Our Best School Websites 2018
Best School Websites 2018
The start of a new year is a great time to look back at our work over the past year. With the sheer variety of school websites that we have designed in the past year, when we asked the team which websites were their favourite, everyone in the office had a different answer! With so many to choose from, and with the awards season upon us, we have decided it is only fitting that we present our best school websites from 2018, divided into categories. So, click below to see our choices for the best school website in each category:
- Best School App
- Best School Website Splash Page
- Best School Website Content
- Best School Website Redesign
- Best Academy Trust Website Design
- Best School Website Home Page
- Best School Website Video Background
- Best Primary School Website
- Best Secondary School Website
- Best Special School Website
- Best Illustrated School Website Design
Best School App
St. James Primary School Elstead
Before we can move onto the best school websites of 2018, we have to first acknowledge the Best School App.
The School Apps we offer are designed to make communications between parents and schools as easy and manageable as possible. With many schools attempting to reduce their paper usage, having a school app means that letters home can be sent digitally (without children losing them on the way home). Push notifications mean that parents are far less likely to miss important information, and the app is free for parents to download.
We were delighted to hear that almost 100% of the parents at St. James Primary School in Elstead have downloaded the app, and that the school relies heavily on the app to keep parents updated.
Best School Website Splash Page
Eastrop Infant School
Eastrop Infant School is paired with Southfield Junior School, and so they wanted a splash page for their website, in order to give visitors a choice between the two websites. The school decided that this could be an opportunity to get creative, and to make something truly unique for the school website. We worked closely with the school to design some memorable characters that represented the school’s values. The school has a strong nature theme already (with classes named after British animals such as Fox and Badger). Therefore, it was decided that the characters should be animals too. At the top of a tree is an Owl, representing Excellence. Meanwhile, under the tree are an alert fox (awareness), a bowing mole (respect), a hedgehog (courage), a badger (determination), and a squirrel (friendship).
Best School Website Content
Frogmore Community College
Having old, outdated or poorly formatted content on a website can really damage the overall look, as well as being frustrating for visitors to the website. As a part of designing a school website, we upload up to fifty pages of text content, and format it to look sleek and professional. We were delighted to see that Frogmore Community College has added strategically placed photos throughout their website content. Additionally, quote boxes are used to draw attention to important information.
Best School Website Redesign
Cleeve School
The New Design for Cleeve School’s Website
We were really happy with how the re-design for Cleeve School turned out! The school is very active on social media, and so social media buttons are featured prominently on a slide out tab on the side of the home page. Large photo buttons direct visitors to important pages such as their Vision and the Join us page. The old site used a variety of colours, whilst the new site’s branding has been tightened up, using navy blue and yellow to match the school’s logo.
The old design for Cleeve School
Best Academy Trust Website Design
The Village Academy
Selling CoE Primary School, one of the schools who benefited from the shared design
This year we re-designed the websites for the Village Academy and the six schools in the MAT, so that they share one cohesive design. Each website had a different colour scheme, which for most of the websites match the colour of the school uniform. On each of the school websites, on the top right of the screen there is the Village Academy logo, which drops down to provide some basic information about the Academy, and contains a link back to the main Village Academy Trust website. Each of the websites’ home pages features a welcome section, news, social media and an upcoming dates box.
Dymchurch Primary School also use the Village Academy’s group design
Best School Website Home Page
Notre Dame RC Girls’ School
When asked what his favourite website of 2018 was, Kyle immediately said Notre Dame RC Girls’ School, because of its fantastic homepage. The Notre Dame home page combines the information that parents need with aesthetically pleasing animations and a sleek style. The school opted to have some additional features when they designed their website, including a social media wall. The website has a full screen photo background, and a panelled design on the home page. One panel features curriculum pop-ups; when you click on a subject button, a box pops up providing information on the topic selected.
The “Our Performance” panel contains three animated wheels which show the pass rates of different subjects at A Level and GCSE. Latest news and Diary Dates can also be found on the home page. The text and the school’s logo slide in to place from the left when scrolling down the page as well; this is one of numerous little details that makes Notre Dame RC Girls’ School’s home page a winner in our books.
Best School Website Video Background
Cottesmore School
A good background video can add an air of sophistication to any school website, and can convey a lot of visual information about the school in a short space of time. Our favourite video background from this year comes from Cottesmore School, a country boarding school based in West Sussex. When your school is fortunate enough to be based in a former Victorian Manor House built in the 1880s, and the extensive grounds feature tennis courts and a fishing lake, you should really show it off in style! Filmed using a drone, taking long and sweeping shots of the incredible location, the video reveals snippets of life at Cottesmore School. Students are seen playing tennis and cricket and taking part in athletics, amongst other activities.
Once you click away from the home page of the website, the video is replaced by full screen photos of students in the grounds of the school.
If you are interested in having a video background on your school website, then get in touch! We’d love to help!
Best Primary School Website
South Green Junior School
Sometimes the best websites are simple and effective; South Green Junior School’s website uses a clean design centred around a full screen photo background, which displays a selection of high quality, professionally taken photos of students. The colour scheme, which is predominantly purple and lilac with accents of yellow, matches the school uniform. This ties the website together nicely. The strapline and panel backgrounds both use lilac circles in a variety of hues. This helps the strapline to stand out from the photos behind it.
Best Secondary School Website
Bangor Grammar School
We were really happy with how Bangor Grammar School’s website turned out. A translucent filter partially covers the full screen background images, and the strapline has a white and yellow blocked background, giving the home page a sleek and clean look that with easy to read text. Other notable features include a social media wall and animated school performance wheels.
Best Special School Website
Perseid School
The vibrant colours and carefully selected background photos are two of the things we love about this website; the purple-hued photo of the school’s sensory room complements the colour scheme nicely. The website uses large buttons for easy navigation, and the website is designed to be user friendly. The full screen background image is overlaid with a blue and yellow translucent filter, and the twitter button in the corner of the page is in a star shape, in keeping with the astronomical theme.
Best Illustrated School Website
Heighington CE Primary School
Bespoke illustrations are a great choice when looking for a truly unique school website, and they are especially popular with primary schools. All of our skylines are custom made and can feature landmarks local to your school. Olaia selected Heighington CE Primary School as her pick for Best illustrated design of 2018; and with its idyllic rural scenes it is easy to see why. The skyline features farm buildings including barns and a mill, fields, trees, flowers and haybales, tractors and other farm machinery, and the local church.
Like what you see? Do you want to be in the running for the best school website of 2019?
If your school’s website could do with a new look for 2019, then get in touch! Just email us. If you need more inspiration, why not take a look at our extensive Portfolio of great school websites.
