Getting a new school website live is a genuinely good day. The design looks sharp, the photography is fresh, the policies are all in the right place and the whole thing loads quickly on a phone. Everyone is pleased. Then term starts.
Within a few weeks the newsletter needs uploading, a governor has stepped down, the SEND information report has been revised, three staff photos are out of date and someone has asked whether the admissions page can go live a fortnight early. This is the part nobody puts in the brochure, and it is the part that decides whether your website still works in two years’ time.
A school website is never actually finished
Most websites are built once and then left to drift. School websites cannot afford that. They carry statutory information that changes across the year, and the gap between “we launched a lovely site” and “our site is still accurate” is where most schools quietly come unstuck.
The content that dates fastest is usually the content that matters most to an inspector or a prospective parent: pupil premium strategy, curriculum statements, safeguarding leads, term dates, exam results, governance details. None of it is difficult to update. It just needs somebody whose job it is to notice.
The hidden cost of “we’ll do it ourselves”
Plenty of schools plan to handle updates in house, and some manage it well. But it usually lands on a business manager or an office administrator who already has a full week, and the training happened once, back in July, before the person who was trained left.
What tends to happen is that small jobs get postponed. A broken link stays broken. A PDF gets uploaded at 14MB and slows the page to a crawl. A well meaning edit removes a heading and the layout breaks on mobile. Six months later the site looks a little tired, and fixing it properly costs more than keeping on top of it would have done.
What ongoing support actually covers
When we talk about support, we do not mean a phone number you ring when something breaks. We mean the routine, unglamorous work that keeps a site healthy:
- WordPress core, theme and plugin updates applied and tested, so nothing breaks silently
- Daily backups and secure hosting, with a way back if something does go wrong
- Content updates handled for you, usually within a working day or two
- Periodic checks against statutory requirements, so compliance does not drift
- Accessibility and mobile testing as browsers and devices change
- Someone who already knows your site when you need something at short notice
The value is not in any single item on that list. It is in never having to think about the list at all.
Why a specialist makes a difference here
A general web agency can update a plugin. What they will not do is notice that your governance page no longer meets the requirements, or that your new admissions arrangements should have been published by a particular date. We work with primary schools, secondary schools and academy trusts exclusively, so the statutory side is not something we have to look up.
It also means we understand how schools actually work. Requests come in during the school day, from people who are teaching in twenty minutes. The answer needs to be quick and it needs to be in plain English. That is the service, as much as the technical work behind it.
Support is what makes the build worth it
A school website is a long term asset. It is the first thing a prospective parent looks at, the place your community goes for information, and increasingly the thing an inspector opens before they arrive. Treating it as a one off project and hoping it holds up is a false economy.
If your site was built a few years ago and nobody has looked at it properly since, it is worth a fresh pair of eyes. We are happy to take a look and tell you honestly whether it needs work or whether you are in decent shape.
You can see how we approach school website design and ongoing care, or get in touch for a straightforward conversation about what your school needs. No jargon, no hard sell.
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