When you visit your school's website, what are you most likely to be looking for?

[whathaveitakenon]

I've rather rashly volunteered to rebuild my dc's school's website because it's been driving me demented for years, and I'm a professional web designer.

I want to make sure that it is USEFUL as well as attractive and I know that the school admins get a lot of phone calls every day that could be dealt with on the website just as fast (INSET days, lunch menu that day etc).

I'm going to have bloody great big buttons up near the top for Parent Pay, school dinners, and calendar.

But what else? What quick questions do you need answered by your dc's school's website?

If your school has an amazing website, could you share the link?

I hope this doesn't violate any Mumsnet rules about product research, because it's a volunteer thing, not a paid thing. I've been here for a billion years. Balonz, Gluezilla, CF Mexican house etc.

I'm not going to be pouring months of custom work into it or anything - I'm giving it just under a week - but so far it's looking good and I'm looking forward to showing it to the school after half term.

Term dates, 95% of the time

Have they told you what’s required- like links to policies, Ofsted reports, newsletters, Governor and staff lists.

My DD is not school aged yet but a list of up and coming events and what is needed eg world book days, organise a costume.

As an ex teacher I know there are certain things that Ofsted expect on there too.

After school and breakfast clubs prices/times etc.

Also one thing that always irritates me when looking at the calendar, it’s never clear on the last day of term pick up time. Is it half day or full day

remember some stuff is a statutory requirement if its a maintained school
www.gov.uk/guidance/what-maintained-schools-must-publish-online

in terms of what I look for - its calendar, how to pay for stuff, letters sent home, any form that needs filling in, staff names and roles and I spent a lot of time looking at school websites trying to find a school recently and simple stuff like what the uniform looks like, the timing of the school day, lunch break and stuff is missing.

Currently looking at potential schools after a house move .. prospectus and admission arrangements. SEN policy also useful.

My children's school doesn't have a website....or an email address.

All of those links will be retained - a bit part of what I'm doing is going to be working on the navigation, because all of those elements are in endless lists on the front page at the moment, but very difficult to read, and many are outdated (like term dates from 2016 etc,).

While making the front page pretty is the fun part, overhauling navigation so that everything is findable - and compliant - is a big part of this.

YY to detailed calendar and upcoming events - admission policy too for future parents (I'm in Ireland where this is different for every school, perhaps not an issue in England but don't you have catchment areas?).

Term dates / inset days
Newsletters
School trips - info letter
After school clubs info

Term dates / inset days.

Term dates / inset dates
Policies

To be honest, our son's school doesn't provide much more than that. They used to have class information, staff bios etc but took all that down about a year ago.

Secondary:

• parent pay, calendar, letters
• trips, how to notify sickness
• contacting staff

Also the statutory stuff

• policies, results, PP spend/results

I'd rather have simple and maintained than fancy and out of date.

I think no matter how amazing websites are, there will always be a hardcore of parents who call up school to ask questions.

Our school website is good, we have an app with lots of info, a facebook page for parents which shares info and a text service to remind us of important events but there is STILL one parent who has to ask when kids break up and when they go back to school.

When I was considering schools for reception place applications, I liked websites which provided basic housekeeping info, like term dates, events, meals. I also liked a bit about the ethos of the school and pictures and newsletters so you could get an idea of what went on in school.

Now I'm a parent, I tend to visit for term dates, check policies and look at the curriculum. I tend to use the app for info on events, photos and newsletters.

Calendar most of the time here, or phone number if I’m at work and don’t have mobile handy.

Prospective schools I’m looking for admissions criteria, Ofsted report and exam results if published.

To be fair the biggest issue isn’t what you put on now it’s making sure someone in the school be it an admin or one of the slt takes responsibility for updating it. Term dates from 2016 shows no one has bothered since then; why not who uploaded those or was that when the current site was designed. A website is only as good as the staff who update it.

Term dates
Address and phone number (for things like other people doing school run, taxis etc)
Lunch menus
Upcoming events ordered by year group then date

Things like prospectuses and uniform requirements should be easy to find but not necessarily front and centre.

And please for the love of god don't make everything a sodding PDF (looking at you ds's school)

I'm usually looking for a copy of the latest newsletter, with important dates on, or class photos/events (each class has it's own page, where the teacher can upload pics of class trips etc, or info for parents).

Other things I've looked at the website for are the ofsted report (before ds attended), the uniform policy (summer/winter/junior/senior/general), the list of school policies (anti bullying, approved sanctions and punishments etc), and who's who within the school/BoG. They also have a page on the history of the school, which I didn't expect, but which I spent ages reading and thought was a nice touch.

The school policies. Especially uniform, reporting absence, how and when to make a complaint, start and end of day routines (when gates get locked/unlocked, dogs not allowed etc)
And most importantly clear advice on parking at the school at pick up. There are usually neighbours who will be looking for contact number to ring up and complain.
Only ever the main email address for the school though.
Statutory policies, info about the governors, links to ofsted, some fundraising info.
The main thing is that it needs regularly updating so people use it.

I like to look at staffing pages - teachers, support staff and the like. Often useful to know names of different staff if you have any issues!

For me the biggest issue isn’t just navigation (which is a bit rubbish, but I appreciate it’s not their top priority!), but also the actual content. It’s unnecessarily wordy and unclear.

I mainly go on to check term dates, and double check packed lunch policy, uniform rules, and upcoming events (particularly if something is required, like dress in a certain colour etc). I can find the term dates fine. The policies are unnecessarily confusing so I tend to run with “I think this is what they mean and no one’s corrected us so far so let’s go with it”. They never have reliable info on upcoming events even though we seem to have something on every other week, so myself and other parents rely on the class WhatsApp (so glad we have that!) as across 30 sets of parents we manage to create a whole picture of what is actually going on

I would like it if they gave a basic overview of the week's activities, I don’t mean detailed info about lessons, just things like “PE is every Tuesday and Thursday, assembly every Monday, show and tell every Friday”, especially because in our school there’s often collaboration involved (eg children to bring something in).

What everyone else has said.

Definitely agree with your big buttons for school dinner menu, parent pay and calendar.

Also as others have said a clear and current list of all staff ideally including their pictures (although I appreciate staff may not want this in which case no pictures). Christmas cards / end of term cards and gifts would take so much less time if I wasn’t trying to figure out how to spell everyone’s name!

Thank you so much for all this - it's brilliant! I really appreciate it.

If there's a policy on how much time children need to have off school following bouts of sickness/diarrhoea, then that's always good to have.

Also, I don't know whether this is because I've been looking at a lot of special schools' websites, but often it's incredibly difficult to find out the age range they take, whether it's single sex (many autism special schools are boys only) or mixed etc. I often resort to searching for the ofsted report for the school to find out this basic information.

So something like "Village Primary School takes boys and girls between the ages of 4 - 11", or "Parkside Secondary is a school for boys aged between 11 - 18".

If not age ranges, then year groups would be helpful.

Uploaded newsletters
School policies
Uniform list
Gallery
Extra curricular timetables
Wrap around childcare information
School day / timetables
Staff list
Links to class blogs or class work