We really love Al-furqan Primary School’s website – particularly the way that their theme matches the message that the school is trying to put across. This is a school that places pride in educating its children in both the national and Islamic curriculum, and doing so at the highest possible standard.
The website has a very smart and traditional theme which uses rich colours, such as maroon and gold. This reminds us that this school is very proud of the values that it enshrines. On each page, there’s also a banner that showcases photos of the school inside a film reel. I think this addition works really nicely as it captures the school’s goal of incorporating religious teaching within a modern educational system.
In the About Us section, they tell a story of a wise man who spends his time reflecting under a shady tree just outside his village. The moral of the story is that those who choose to see the good in people will be welcomed into the wise man’s community with open arms. Al-furqan Primary School represents that community. Since the school’s humble beginnings of a semi-detached house in Moseley, Birmingham, it remains a family that places great importance on expressing good values in everything that it does.
To view Al-furqan Primary School’s website click here. To find out how your own school’s website can reflect your school’s values, get in touch with us here.
This week we were really impressed with West Rise Community Infant School’s website. Their website has a fantastic theme which focuses on the earth as its background. This creates a real sense of wonder and reminds us that this school is a ‘‘magical place of learning, care and excellence”.
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This week’s website is a natural choice. Coxhoe School’s website is famous amongst primary schools across the UK, because it is home to hundreds of teaching resources.
Webanywhere is rather proud of the fact that Coxhoe School chose School Jotter as its website system – and this week, their website was relaunched with a brand new look. Webanywhere was there to document the occasion, and you can read more about this in our blog post here.
The website itself boasts a beautiful design, based around a castle background. The theme is continued through to the menus, which, when you hover over them, drop down further menu options in the style of ancient medieval scrolls.
As always, the website is full of resources, with the curriculum links section taking you through to dozens of links to resources for any subject or key stage you would need. This, along with the outstanding website design, should keep Coxhoe School at the top of the pile when it comes to school websites, for a long time to come.
To view Coxhoe School’s website click here. To find out how your school could have an outstanding website designed by Webanywhere, that’s easy to update and maintain yourself, click here.
Coxhoe School is a familiar name to primary schools all around the country, thanks mainly to a popular website the school created a few years ago.
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Hob Green Primary School opted for a nature-themed website, echoing the rural surrounding of the school’s site in the West Midlands.
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At Webanywhere, we always love to see a school website that’s a bit different, and Copley Primary School’s Windows 8-inspired website is definitely one that stands out!
The Halifax school recently had their website redesigned, and it now incorporates colourful ‘blocks’ on each page. The box for the header even changes colour!
The best thing about using colourful blocks to separate out the content on your website is that you can add a large amount of information to one page, without it looking messy. In fact, take a look at the Homepage – scroll down and you’ll see there is quite a lot on this page, yet the design of the website makes it look like there should be lots of content.
The way the menus have been ordered keeps things neat and tidy too – there are only four menu boxes – but hover over one and you’ll get further menu options. It’s clearly a website that wants its visitors to find their way around easily – whether that’s parents, pupils of Ofsted. Plus, this design would look great whether viewed on a laptop, desktop, tablet or smartphone.
To take a look at Copley Primary School’s website click here. To find out how your school website can be colourful, functional and engaging, get in touch with us here.
This week’s chosen school website comes all the way from Northern Ireland – Craigavon to be precise. It’s a School Jotter website that represents a very useful website design choice.
As you can see from our image above, Portadown Integrated Nursery & Primary School have gone for an attractive background design that gives them plenty of white space in the centre of the page. This allows for any kind of content to be added in, yet the design keeps the website looking attractive and professional, whatever page you’re on.
This is another school that have chosen the Google Translate option: On the Homepage, site visitors are given the option to change the language of the website. This helps non English-speaking parents stay engaged with what’s happening within the school.
From an admin point of view, Portadown Integrated Nursery & Primary School will also see their dashboard change later this month, as we revamp the look and usability of School Jotter websites. If you’re a School Jotter user, look out for a guide to the new layout coming soon; if you’re not a School Jotter user, get in touch and find out how your school website could soon be integrated with all your e-learning.
