Web Design for Schools and Academies

What the DfE says schools must publish

The Department for Education's guidance 'What maintained schools must publish online' was last updated on 24 October 2024. Maintained schools must publish, among other things:

• admission arrangements, or a link to the local authority's for community and voluntary controlled schools
• the behaviour policy, the charging and remissions policies and the complaints policy
• contact details, including the name of the member of staff who deals with queries and, in mainstream schools, the SENCO's name and contact details
• curriculum content for each subject and year, phonics or reading schemes at key stage 1, and key stage 4 courses
• the number of staff paid over £100,000 in £10,000 bands, and a link to the schools financial benchmarking service
• governance information, the latest Ofsted report or a link to it, and links to performance measures
• the pupil premium strategy statement by 31 December, PE and sport premium details by 31 July, the SEND information report, and public sector equality duty information
• careers programme information for secondary schools, and gender pay gap data for schools with 250 or more employees

The same guidance lists things schools should publish, such as opening hours, the uniform policy, the music development plan and remote education information. We build a statutory information section that mirrors this list, so nothing is missing and inspectors and parents can find each item quickly.

Academies and trusts have a different list

Academies, free schools and colleges follow separate DfE guidance, also updated 24 October 2024. It says every academy must publish specific information to comply with its funding agreement. Trusts must publish items such as the annual audited report and accounts by 31 January, governance information including the memorandum and articles of association and trustee details, the whistleblowing procedure, and the RSE policy. Several items that are mandatory for maintained schools are listed as 'should' for academies, though in practice most trusts publish them.

For multi-academy trusts we can build a trust site with linked school sites sharing one design system, so trust-level documents live in one place and each school manages its own news and policies.

Accessibility for schools

The public sector accessibility regulations give schools and nurseries a partial exemption, but content needed for essential online administrative functions, such as forms parents must complete, is still covered, and schools commonly publish an accessibility statement. The DfE guidance also notes that if a school publishes its PE and sport premium report using the downloaded digital form, it must convert it to HTML to meet accessibility requirements. Many parents use phones, screen readers or translation tools, so we design to WCAG 2.2 AA as a target, write policies as web pages where possible and make sure PDFs we do publish are tagged and readable.

Easy for staff, quick for parents

School websites fail when updating them is hard. We set up editor roles so the office can post letters and term dates, subject leads can update curriculum pages, and governors can upload minutes, each without access to the whole site. Templates keep pages consistent however many people edit them. A dashboard shows when each statutory document was last updated, so you can spot anything overdue before an inspection.

For parents, the home page puts the essentials up front: term dates, latest news, lunch menus, absence reporting and contact details. The calendar exports to phone calendars, and important notices can appear as a banner.

Costs and timescales

A small primary or nursery may fit the Starter package from £250 + VAT, but most schools need more than five pages, so the Business package from £500 + VAT is the usual choice: up to 15 page templates, copywriting help, schema, speed tuning and a training session with a recorded walkthrough. Trust-wide platforms, parent portals and payment integrations are quoted. Hosting and support are available separately, with care plans from dijitulsupport.co.uk starting at £25 a month + VAT. See prices.

What you get

• Statutory information section mapped to the DfE list for your school type
• Admissions, curriculum, SEND, policies and governance pages
• News, letters, calendar and term dates that staff can update
• Accessibility statement and accessible templates
• Ofsted report and performance tables links
• Editor roles so office staff, teachers and governors can each update their own areas

Prices and how it works

Websites from £250 + VAT, business websites from £500 + VAT and ecommerce from £750 + VAT. Small changes are £45 an hour + VAT. You get a fixed quote before we start.

1. Free chat

   Tell us about your business, who your customers are and what the website needs to do. No charge, no obligation.

2. Fixed quote

   You get a fixed price and a clear list of what is included, in writing, before anything starts.

3. Design

   We plan the pages and design the site around your customers, then share it for your comments.

4. Build and test

   We build it mobile-first, write or polish the copy, set up SEO foundations and test it on real phones.

5. Launch and hand over

   We launch, connect analytics and Search Console, and show you how to update it. You own it all.

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