Now, I’ll admit, this one is a little bit cheeky – Schoolanywhere is one of our own websites, dedicated to promoting the Moodle VLE. Earlier this year, faced with an outdated, non-responsive theme and the potential changes from Google’s “Mobilegeddon”, the decision was made to redesign Schoolanywhere on the School Jotter platform, utilising our new uber themes.
We did this for a number of reasons, the most prominent being that companies should “eat their own dog food” – if a product isn’t good enough for us to use ourselves, why would we expect customers to pay us for access? This would therefore be the perfect opportunity to put School Jotter through its paces as a business CMS, to see if it could replace the old WordPress-based theme.
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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 →
This week Lollipops Nursery School & Creche is our website of the week. Their website depicts their name wonderfully, looking good enough to eat. With candy canes, lollipops, sweets and fairies it’s hard not to love this beautifully designed site.
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If you wanted an example of a school website that gets across information simply but effectively, look no further than Westfield Primary School’s School Jotter website. With a clean, attractive design and with just five menu options, getting around it isn’t a problem at all.
This is is great if you’re a parent who doesn’t want to be bamboozled by content or baffled by a complicated website layout. It makes the Cottingham, Hull school look welcoming too – especially as the school building itself forms part of the bespoke design.
For those who do want a bit more in-depth information about the school – parents, Ofsted inspectors – they can find all they need in the Office section. Here, there’s the latest Ofsted report, the school’s prospectus and information regarding school dinners, term dates and school policies.
One of the best features – which you don’t see very often – is the ability to search the website, with the search bar at the top right of every page. It’s no wonder Westfield Primary School got an Outstanding by Ofsted – with such an outstanding website!
You can view Westfield Primary School’s website by clicking here.
The Westborough School’s website represents their location perfectly: with a beautiful design showing a beach and gentle waves, backed by blue skies.
Having a bespoke design for your School Jotter website allows you to be a little more creative with how the website looks – but of course the content is just as important. The Essex school have plenty of content uploaded for children and parents – here are our favourite bits.
The Our Classes section breaks down what’s being studied, accompanied by photographs and, for some classes, information regarding the teacher and teaching assistants. This is a great area for parents to go to find out what their child will be doing – and catch up on recent activities via photographs.
The best feature is Virtual Office: here, parents can find out everything they need to know, without having to ask the school or their child’s teacher. From school uniform details and reporting absences, to newsletters and school meal information, it’s all here. There’s even a question and answer section, in case a parent’s query isn’t answered in the other areas of this section.
Take a look at The Westborough School’s website by clicking here.
Bright Futures Day Nursery’s website is still under construction. However, there is still plenty of content on the site for visitors.
It’s the design of this website, however, that really makes it stand out. Created to show the nursery itself and the countryside around it (Bright Futures it set within rural Cheshire), it’s one of the best School Jotter designs yet.
In terms of the website’s layout, there’s enough for parents without the content being over-facing: with information about the nursery’s awards, the curriculum and the play areas available to the children. All content can be found in neat, drop-down boxes from the menu across the top.
For parents with children at the nursery, as well as the nursery’s staff, there are user-only areas where they can find extra content – which is great for creating interaction between nursery and parent. It adds another dimension to what is a well-thought-out, attractive and engaging website.
We look forward to seeing the website when it’s fully-populated with content – for now, take a look at the Bright Futures Day Nursery website for yourself here.
Ben Rhydding Primary School’s website has been a favourite of ours for some time – so it’s great to return to it this week and see it’s still being regularly and lovingly updated.
The design of the website strikes you first: a beautifully-created header that sums up the school perfectly, with rolling hills, the mountains familiar to locals (the school being based in up in the hills of the West Yorkshire Pennines), and bright, bold colours.
Going deeper into the website, it’s a trove of information about the school; there’s plenty of information here that parents will love – but also lots for new visitors to digest and be impressed with, if they’re considering the school for their child. There’s even information about the local area in the ‘Our Community’ section – mentioning the ‘cow and calf rocks’ which also feature in the colourful website header design.
Other information that’s great for new visitors looking for a school is the ‘Pupils’ section, with information about ‘Lunchtime Buddies’ (children who help out the lunchtime supervisors), school clubs information (Ben Rhydding boasts everything from a Girls’ Football Club to a Disco Dancing Club – we’d love to be a member of that one!) and class curriculum details.
When parents want to know the hard facts about how the school performs, they’re all there too – and under the ‘About Us’ section we’re pleased to note Ben Rhydding received a glowing report from Ofsted. We hope Ofsted loved the website too, as much as we do.
You can take a look at the Ben Rhydding Primary School website yourself, by clicking here.
It’s always great to see a school that takes real pride in the work it does, in the activities that take place, and the achievements of the pupils.
By using School Jotter, schools can use this pro-active approach to engage more with children and parents. This is exactly what Castle Bromwich Junior School, Birmingham have done: resulting in a school website that’s interactive and fun to visit. In fact, we were so impressed with how good their website looks, we’ve made it our Website Of The Week.
The best thing about Castle Bromwich Junior School’s site is how regularly it’s updated. Particularly the news section – with stories covering everything from the netball team’s latest game results, to information for parents on the next school disco. There’s even a group news section – where the children can write about the latest happenings within the school.
The school also use their website to interact with children out of class time. They can access information about the school houses and find online resources regarding e-safety. The website also makes great use of Spellanywhere, so that children can practice for spelling tests or learn the days of the week.
With so much content that’s as equally engaging for parents as it is the pupils, the Castle Bromwich Junior School website is a perfect example of a school connecting with its community online.
You can take a look at the Castle Bromwich Junior School yourself, by clicking here.
