When parents want to send their child to a school for the first time or going to make a change of the school, they make a lot of research by enquiring from others and visiting the websites of different schools. They spend quite a lot of time reviewing the websites. A school that runs efficiently is efficient in all the processes. From front office operations to classroom instructions, communications with parents and guardian etc., a properly run school have everything in place.
A website can be used as a tool to accomplish various important goals by offering information in a clear manner. User-friendly school websites make it easier for students, staffs, parents and guardians to find the information they want. While developing a school website, it should be kept in mind that the website should be practical as well as intuitive.
Let’s look at some important features that should be present on a school website:
1. Keep it simple
Keeping the design of a school website simple is often considered the best design. Most schools make a common mistake of making the homepage clumsy by loading it with too much content. The best homepage is the one which is easy to read and guide you quickly to the relevant information.
2. Responsive design
Responsive design is the most crucial element of a school website as most people browse a website using their mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. As mobile devices are easy to carry, people use it more to surf the internet. Responsive design resizes and reformats the pages of the website based on the device and eliminates the annoying task of dragging and zooming to view the content properly.
3. News and events pages
As school news is a vital part of school communication, you should make sure that the news and events pages should remain updated with current news. This will help the students and parents remain updated with the latest happenings and events that are going to take place.
4. School calendar
School calendar is a vital part of the school website. It should be placed in a prominent place and should always remain updated so that students and parents get the right information about the events that are going to take place in the coming days.
5. Quick links
Quick links are a great way to save the time of the visitors by making them go where they want to very quickly. People get bored if they don’t find the things they are searching for quickly.
6. Rotating images
Rotating image also referred to as a slider is a wonderful way to offer the visitors visual treats about the current and important events of the school. But make sure that the rotating images don’t overshadow the homepage of the website. A good CMS makes it easy to change the images.
7. Curriculum guides for parents
Curriculum guides are great way to help parents to get involved with the learning of their children. Making the curriculum guides available on the website make it easier to access whenever they required.
8. Streamlined popular pages
Apart from making the calendar and events pages prominent, it’s important to streamline the other popular pages such contact directory, teacher pages, student pages etc. You can accomplish it by making the navigation prominent and easy.
9. Online payments
Providing secured online payment methods for paying school fees, school trips etc. reduces the task of parents visiting the school to make payments for those. Making payment of fees easier is what parents want as most parents are working these days and they couldn’t make out time every time to visit the school to make the payments.
10. Online forms
Creating online forms make paperwork easy for the parents as parents need to fill up various forms each year the school begins to update things such as contact information, publicity consent forms, medical history etc. Integrating online forms into the website also help in centralising student information profiles, quick access to information for the administrators, tracking of IP address to ensure form legitimacy etc.