Somewhere on your school website, there’s a photo of children sitting in a circle, looking genuinely delighted about a worksheet. Their uniforms are spotless, the lighting is perfect, and every child is smiling and completely focused on the whiteboard. There’s not a single chewed pen lid or a shoe on the wrong foot. These children aren’t real, and every parent who visits your homepage knows it right away. Still, there they are, smiling for the camera, but not fooling anyone. That’s the problem with most school websites. They focus so much on looking like a school that they stop looking like your school. Parents can sense this and spot the difference almost instantly.
What parents are actually doing when they visit your site. Here’s the thing: they’re not reading right away. What they’re really doing is picking up a feeling. In the back of their mind, they’re wondering if this is a place where their child would be happy, if it feels welcoming, if it feels genuine. All this happens in about eight seconds, almost without them realising it.
The term dates matter. The admissions information matters. Even the statutory policies that nobody has ever read by choice matter too, at least technically. But none of these things are what really count in those first few moments. The feeling comes first, and everything else follows. And that feeling doesn’t come from a welcome message that starts with “At Oakfield Primary, we believe every child deserves to flourish.” It comes from something specific, maybe even a little unexpected. It’s something that could only come from your school, in your community. For advice on Websites for schools, visit www.fsedesign.co.uk/websites-for-schools
There’s something almost charming about a neglected school website. A site that hasn’t been updated since 2019 is, in its own way, quite honest. It shows that the staff have been too busy actually running the school to worry about the website, which is a fair set of priorities and nothing to feel bad about. But it also quietly tells parents that information might be hard to find, that it’s unclear who handles communication, and that the school might still be using the same old photocopier. Parents notice these things, even if they can’t explain exactly why. They just get a sense that something isn’t quite right.