Woods Primary Academy Trust website or one of their 16 schools’ sites, it’s evident they’re all working under the same banner, thanks to the uniform branding, layout, and design choices.

Preserving Each School’s Individual Character

Unity doesn’t mean loss of individuality. From the welcome messages on each school’s homepages to the content published to the images scattered throughout, we made sure each institution’s personality shines through.

Improving the Experience for Parents, Pupils, and Staff

With responsive designs and easy-to-use navigation systems, we improved browsing experiences for all users. No more misaligned UIs when perusing Trust-led websites and portals.

Migrating 17 School Websites to the Latest J3 Platform

Cohesiveness isn’t where this project stopped. We also migrated all 17 websites to the latest J3 platform during the redesign, ensuring each school benefitted from timesaving, communication-enhancing features.

Planning a Seamless Migration

To ensure the website migration was seamless, we:

Modernising Every School Website

Each school website received modernisation. Once our overarching design received the go ahead, we implemented across all 17 websites. The result? An up-to-date, future-proof website for the Trust and its 16 Rotherham-based primary schools.

Making Day-to-Day Website Management Easier

White Woods Primary Academy Trust now benefits from J3’s MAT dashboard, which provides access to all websites on one platform. Within this dashboard, the Trust can detect Ofsted, receive automatic policy alerts, sync calendars, and much more for effortless management.

Why Multi Academy Trusts Benefit from a Unified Website Platform

White Woods isn’t the only trust that benefits from a unified platform. Every MAT gains the following:

Consistent Branding Across Every School

Each school showcases the overarching trust’s branding to ensure brand cohesiveness across the entire group. A unified platform guarantees future and current students and parents see the community from the landing page, while retaining each institution’s individuality.

Simplified Website Management

Everything you need in one place. Administration can manage content and alerts from all schools inside one dashboard.

Better Governance and Compliance

Unification makes it easy for the trust to govern all schools consistently. On top of that, accessibility and other compliance matters are easy to address, ensuring no website falls short.

A Scalable Solution for Growing Trusts

With a purpose-built MAT website platform, scaling is easy. You may be a three-school trust now, but a unified service ensures adding more establishments is effortless as you grow.

The Results for White Woods Primary Academy Trust

Our implementations have afforded White Woods Primary Academy Trust:

What Other Multi Academy Trusts Can Learn

If you’re looking to implement unification across your MAT’s schools, there are a few key things to take away from our partnership with White Woods Primary Trust.

Create a Trust-Wide Digital Strategy

Digital strategies are important for any academic institution, but this importance increases ten-fold where MATs are concerned. This roadmap should outline how the schools will utilise technology to boost teaching, learning, and efficiency. Some examples include centralising resources and standardising digital systems to guarantee safe, collaborative operation.

Choose a CMS Built for Schools

A normal CMS isn’t equipped with the features demanded by MATs. Our CMS for schools has education-specific attributes that ensure seamless, efficient operation once migrated. Such features include but aren’t limited to:

And the best part? No technical experience needed.

Balance Consistency with Individual School Identity

Make sure your schools don’t lose their unique identities in your effort to achieve brand consistency. While the colours, design, and policies should be unified, the actual content, particularly welcoming messages and the images, should showcase each school’s individuality.

Plan for Future Growth

Whether you’re actively growing or teetering on the edge of adding more schools to your trust, plan for it. How will new additions feet seamlessly into your brand identity? What will you need to do to add a new school to your digital presence? This is where a dedicated MAT CMS works wonders.

Looking to Modernise Your Multi Academy Trust Websites?

Bring your MAT websites into 2026 (and beyond) by developing a trust-wide digital strategy, redesigning to ensure cohesion, and migrating to a purpose-built CMS. And if you need help, follow in White Woods Primary Academy Trust’s footsteps and partner with us a School Jotter to take advantage of our updated J3 platform.

Get in touch to learn more about our MAT website design, CMS for schools or marketing services.

The post White Woods Primary Academy Trust: MAT Website Design Project appeared first on School Jotter.

Contrary to popular belief, these templates are not generic. They won’t make a school look like every other school that uses a similar template. In this day and age, many of these templates are ‘editable’ enough that they can look unique, without significantly increasing the cost.

Here, we’ll tell you a little bit about why pre-designed school website templates could be significantly better than something that is custom-designed for your school.

