Schools
Why your school needs a website you can update yourself
A parent choosing a school looks at its website before visiting the campus. A parent whose child is already enrolled opens it for one reason: to check something. A notice, a holiday, a fee date. In both cases the school website has a few seconds to give a correct answer, and it can only do that if someone at the school can update it without help.
What an out-of-date website costs a school
- Trust. A notice board that ends last term tells a new parent that nobody is looking after the details.
- Office time. Every question the website fails to answer becomes a phone call: is tomorrow a holiday, when is the fee due, are admissions open for Grade 6?
- Admissions. A parent comparing three schools gives each website a minute. The one that shows this year's admissions information gets the enquiry.
Why school websites go stale
Most school websites are built once, by a vendor, and handed over. After that, every change needs a request, a reminder and sometimes a fee. Or one teacher knows the login, and when that teacher is busy or leaves, the site freezes.
The underlying mistake is treating the website as a project that ended, when it is really a notice board that never does.
What needs to stay current, and who should own it
| Section | How often it changes | Who should own it |
|---|---|---|
| Notices and circulars | Every week or two | The school office |
| Admissions information and enquiry form | Each admission season | The admissions desk |
| Fee structure | Once a year | Accounts or the office |
| Faculty and leadership | When staff join or leave | The office |
| Photos of events | After each event | A teacher in charge |
| Statutory disclosures | As your board requires | The principal's office |
Notice that no single person appears in every row. That is the point.
Who should be able to update it
Not everyone, and not just one person. The practical arrangement is a login for each person who holds information, limited to their own section:
- the office can post and schedule notices,
- the admissions desk can read and answer enquiries,
- the principal can see everything, including a record of who changed what.
With that in place, updating the website stops being a task anyone has to remember. It becomes part of sending the circular.
Before you publish: children's privacy
A school's website shows children, so take more care than a business would. Get parents' consent before publishing students' photos or names. Never publish a child's phone number, home address or identity numbers. India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 treats children's personal data with particular care, including a requirement for verifiable parental consent, so agree a simple written policy and follow it.
What your board may require
Some boards set rules for school websites. CBSE-affiliated schools, for example, are required to publish a mandatory public disclosure section. State boards and education departments have their own requirements, and they change from time to time. Check the current rules for your board, and make sure whoever builds your site knows about them at the start.
A five-minute test
Hand a phone to someone in your office and ask them to publish a notice on the school website. If it takes more than five minutes, or needs a call to anyone, the website will fall behind again, however good it looked on launch day.
This is the test we build for. On a Creatin Web school website, a notice is a short form that can be published now or scheduled for later, the admissions enquiry arrives with the student's name and grade, and the fee table is edited row by row. Each staff member sees only the sections you allow, in the browser or in the Android app.