We have another website of the week! This week we’ve chosen a website created by St Joseph’s Catholic Primary School in Keighley, West Yorkshire.
What makes a website stand out, is that images of students dominate on the homepage and there is almost no additional written information regarding school on the homepage. Alongside the school name and a welcoming message on the homepage, you can find the latest school tweets at the bottom of the page and the link to follow the school on Twitter. I believe it’s a great way to engage with students and parents on social media.
Although there are no obvious links for more information about the school on the homepage, everything that parents, students and community need can be found at the top right corner of the website. This makes a homepage look very simple and professional.
Another great feature, that the school offers on the website, is a blog for students. This is a great way to get students involved in the creative writing and to share any topics of interest with their peers, teachers and parents. Moreover, the school website includes information about e-safety and some links for more information on how to stay safe online. Very thoughtful!
Overall, a great looking and informative website created by St Joseph’s Catholic Primary School. Well done!
Webanywhere will be exhibiting at Bett 2016 – the world’s largest learning technology event!
When? Event will be taking place from the 20th to the 23rd January.
Where? ExCel Centre in London, stand F350.
Bett is your annual opportunity to experiment with the latest technology, hear from inspirational figures and experts in the industry and meet your peers from all around the world.
Join us at the event and learn more about our education products including School Jotter – the school website builder – the world’s most popular open-source virtual learning environment. Our friendly education experts will be happy to meet you, answer your questions and demonstrate our education products.
We have some exciting things planned for Bett Show 2016! Watch this space for more updates regarding the event.
Planning your time!
Download the official Bett 2016 mobile app as a planning tool for your visit and make the most of your time before the show, at the show and after the show to stay tuned.
- Decide which speakers you particularly want to hear from and plan your schedule
- Find out who else is attending those sessions and strike up a conversation
- Plan your way around the show floor
- Keep a record of your favourite speakers, exhibitors and products.
This week we’ll be taking a look at a school who have clearly picked a theme for their website and then threaded everything through it. Woodbank Primary School in Bury are clearly rather fond of their leafy green visuals, something that shows up in the school’s logo, its iconography and even its photos.
I like how, rather than letting the design or even the teachers speak to the parents, the school has very clear opinions from its students, signaling a high degree of respect. The Head Boy and Head Girl are given their own paragraphs next to glossy photos, right on the homepage – certainly something enticing for any prospective parent. It’s clear from the additional imagery on the page as well that the school takes learning seriously, with smartly-dressed students in a variety of situations.
Design-wise, this is one of our first sites to feature parallax scrolling, where images behind the text appear to move at a different speed to the body of the page, producing a more dynamic web-page and allowing for greater use of imagery. I also like the tile-based buttons at the bottom of the page, but if I were to offer a tip it’d be to put them higher up – parents want to see your important information, and while it may be in the menu bar, not everyone’s going to check this!
Overall, a great, green website, so congratulations to Woodbank School!
It’s not really fair to call this post a “school website” of the week – instead we’re going to be looking at Great Heights Cluster, a group of eight primaries and one secondary in Bradford, from areas including Queensbury, Great Horton and Clayton Heights – the cluster name comes from the combination of the latter two. Continue reading →
Many education experts argue on the effectiveness of reward systems in schools. Traditional rewards like stickers and sweets are losing their value, as nowadays students are more interested in virtual goods like avatars and accessories. Our School Merits app (free to Webanywhere customers) motivates students to go the extra mile by providing them with Merit points, which can be used to purchase avatar accessories, donate to charities or even buy other items of their choice.
We’ve created the infographic below to show the main advantages and disadvantages of using reward systems in schools.
Kiwi Primary School is, at first glance, a strange name to give to a British primary school from Wiltshire. In fact, when I first read about it, I assumed it was one of our New Zealand customers, the kiwi not being a particularly diverse species on the Salisbury plain. In looking into it though, I found some truly interesting things out.
The school’s name comes from the Bulford Kiwi, a chalk figure etched into the hillside above Bulford Camp, less than four miles away from Stonehenge. It was created by New Zealand soldiers after World War One (there’s the New Zealand connection!), recuperating in the English countryside. Initially an infant school, Kiwi was merged with a junior school in the 1960s and the more distinctive name was retained.
The antipodean roots are clearly visible in the school’s website, from the smiling cartoon kiwi figure in the header to the names of the class events listed in the event-packed calendar. Every effort has been made to create an attractive, welcoming and informative website. Given the nature of the school’s situation in a military camp, a large number of the children at the school are from military families, so providing information is crucial for a frequently transient population.
Kiwi’s “About us” page is invaluable for anyone who needs to know key information such as enrolment and times – too often features either missing or hidden from school websites. All the information is clearly laid out and easy to find.
Overall, a fantastic website for a truly unique school!
When I first asked our consultants for recommendations for our Website of the Week, I was told that “when it goes up onto the web, Warden Park has to be one”. So when I got the notification that Warden Park was online I was quite excited to check it out – and I certainly wasn’t disappointed. Continue reading →
One of the most common questions our consultants get asked is “what’s your delivery process like and how long is it going to take?” This is something you should be asking all school website providers really, as it’ll inform how they’re going to be delivering your product. We’ve produced an infographic here to help explain some of what you might expect to experience over the School Jotter delivery cycle.
Click here for a free, no-obligation, no-payment-information-needed trial of School Jotter
