No modern secondary school can afford to operate without a good website. This article is a very brief guide to some of the features that every good school website shares. Consult a professional web designer before trying to implement any of these with your in-house school IT team.
Simple Navigation
Simple navigation is one of the key elements of all good website design. It is especially important in the design of school websites – which need to be utilized by parents, teachers, and students alike.
Regularly Updated Calendar
Every school website should feature a regularly updated calendar. Every school operates around a series of important events. Exams, sporting events, graduation ceremonies, and inductions all need to be easily viewable in the school calendar.
Children, parents, and teachers alike should all be able to make use of the school calendar. Some schools like to keep their calendars behind an authentication screen in order to protect the activities of the school from people that are not involved as students, parents, or teachers.
Information About The Staff And The School’s Achievements
The website of a school should, in part, be used to sell the school to prospective parents – regardless of whether the school is a state or privately funded venture. Information about the achievements of the school and its staff members should be proudly displayed on the front page of the website.
Sporting and academic achievements, awards from governing bodies and works published by teachers should all be easily viewable.
Links To Educational Resources
Good school website design is all about connectivity. Most schools utilize a great many educational resources online – including seminars, textbooks and games. All of the online educational resources offered by a school should be linked to from the main website. The website should act as a connective ‘hub’ that allows students and parents to navigate to the resources that they need.
News Pages
School newsletters have been published by educational institutions for many years. Schools traditionally publish news in order to update parents and students regarding the achievements and special events a school has (or will) take part in. Online news pages are essential sections of school websites. They are not only useful for updating people about the school itself, but also provide a good venue for keyword inclusion – something that is absolutely crucial in modern Search Engine Optimization. A regularly updated news blog will help your school to rank more favorably on sites like Google.
Great UX Design
School websites need to have great User Experience design that has been created with the specific audience members of the site in mind. The three biggest user bases of school websites are parents of children attending the school, parents of children who might prospectively send their children to the school and the students themselves. Parents and children understandably have different UX needs, which has led some school website designers to craft those sections aimed at children slightly differently from those aimed at adults.
