Another great website of the week! This week we are looking at the website created by Brockholes C of E Junior and Infant School based in the village of Brockholes, West Yorkshire. It is a Church School that has been recognised by Ofsted as being an outstanding school in terms of the quality of teaching and the exemplary attitudes that children have towards their learning.
The site is designed with colourful illustrations of trees, play areas and children. A great way to add some colours to the website and to make it appealing to children! The homepage also features some images of the school life with links to other pages.
School website is very easy to navigate and there is a navigation bar which makes finding the information you need even easier. The main contact details can be easily found at the top of the homepage and more contact details can be found in the ‘About Us’ page.

I always say that it’s great when schools add their social media links on the website because it helps to engage with students and parents more. Brockholes School has included links to their Twitter and Facebook accounts on the homepage; you can also see the Twitter feed on the homepage which is great for gaining more followers. Another nice feature on the school website, is the school vision video that can be found on the homepage.
Well done to the Brockholes School for demonstrating the flexibility of School Jotter’s school web designs and for creating this good-looking and informative website.

As of this month, new Ofsted guidelines on school websites have gone into force, but it’s a bit confusing what these actually are. We’ve written this blog post to help demystify the changes a bit, and it should be helpful whether or not you’re a School Jotter user.
The main focus of the new requirements is governor disclosure. Basically, you now have to put information on who your governors are, what they do etc onto your website on a publicly accessible page – previously, this was recommended but not compulsory information. So here’s what you’ll need:

• Name: You’ll need to have the names of your governors – photos can also help, but aren’t compulsory
• Category: What type of governor are they?
• Which body appoints them: Who appointed them to their position as governor
• Their term of office: When will they be serving until? Is it a time-limited or a more permanent position?
• Committees: The names of any gubernatorial committees they serve on
• Their positions of responsibility: For example, if they’re the Chair, Vice Chair, Secretary etc – what position do they hold?
• Voting rights: What things can they vote on and how this will influence the school?

Additionally, in order to make sure that any potential conflicts of interest are laid bare, the following information needs to be disclosed to the public:

• Any relevant business interests: Who they work for – are they part of a company who might benefit from school contracts?
• Details of positions at other schools: Do they govern any other schools? If not, this doesn’t need to be filled in.
• Any relationships at the school: If a governor has a relationship to another governor or member of staff at the school, you’ll need to put it down here. This includes spouses, partners and relatives.

Of course, these are just the new requirements – there’s still plenty of existing ones! Take a look at our Ofsted checklist for more information – you can print it out and tick off the areas you’re compliant in to give you a better idea of how you’re doing. Alternatively, perhaps you’d be interested in a free healthcheck by one of our website consultants – you don’t need to be with School Jotter, we’re here to help you!

King’s Rise Academy looks like a fun place to learn. We can tell that by the content and the colourful, attractive design of their school website – which recently went live.

As school websites go, much of the content on this School Jotter 2 website is what you’d expect – and, of course, what Ofsted expects. But there’s other information included that is perfect for parents considering the school for their child. The homepage contains a rotating gallery of the school’s children at work and at play – dressed up as pirates, reading and writing. The Celebration section includes pupil achievements, from Lego models they’ve created to attendance winners.

The Pupil Zone, yet to be completed, gives an insight into the work done by each class. Over in the Parents section, a useful inclusion for parents of both pupils and potential pupils are the results of a recent survey. Apparently, 78% of parents strongly agreed that their child enjoys going to the Birmingham-based school – and 81% strongly agreed that the teaching was good. A fun place to learn indeed!

You can view the King’s Rise Academy’s School Jotter 2 website by clicking here.

As you may know, the Department for Education introduced new requirements for school websites in September. We have produced a free guide to the changes, which can be downloaded here.
Changes include:

• Schools are no longer obliged to publish a physical prospectus
• There is a list of specific information which schools are required to make available on their website
• If a school has no website, this information must be published elsewhere on the web, and parents must be made aware of its location

Ofsted are also placing more emphasis on the quality of school websites. The Ofsted School inspection handbook from September 2012 states that planning for the inspection should be informed by analysis of: “information available on the school’s website, which may include a prospectus and other information for parents”. The handbook also states “Schools should encourage parents to complete Parent View by placing a link on their website to the Parent View website” (Parent View being the principal source of information that inspectors will use to judge parental opinions).

As you can see, a fully populated, regularly updated website is now essential to a school. With a School Jotter website, you can be sure this is taken care of. Our expertise in creating outstanding school websites is proven, with thousands of customers in the UK alone.

We create websites tailored to meet DfE and Ofsted standards, as well as to reflect the ethos of a school. The intuitive School Jotter website management system means that any member of staff with minimal technical knowledge can easily keep the website updated with all the latest information, with the Webanywhere support team always there to provide a helping hand if necessary.
Take the stress out of managing your school website: speak to the experts.