Well, the new head of Ofsted has cetrtainly caused a ruffling of feathers with his list of things that must be on a school web site- Pupil Premium, Ethos and Values statement, Performance results, etc. Easy to see that he cames from a background where, in all probability, his in house web team can publish this information swiftly, but what of the primary school who hasn’t access to this sort of resource? Well, like it or not it is clear that Ofsted will now be looking at this information prior to a visit. So whatever you feel about the burden of creating, maintaining and paying for this service, it looks like it needs to be done.
I wrote a while back on the topic of school web sites, and time, the Govt’s edict and my experience with a few schools has prompted me to write again. Firstly, a school doesn’t need to have a school website. It just needs an online presence to display this information. There are firms offering this sort of service, but as they charge about the same as some web site providers, is there any advantage? I suspect not.
I’ve not used all of the products I mentioned in my blog and was quite surprised to find out that just by mentioning them it had been taken as some sort of endoresement. Apologies for this, if anyone else felt that way. I was just letting folk know of the alternatives. However, having worked assisting schools in meeting the new requirements, I can honestly say that the product from Schools Online offers ease of use, flexibility and is, I think, priced competitively. You may consider this an endoresment!
Whilst you do have set up most of the pages yourself and upload resources: policies, plans, photographs, etc, I do wonder if this is any more work than getting them together and emailing them, (or using Dropbox), to a provider who will do this for you. You’d need to tell them where you want the page creating and which resources you want parking where. I’ve come to the conclusion that the ‘web-based, template driven’ approach is just as effortless and most probably quicker than sending them off as you might be at the end of the queue for your remote service provider. E.g I created a page, uploded a dozen policies and made the page live in about 10 mins. I doubt that could be betted by sending them off.
So, a bit of CPD required, (Schools Online provide a termly workshop in Hull), but after that, you’re in control. Or, as some schools have done, you get a keen soul, such as myself, to do the ‘Wilshaw Bits’, create few pages with the interesting stuff on them- trips, plays, images of the school, and at least you’re up and running with something to show to parents and Ofsted. I have worked in school alongside staff and shown them how to do it, but have also been armed with a memory stick and have just gone off and got on with it… with a short to medium term goal of the school taking control……otherwise I become that remote website person I’ve become less of a fan of.
Apologies if this ended up as a sales pitch. It wasn’t meant to be, but I’m working on 4 school sites now, all using Schools Online, and whilst the driver was the new requirements, these can be done pretty quickly, parked in a section called Parental Information, and maybe the rest of the site can have the stuff that’s parents really want to see and you want to display?
Examples of sites created using Schools Online can be seen here. It’s not the only solution available, but, as they say, it’s worked for me and plenty of other schools…. and if you want a hand in setting your site up, please get in touch.
