Finding the time to keep your school website up to date is an issue that frustrates many a head teacher. It’s the reason why School Jotter was created – to allow content to be uploaded quickly and easily, without the need for advanced technical expertise.
Subsequently, it means schools like Welburn Hall School, in North Yorkshire, can populate their school website to the point where it becomes a veritable treasure trove of information for parents, pupils and passive web users alike.

Welburn Hall have used their School Jotter-based website to provide children with useful links (via the ‘Kids Zone’), governors with their own archive of meeting minutes and schedule of forthcoming meetings, and parents with everything they need to know, from an introduction to the staff to information on events and trips.
We particularly like the information they’ve given on the curriculum – complete with photos, and the ‘Our Pupils’ section, which each term features a write-up about a different pupil. It documents what the child likes about the school, what they’ve been doing – even what the pupil’s parents think. It’s a useful element for parents who may be considering sending their child to Welburn. We hope that this, along with the details of the school’s post-16 offerings, and the interesting virtual tour feature, means Welburn Hall School will have plenty of new pupils for a long time to come!
You can take a look at the Welburn Hall School website yourself, by clicking here.

Your school website is the perfect tool for communicating with parents – and a great opportunity for them to engage with your school. It means that, instead of having to pop into the school, or find the phone number, they can discover what their child has been up to, read about forthcoming events and even meet the staff, from the comfort of their armchair.
But what exactly do parents want from a school website? A recent discussion on Mumsnet threw up some interesting comments and suggestions for what would make a good school website for parents – and it also highlighted that, in some cases, parents maybe aren’t getting the information they need from their child’s school website.

The most popular requirements for a good school website were probably the most obvious: many mums expressed a need for a list of upcoming events, online versions of school newsletters and a term diary to all be included.

But other popular suggestions were for content that would help parents engage with the school more – things that don’t always seem a priority when a school website is put together. School club details, school uniform list and that week’s homework were all mentioned, with Mumsnet user meredeux suggesting a “List of holiday activities to replace all those leaflets that keep coming home in the bookbags.”

User piprabbit added: “It needs to build its links to social media especially as there are very active FB groups relating to the school.”
Ofsted reports, school rules and copies of letters home were also listed, so that parents could more actively help their children in the evenings, as was a contacts page – maybe even a teacher ‘about’ section. Which suggests that parents are much more keen to be engaged with their child’s school, on all levels, than you might expect.
Some of the users on Mumsnet even provided details of their favourite sites – with user veritythebrave saying they liked the curriculum and classes part on Shipley C of E Primary School’s School Jotter site. Their website is a content-full, extensive one, and they’ve included most of the popular features mumsnet users mentioned.
The comments in the Mumsnet discussion could provide a useful basis from which to plan your school’s website. Obviously, the more appropriate the content and the easier your website is to navigate around, the more useful it’ll be for the parents to use, and the more they’ll use it. But remember that, as well as being a news portal to get messages to parents, and a great advertising tool for attracting new pupils, your school website is also the perfect opportunity to allow parents to get more involved with the school and its activities, and provide more input into what you do.
Your school website is a vital tool for communication in today’s digital world: make sure you make the most of it!