You can see Portadown Integrated Nursery & Primary School’s website here. You can request a School Jotter demo here.
A School Jotter website is perfect for capturing the ethos of your school, but at Gosbecks Primary School, Colchester they’ve gone one step further.
Their new School Jotter website design incorporates a woodland background, and friendly images of the children working. There are also cartoon-style graphics of children and the school, creating the feeling of a warm and welcoming primary school for any child or prospective parent – exactly what the school wanted to achieve.
The website includes all the latest Ofsted requirements, from sports provision funding to information about Pupil Premium – but its real strength is its ambition to increase parental engagement. From school dinner menus information and the use of Google Translate for non-English speaking parents, to the parents’ handbook and the events feed on the homepage – this website has everything to keep mums and dads informed.
For prospective parents there’s a virtual tour, too – and this, along with the amount of content included, combined with the attractive website design, makes this a great example of how effective a School Jotter website can be.
To visit Gosbecks Primary School click here.
To find out how we can create an effective school website for you, get in touch here.
It doesn’t seem five minutes since the new school term started, does it? Yet here we are, into December already – and I’m sure you’ve started counting down to the last day of term!
If you’ve already decorated the classrooms, start thinking about getting your school’s website all festive too. If you’re a School Jotter user, we’ve listed three ways you can make your website more festive – and more fun to visit!
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Whether your school already has a website, you’re about to get one, or you’re thinking of changing your school website, one thing should always be a priority for you: Keeping it up to date.
This may seem like an obvious statement. But bearing in mind that a regularly updated website can vastly improve your Google rankings, and that many people will keep on coming back if they see new content each time they visit, it’s vital to make your online presence a priority. Keeping your content fresh is vital for attracting prospective parents to your school website.
So, in order for you to keep your school website up to date without having to devote a significant amount of your time to it, we have five ideas for you.
Choose A System That’s Easy To Use
The easier your website system is to update and manage, the quicker you can update it. No one likes using a system that’s laborious and complicated; least of all busy teachers. When choosing a school website, or moving to a new one, always consider how much of your time it’s going to take up with creating new pages, adding text and uploading photographs. Of course, School Jotter is designed to be as simple as possible – because we believe that if a website system requires weeks of training before you can even get started, it’s not worth bothering with.
Assign Responsibilities
Many schools will assign one person to keep the website updated. However, if you have luxury of a few members of staff contributing, assign different people to different areas of the website. For example, your secretary could keep your events pages up to date with the latest open evenings, sports days and school parties, or your children could write blog posts for their teacher to upload. If each area of piece of content is assigned to a specific member of staff, it’ll be easier to keep all areas of your website up to date.
Also, giving deadlines for when certain content needs to be added – for example, updating of classwork pages every Friday by 3pm – may also help with ensuring content is regularly added.
Try Different Things
You don’t want maintaining your website, or creating content for it, to become boring for you and your staff. If you lose interest, so will your website’s visitors. So, try new ways of adding content every now and then, and keep your website fresh. Getting the children involved with the school website is a great way to improve their ICT skills – and they’ll feel a real part of the school too, both online and offline.
One example of trying something different could be creating a video of the children’s classwork, narrated by the children, rather than uploading the work itself.
Have Website Meetings
Keep the website front-of-mind for all concerned with regular website meetings – or, have the website as part of the agenda for your other regular meetings. This is also a great way to generate new ideas for content – and you can check on progress of updates and changes to the website.
Encourage Feedback
There’s no better way to find out if your school website is doing the trick than to ask visitors what they think of it. You could set up a form on your website for feedback – even ask specific questions about the website – and then make any changes according to the information you get back.
You could also widen the net and ask the children themselves what they think to it – or send out a short survey to parents. This way, you can get vital information about things like how regularly the News section should be updated – or whether the website design is appealing enough. Respond to the feedback with what people want – and you’ll have visitors coming back to your school’s website again and again.
