Monday, January 11, 2010

School Websites

In this time of snow, ice, traffic chaos and school closures, I have discovered (in the main) just how dreadful school websites are for the local community.

I have investigated most of the schools that are local to me and they all have massive shortcomings. Websites that are dreadfully out of date, dozens of broken links, big sections that are unfinished, nigh on impossible to navigate and virtually all of them designed by someone who works for the school in some capacity.

Surely our teachers time would be better spent doing what they do best, I'm sure most schools have a budget with which to service their website needs, give it to an experienced web designer who for a small fee will give your school something to be proud of and might just make the local community look at it.

My own childrens website was updated to say when the school was closed due to the snow but the rest of the website is mostly unfinished at best, it's been this way for about 6 months.

So a message to headteachers up and down the land, pay someone to do the school website for you and stop worrying about when you'll get time to finish yourself. A correctly assembled website will be more search engine friendly, be of more use to parents and pupils and most importantly - yes you will be able to update it yourself with important messages such as 'school shut yet again due to snow'.

www.sitechooser.co.uk/School-Websites will be updated over the next few days to make it blindingly obvious to headteachers everywhere just how they should spend some of that IT budget for the good of the school and the local community.

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