Celebrating a Digital Milestone: Website of the Week

St. Anthony’s Catholic Primary School based in Bradford, West Yorkshire. recently earned the spotlight as the “Website of the Week” on SchoolJotter.com, an accolade that speaks volumes in the educational sector. This prestigious recognition holds great significance in the world of education. It leads us to wonder: what sets St. Anthony’s website apart from the sea of other school websites in the digital world?

Why St Anthony’s Catholic Primary School Website was chosen as the website of the week?

Firstly, I like the school website design. The layout of the website makes it look modern and professional. Yellow and blue colours dominating the website make it look child-friendly and they go well with the colours of school uniforms. There is a nice welcoming message on the homepage which introduces the school and gives an idea about some of the school values. The welcoming message appears on the top of some images of students which always make a website look more personalised.

The website is full of useful content and learning resources and it is easy to navigate. Another great feature of this school website is an option to subscribe to the weekly newsletter. It is a great way to engage with parents and to keep them up to date with the latest school events and other important announcements.

What are the essential elements for the school website for ‘St Anthony’s Catholic Primary School’?

Key Elements of St. Anthony’s Website

1. Intuitive Navigation: The website is designed for ease of use, allowing visitors to find information swiftly and efficiently.
2. Current and Comprehensive Information: Regularly updated, the website serves as a reliable resource for the latest school news, policies, and educational resources.
3. Aesthetically Pleasing Design: The website combines elegance and functionality, featuring a design that is both visually appealing and reflective of the school’s ethos.
4. Inclusive Accessibility: The website is accessible to all users, including those with disabilities, ensuring equitable access to information.
5. Rich Educational Content: The site is a treasure trove of educational materials, offering insights into the school’s curriculum, extracurricular activities, and learning philosophies.
6. Community Connection: The website effectively bridges the gap between the school and its wider community, showcasing events, achievements, and the school’s impact.

Well done to St Anthony’s Catholic Primary School!

What are the school website features that help to engage with parents?

Engaging Parents: The Features That Stand Out

1. Dedicated Parent Section: A specialised area for parents offers tailored information, ranging from school policies and procedures to guidance on supporting their children’s education.
2. Interactive Event Calendar: This feature keeps parents in the loop regarding school events, term dates, and important deadlines.
3. Newsletter Integration: Regular newsletters keep parents connected with the heartbeat of school life, providing updates, stories, and achievements.
4. Feedback Channels: The website encourages parent feedback, fostering a collaborative relationship and ensuring that parent voices are heard.
5. Social Media Links: By integrating social media, the website offers a dynamic and real-time glimpse into daily school activities and announcements.
6. Multilingual Options: Recognising the diverse backgrounds of its community, the website provides multilingual support, making it accessible and inclusive for all parents.

Conclusion: A Blueprint for Success

The website of St. Anthony’s Catholic Primary School is a true embodiment of what a primary school website should strive for. More than just a source of information, it serves as a dynamic and inviting digital platform that truly embodies the school’s dedication to excellence, inclusivity, and community involvement. It has been recognized as a “Website of the Week,” setting a noteworthy benchmark for other schools and showcasing the potential of a thoughtfully designed website to enhance a school’s communication and educational objectives.

It’s always great to see outstanding schools choosing School Jotter for building their websites. This week we are looking at the website of the week created by Hillcrest Early Years Academy. The school is based in Gainsborough, Lincolnshire and it has been rated as outstanding by OFSTED in 2014/2015.

What’s great about this website is that the homepage is not used to store all the information related to the school. Instead, the school focused on displaying some nice images of students on the homepage as well as some basic information like contact details, awards and a language bar. Even the menu is unique and it only has five icons with links to other pages regarding curriculum and other relevant information.

The school website features bright colours that make the website look child-friendly which is perfect for the early years academy. One of the things I found under ‘Academy Information’ page is ‘10 reasons to choose Hillcrest Early Years Academy’. I think it’s a great way to promote the strongest aspects of the school to the wider community. Other pages are full of useful information, including learning resources, information for parents, gallery and other relevant content for parents, teachers and pupils.

Overall, a good-looking and informative website created by the Hillcrest Early Years Academy!

Tables are one of the most helpful, but also infuriating aspects of web design. They can be invaluable for organising items on your page, but can also be a bit of a headache to set up. Here’s how tables work in the School Jotter interface.
You can insert tables into any regular text object in Jotter, click where you’d like to put your table, then click this button in the toolbar at the top:

The easiest way to put in a table is through the “Insert table” option, mouse over it and this matrix will pop up.

You can then pick how big you want your table to be – bear in mind you’ll need header rows at the top, sides or both. If you’ve used Microsoft Word, this should all be pretty familiar to you.
You can then type the text into the cells which have appeared. You can adjust your table’s properties in various ways. First of all, the Table properties.

