Earlier this month (Nov 2020) the government announced a significant update to the list of compulsory elements that Maintained Schools and Trusts are required to include on their school websites.
At the time of writing Ofsted inspections are still suspended due to the COVID19 pandemic, however this has not stopped the emphasis on improving how schools communicate through their school websites, with both their own community and the wider education industry (including of course Ofsted).
There has been a list of requirements in place for some time now, which are designed to ensure interested parties can obtain a huge amount of information about a school or a Trust before making contact with them. Some of this information includes:
- Contact details
- Admission arrangements
- Exam and assessment results
- Curriculum
- Behaviour policies
- SEND information
There are different requirements for maintained schools, academies and multi-academy Trusts (MAT), and as an organisation you are responsible for ensuring your website is updated accordingly.
The changes we have seen recently are very much focussed around providing additional information on existing requirements. So, for example, rather than just uploading a list of policies onto your website, there is now much more of an emphasis towards demonstrating how you have implemented the policy, with examples and photos etc. There has also been the inevitable references to COVID with the requirement to publish how you will spend, and the impact of, your Coronavirus catch-up premium.
Before we look at the major changes, it is worth stating a few basic principles about maintaining your website:
1. Keep your content up to date – there is nothing worse than seeing polices that are dated 2016! If your policy doesn’t change every year, keep it on your site but take the date off.
2. Share plenty of your good news, through blogs/latest news stories, social media updates and as examples of policies in action. Remember your website is a window for your audience to see your school performing, so you need to shout about your achievements all the time.
3. Make information easy for people to find – there is nothing worse than a website that doesn’t flow, or has links that don’t work, or a complicated menu system. Quick links, icons and pop-up boxes are all techniques to help your audience find relevant information
4. Use visual content – video and photographs – to communicate information wherever possible – don’t just rely on a PDF attachment or a copy of a letter sent to parents. For example, when visitors are not allowed into school, the best way to communicate your school’s ethos and culture is via a video.
5. Appoint someone to be in overall charge of your website, and make sure everyone knows who that is! For a large school, you will probably want to delegate several people to be responsible for adding content, but you need one person to oversee that.
The major changes recently announced to website requirements are as follows for Maintained Schools and Academies:
Maintained Schools
- You must publish how you will spend, and the impact of, your coronavirus catch-up premium
- You must publish timetable for organising and hearing admission appeals by 28 February each year
- 2020/21 is the last year to include information on the Year 7 catch-up premium
- If you don’t have a website, you are required to publish all relevant information online somewhere (using a third-party website if necessary and letting parents know the link)
- You must report on last year’s pupil premium at the end of this financial (instead of academic) year, as long as it covers the whole period since September 2019
- You don’t have to publish performance measures for 2019/20 but continue to publish 2018/19 performance measures, making it clear they are not the current measures.
- If you have a sixth form, certain KS5 performance measures must be published on your website from your school’s performance tables webpage
- You must publish details of how your school complies with the public sector equality duty every year, and you must update your school’s equality objectives once every 4 years
Academies (including free schools):
(some organisation’s requirements may differ slightly depending upon their funding arrangements)
- You must publish how you will spend, and the impact of, your coronavirus catch-up premium
- 2020/21 is the last year to include information on the Year 7 catch-up premium
- You must report on last year’s pupil premium at the end of this financial (instead of academic) year, as long as it covers the whole period since September 2019
- You don’t have to publish performance measures for 2019/20 but continue to publish 2018/19 performance measures, making it clear they are not the current measures.
- If you have a sixth form, certain KS5 performance measures must be published on your website from your school’s performance tables webpage
- You must publish details of how your school complies with the public sector equality duty every year, and you must update your school’s equality objectives once every 4 years
The full checklists for Maintained schools, Academies and Multi-Academy Trusts can be found on the Government website HERE
If you would like further information on what you need to include on your website, or you need to redevelop your site to make it easier for your audience to navigate, we’d love to chat it through with you.
Please contact Zoe on zoe@thecollectivegroup.co.uk or telephone: 01202 682322.
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