Your Frequently Asked Questions

The Questions

The Answers

Frequently Asked Questions

I manage a state sponsored school - why do I need a website at all?

Actually, your needs are very similar to those of independent schools. They attract funding by encouraging parents to pay fees directly; you attract funding by encouraging parents to send children to your school rather than another state school. By promoting the activities and the positive aspects of your school, and demonstrating that your school would be an excellent choice; you are able to reach parents who might otherwise not consider your school. On a recent fact-finding exercise, we discovered that out of 91 state Primary schools in the Croydon and Sutton local area, 61 had no website at all, and relied solely on the LEA to send out information. More and more people rely on the internet to get their initial information about schools - do you really want to be left out of the search? In addition to the advertising function, the school website is also a cost effective means of communicating with parents, with other schools and with school governors. Please read our Services section to see more about this.

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I manage a state sponsored school and am over-subscribed - I don't need to advertise!

As you will be aware, the fortunes of schools rise and fall over a period of time, and you should maintain a professional outlook to your intake management. Look around at the websites of the currently popular schools. Although many of them are vivid and show an exciting school in action, others are clearly relying on past glories. These are the schools which will fall out of favour first, as new parents start questioning why they should send their child to a school which doesn't seem to worry about maintaining its image. You may also like to state clearly what your admission criteria are. This should assist in decreasing queries and admissions from parents who would not be successful, and will therefore decrease your administrative overhead in that area. In addition, you still have a duty towards your current students and their parents. You still need to provide a means of communication, and a means to celebrate the success and output of your students.

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Websites are expensive

They certainly can be - particularly if you ask for a quote from a company which doesn't understand the special requirements of the schools market. We won't waste your time by charging you for investigative work into the needs of a school website - because we already know what they are. We would rather spend the time working on what differentiates your particular school, and creating a website that not only contains the standard content expected, but then demonstrates the additional value that is unique to you. We accept that different schools have different amounts of time and money to spend - and have developed a range of products to suit every pocket. Check out our services for more information.

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I don't have anything to put on a website

We bet you do! Here's a list to get you started. LEA standard information, brochure material, school and PTA newsletters, uniform details, term dates, admissions information, school policies. That's just the easy stuff that you have lying around. Then you can have contributions from the children - reviews, school events etc, details of school trips etc - the list keeps growing. If you don't have photographs of the school, we can do these for you. We can also use any pictures taken by you, by parents or anyone else, as long as you have permission to do so.

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I would rather get one done in-house.

That's great! A site built in house will show the most personal side of the school. So why haven't you already done it? Is it proving difficult to find the time to construct it? Are you still struggling with what to put on it? Or are you having trouble getting all the information? We have a range of services to assist you, from managing the entire process and constructing the site, through creating a site and handing it over, right through just assisting you with the process and letting you do the work. Check out our services for more information.

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I don't want my school website to look like all the others.

We agree. You want the site to reflect your school ethos and branding, while still conforming enough to certain standards as to make it easily navigable. Because we know what schools want, we can help you to achieve both aims.

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Suppose I need modifications?

Your choice. If you want us to maintain your site for you, we can do so at a very reasonable cost. Our standard maintenance fee includes uploading newsletters etc, and would also include minor wording changes. If we need to change structure on a page, or for the whole site we can give you a quote. If, however, you want to maintain the site yourself, we will give you full documentation on how to do this when we hand it over to you.

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We've already got a website!

Good for you! If you want us to take over an existing site, modify it and then maintain it, we will be happy to provide a quote for this. Just contact us and we can discuss your needs.

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We want someone to write our website, but we can maintain it in house.

That's fine. We will hand over all the source code and any documents and photographs to you when the site is complete. We will also give you full documentation on how to continue.

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We've already got someone maintaining our site - and they do it for free!

That's fantastic. Someone closely associated with the school is often the best person to maintain a website. We may still be able to assist, though. Perhaps a parent is currently running the site and they will soon be leaving? Perhaps a parent created the site and no longer has time to maintain it? Perhaps you have an IT technician in charge who is combining the website with his/her regular duties. We can take over an existing site, or develop a new one for you using the same look and feel. We can also just take over the content upload part of the site. We will work with your current developer to phase the handover so that they maintain their involvement until they are happy that they can back away. Just contact us and we can discuss your needs.

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