What Is a Pre-Designed School Website Template?

A website template is a pre-built website structure. A school template has been designed specifically for schools, and includes all the pages and information that a school would need. A school can then fill in the blanks, or add new pages as needed.

Good school website templates are customisable. While they may all stick to the same rough layout, schools have huge amounts of control over branding, colours, and imagery used on them. This means that schools that use the same templates as their back-end may have websites that end up looking completely different.

Template Websites vs Custom School Websites

Template websites are a quick and easy way for schools to get a quality website online. They’re affordable, and when designed properly will include all the information a school needs. This includes legal obligations, as well as the right information for school stakeholders.

A custom school website is, as the name suggests, custom-designed for the school. They are more expensive, and take a lot longer to make. However, schools have a lot more control over the design, what is included, etc. They are often only recommended for schools with huge budgets that really need to drive admissions (normally fee-paying schools).

The Benefits of Pre-Designed School Website Templates

Faster Website Launch Times

School website templates are ‘ready-made’. Use a school website template and you can be online in a matter of days. Custom-designed website? It could take months.

Since schools need a website, a template is the best route to go down when working to a tight deadline.

More Cost-Effective Than Custom Development

School website templates are more affordable. Considerably so, in fact. For a school website template, where the cost is effectively shared across multiple schools, you’re paying just a fraction of what a custom-designed site would cost.

The fees for keeping the website up and running are much more predictable too. Many of the companies operating school website templates have a predictable subscription model. A custom-designed template? It is made just for your school, and it would require incredibly large costs to keep it running effectively, and these costs can be very unpredictable.

Designed Around School Website Best Practices

School website templates have been designed specifically for schools. This means that they include the features and information school websites need to have. The developers of these templates, including companies like School Jotter, regularly work with their users to ensure that the user experience remains ‘top notch’. A school website template isn’t set in stone. It constantly evolves to the needs of the school and the users.

Easier to Manage for School Staff

School website templates often boast features that make them easier to use. This includes sophisticated back-end systems that allow staff, even those without technical experience, to update the website. This saves time and money.

One of the most popular content management systems (CMS) is School Jotter, which offers a school website template that is easy to use for everybody. Even those who have never updated a website before will instinctively know how to keep the platform updated, with little to no training.

Custom-designed sites are not like this. Developing a back-end that is easy to use for staff is tremendously expensive.

Supports Ofsted and DfE Website Compliance

If you’re in the United Kingdom, a good template will meet legal requirements. This means that the site will be in compliance with any rules put in place by Ofsted or DfE. The template producer will also regularly check compliance requirements and ensure that their templates consistently meet them. This means schools using templates never need to worry about falling foul of the law.

Mobile-Friendly by Default

Most people aren’t using computers to browse the internet nowadays, they’re using their mobile devices. This is why you need a quality school website template that works with mobile devices ‘by default’. A pre-designed school website template offers that. A good template, like those offered by School Jotter, will work just as well on mobile devices as it does on desktop computers, ensuring no website user feels alienated.

Accessibility Features Built In

School websites need to be accessible to everybody. This is why many good school website templates have accessibility features built-in. This includes changing text size, colours, and ensuring that images have alternative text for those who may not necessarily be able to see the image. This comes as default. No need for extra development or effort.

Professional Design Without the Complexity

Website templates offer professional design, without any complexity. A well-designed template will ensure consistent branding across your website. This boosts the image of your school. A good template will also offer regular design updates too, ensuring that your website is always modern and ‘with the times’

Scalability for Future Growth

Over time, your school will grow, as will your need to include extra content. A good template will allow your website to grow with your school’s needs. It becomes easy to add new pages to the website, features, and more. No effort required!

Why Many Schools Choose Pre-Designed Website Templates

Schools are opting for pre-designed website templates because they don’t need anything else. Templates offer all their school needs, without the cost. Templates are also much more customisable than ever before so, even if a school purchases something ‘off the shelf’, they get something completely unique to their school.

The Benefits of Pre-Designed School Website Templates

School website templates are the way to go if you want to get a website up and running quickly, without the costs of a bespoke design. Explore our school website templates of get in touch for a bespoke school website design.

The post The Benefits of Pre-Designed School Website Templates appeared first on School Jotter.