By default, the table will fill the width and height of the space you give it, but you can change that here. Additionally, cell padding determines the distance between the cell contents and the cell borders. Alignment determines whether it’s left, centre or right-aligned. Note that, by default, your table will not have any borders – you’ll need to add these in both the table and cell properties menus.
You might also want to take a look at the Advanced tab for some more interesting customisation options. Note that these are also available for individual cells and rows via the other options in the table menu:

If you’re familiar with HTML markup, you can put custom styles in the box at the top – otherwise we recommend leaving this blank. The other options are relatively straightforward – Border width is how wide the cell borders are, Border style is what style they’re in, and the two colour options determine border and background colours of the table.
Some of the more advanced capabilities of the table are available through the Cell, Row and Column menu options. These will allow you to perform actions such as merging cells, for example to provide info like below, for Mr W:

Want to add or remove rows or columns? Again, under the Row and Column options you can insert/remove these. Note that, in the case of inserts, they will be inserted above (rows) or to the left of (columns) your current cursor position.
And that’s pretty much all there is to it! Tables are one of the oldest text items still used on the web, and it’s not hard to see why!

Having worked with schools for almost ten years now, we here at Webanywhere are experts at creating website designs that schools love.

Take Pye Bank CE Primary School for example. The website for this Sheffield school is full of colour, with fun graphics making it stand out amongst their fellow Steel City schools. A fantastic selection of photographs throughout the site (they clearly have a member of staff very adept at using a camera!) help to promote Pye Bank as a school any parent should consider for their child.

As attracting parents of would-be pupils is as important as engaging with existing pupils’ parents, there is plenty of content that builds up a ‘story’ of Pye Bank. There’s a History Of Pye Bank section, and there’s information about a recent meeting regarding progress and attainment.
Plus, with all Ofsted/DfE-required content included too, this is a highly useful – and effective – website!
Take a look at Pye Bank CE Primary School’s School Jotter 2 website by clicking here.

School Jotter 2 is being constantly developed, and the latest update has some interesting new features for users.
Existing users signing in now will see an updated file manager, that looks and feels easier to use. The file upload section now allows you to ‘drag and drop’ files, which makes adding files is simpler than ever before.

Plus, you can add a profile picture when you log in – making your log in to School Jotter 2 a little bit more personal!
If you’re not a School Jotter 2 user, contact us today to find out more about this innovative easy-to-use school website system – and find out the full range of features and benefits that come with it. Just fill in the form here.

Many schools opt for professional photography to enhance their website, and Woodham Ley Primary School have used some great images to really bring their School Jotter website to life.

Captivating photographs of children playing, learning and general shots of the school itself also decorate the Essex school’s website elsewhere, from the Class Pages sections to the Learning Zone, which is a useful part of the website for pupils. It all gives the impression that this school is really all about the children – and this is backed up by the welcome message that also appears on the homepage.

Another feature that’s popular with many schools is the direct link to the school’s Learnanywhere VLE on the homepage. This encourages children and parents to use Learnanywhere more, and also informs new visitors to the site that this is a school completely in tune with new technologies for schools!

You can take a look at Woodham Ley Primary School’s website here.

On their school website, Broadfield Community Primary School explain that they endeavour to make school an exciting place – and using School Jotter, they have managed to portray this message with the use of bright colours and galleries of pupils and their work.

With their bespoke design, they have effectively used the school logo in the backdrop of the website, which keeps their school branding and colours consistent throughout the website. This Lancashire school really have used School Jotter to its full potential to reflect their school motto and brand.

The homepage is bright, engaging and welcoming and the rest of the website has plenty of content of interest to visitors – from pictures showing children’s artwork and sports days, to useful Key Stage 2 links for parents and pupils to engage in.

With only six drop down menus, the website is clear and easy to navigate around to find all the essential information parents need – not to mention Ofsted!

If you want to create a fun, colourful brand for your school, get some inspiration by checking out the Broadfield Community Primary School website here. Ask us about creating a bespoke school website design for you by clicking here.

 

As schools think more and more like mini businesses, creating a ‘brand’ is becoming more important. When it comes to your school website, though, that doesn’t have to mean taking the fun out of how you present yourself.

Ss Peter & Paul Catholic Primary School’s website is the perfect case in point. Created using School Jotter, it utilises the school’s colours to great effect – but manages to still be bright, engaging and welcoming.

Best of all is the website backdrop that the West Yorkshire school have gone with: School Jotter websites can be created with these bespoke designs – so in this case we have the crest repeated in the background.
As for the rest of the website, it’s rich with content – from pictures showing what the children have been up to, to links to other sites that parents and pupils may find useful for learning.
If you want to create a fun, colourful brand for your school, get some inspiration by checking out the Ss Peter & Paul Catholic Primary School website here. Ask us about creating a bespoke school website design for you by clicking here.