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Primary education

Join our Primary Education forum to discuss starting school and helping your child get the most out of it.

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Original poster

school website is crap ..is yours?

84 replies

ggirl · 26/01/2013 15:08

I know they have better things to worry about and it's more important they are teaching and they may not have time to keep it up to date
but
there isn't even a school calendar on it
it's woefully out of date
and basically shit

sorry having a gripe

OP posts:

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piprabbit · 26/01/2013 21:39

Our school has a FB page, but it is locked down so only the school can post.
Most of the parents also belong to our own FB Group. It is private and by invitation only, but is a very effective way of saying 'have class 1 got homework this week?' or 'DS has come home with an extra jumper' or 'remind me which week school dinners we're on'. I've never seen any of the school children on either of the pages.

Feenie · 26/01/2013 21:42

Double standards though, innit?!

Feenie · 26/01/2013 21:43

Not the parents' group, the school one, I mean.

Sparklingbrook · 26/01/2013 21:43

I wouldn't expect it to be the teachers keeping the website up and running. I would imagine it would be done by Admin. Each class has it's own page though.

piprabbit · 26/01/2013 21:44

Why double standards? I don't think most primary age children should be texting or even own a phone, but the school still uses text messages for communicating with parents.

DoItToJulia · 26/01/2013 21:51

I don't think anyone has said it should be a teachers priority. As a parent accessible information available in non school hours is a high priority. I work during school hours.

A decent website should be a school priority. It demonstrates transparency, commitment to communication and a window into the school.

Feenie · 26/01/2013 21:53

You don't have to lie about your age to have a phone or receive texts though. And Facebook is a big problem in lots of schools.

Sparklingbrook · 26/01/2013 21:54

Agreed Julia.

piprabbit · 26/01/2013 21:54

I'm sure it is. Perhaps they should model how to use it appropriately?

Feenie · 26/01/2013 21:56

What do you mean - show them how to set privacy levels? That really would encourage lying and promote Facebook use!

piprabbit · 26/01/2013 22:04

No - that the school and parents can communicate via FB without the need to bully each other or post pouty photos.

Pyrrah · 26/01/2013 22:10

DD's current primary (she's in the nursery) have a woeful website - but at least there is one and it gets updated. If I were the HT I might ensure that the person who did the updating could at least spell! Doesn't give me any confidence that she will care whether or not my child can spell.

When I was looking at schools for the Primary application form I checked out all the websites - the better the school, the better the website it appeared.

nailak · 26/01/2013 22:16

i thought it was a legal requirement that has to be done by this year to have a website with accessible policies etc? the governors should be dealing with it.

Houseworkprocrastinator · 26/01/2013 22:18

Our school have a Facebook page. It seems to work quite well, they also have a twitter account but the website looks like it hasn't been touched for years. The last news letter is from 2009 and the photo of the head teacher looks 20 years younger!

nailak · 26/01/2013 22:19

?Information to be published on a website by the governing body

10.?(1) Subject to paragraph (5), where a website is maintained for a school by or on behalf of the governing body of a maintained school, the governing body must arrange for the information specified in Schedule 4 to be published on that website.

(2) Subject to paragraph (5), where there is no website maintained for the school, the governing body must arrange for the information specified in Schedule 4 to be published on a website, the address and details of which are made known to parents.

(3) The governing body must provide a paper copy of the information published on the website without charge to parents on request.

(4) Subject to paragraph (6), the governing body must arrange for the information published on the website to be updated as soon as is reasonably practicable following a change to that information and, in any event, at least annually.

(5) In respect of the information specified in paragraph 2 of Schedule 4, the requirements in paragraphs (1) and (2) to publish this information apply to the governing body of a community and voluntary controlled school, but not to the governing bodies of other maintained schools.

(6) In respect of the information specified in paragraph 2 of Schedule 4, the governing body of a community and voluntary controlled school must arrange for this information to be updated not later than six weeks before the date up to which parents may express a preference for the school in respect of the admission year. ?

(4) In regulation 11 (supplementary provisions relating to published documents)?

(a)in paragraph (1) after ?document? insert ?or website?;

www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2012/1124/made

TheNebulousBoojum · 26/01/2013 22:20

'The last news letter is from 2009 and the photo of the head teacher looks 20 years younger!'

Teaching is very ageing I have found.

TheNebulousBoojum · 26/01/2013 22:22

So it's the governors' responsibility?
Good.

aJumpedUpPantryBoy · 26/01/2013 22:24

Nebulous - Until the GB pass on the task to the most IT literate member of staff

nailak · 26/01/2013 23:11

well I am on the governing body and we actually hired a service provider to do ours......

We considered tenders, including from some parents etc and accepted the cheapest one.

I would expect this is what most schools would do?

nailak · 26/01/2013 23:11

we also have an a secretary who if anything needed done would be in charge of it. She has a lot of responsibility in our school.

TheNebulousBoojum · 26/01/2013 23:18

'I would expect this is what most schools would do?'

From the evidence of this thread, it would appear not.

'Nebulous - Until the GB pass on the task to the most IT literate member of staff'

Exactly, pantryboy. So many initiatives happen until the novelty wears off,and then the expectation is that teaching staff will just shoulder the responsibility.

aJumpedUpPantryBoy · 26/01/2013 23:28

nailak - the staff in your school are lucky to have such a forward thnking GB.

In our LEA only the larger Primary Schools (I know of 3 out of about 60) have someone whose job is to run/maintain the website. For everyone else (most schools have between 2 and 6 classes) it is just another burden on a member of the teaching staff.
You get sent on a course and then booom - it suddenly becomes your responsibility.

Pancakeflipper · 26/01/2013 23:42

Our school website is great. It has something new on it weekly if not every day.

One of the Governors built it and has trained the HeadTeacher and staff on how to use it.

Its a bonus for Ofsted Inspections as they look to see if policies are on there and what the website says about the school.

It's a chore but essential and a great asset for the school if it's reliable and up to date.

SE13Mummy · 27/01/2013 14:07

My DCs' school used to have a great website - it was designed in response to a questionnaire and so included things that were a priority to parents/carers, staff, pupils and the wider community e.g. photographs included examples of children's work and of the classrooms rather than 30 pictures of each child in a class doing the same thing, the PTA had a page to promote their events, class curriculum maps and termly letters were available on a year group page, there was a login page for children to access certain resources at home/school, clickable e-mail contact to the teachers (albeit with a health warning explaining that it may take a few days to receive a reply) a 'how to support your child' page with youtube clips of how to pronounce the phonics sounds, printable resources etc. and a 'coming soon' feature on the homepage (in addition to the regularly updated calendar). It was maintained by a teacher who updated it once a week when she uploaded the weekly newsletter.

However, in September this site was deleted and replaced with a horribly officious, not that useful, site to align it with the two federated schools that 'our' one is unfortunate enough to be in a partnership with. Apparently the site is aimed at prospective parents and supply teachers . It no longer has up-to-date information re: closures, doesn't have photographs of children's work, doesn't contain information about what each year group is learning, doesn't give pointers on suitable resources for supporting your child at home, doesn't promote PTA events (although most of those have been stopped anyway to be honest). It's rubbish.

Fuzzymum1 · 27/01/2013 23:55

Ours is pretty good and was done by the husband of one of the governors. The school have access to update it and the weekly newsletters and other items of news are on there - there were regular updates about the snow situation and about events that are happening etc.

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