Websites for Schools and Academies: the Family Decides, Not the Student
In education, the person searching, the person deciding and the person paying are rarely the same. A website that speaks only to the student loses the parent reading over their shoulder with a calculator open.
May 10, 20226 min readIn this article
- Write for whoever decides, not whoever attends
- The admissions process: publish all of it
- Fees: what everyone looks for and almost nobody publishes
- The teachers are the institution
- Calendar and communication: the site your current families use
- Mobile and accessibility aren't optional here
- Photos of children: consent before aesthetics
- What it costs and what to insist on
- Frequently asked questions
Choosing a school is one of the longest and most loaded purchase decisions a family makes. It isn't settled in an afternoon: it starts months ahead, involves two or three people, and the criteria aren't only academic — they're also timings, distance, cost, and a hard-to-name sense of whether their child will be looked after properly.
Almost every institutional website fails because it's written inward-facing: mission, vision, the founder's story, photographs of an empty building. None of that answers what the family is actually asking.
Write for whoever decides, not whoever attends
At a school, the reader is the parent. At a language academy or a technical institute it may be the adult student themselves — though often someone behind them is still paying. Identifying who decides changes the copy completely.
- School: the family decides. Lead with safety, method, staff, fees, and drop-off and pick-up times.
- Language academy: the adult decides. Lead with levels, flexible timetables, certification and price.
- Technical institute: an adult seeking work decides. Lead with job outcomes, duration and qualification.
- After-school activities: the family decides on logistics. Lead with times, minimum age and location.
The admissions process: publish all of it
Uncertainty about the paperwork is the biggest brake. The family doesn't know when applications open, what documents are needed, whether there's an assessment or an interview, or how long a decision takes. And they don't ring to ask: they assume it's complicated and keep looking at other schools.
Publish the whole process with dates: when admissions open and close, what documents to gather, whether there's a diagnostic assessment, when the decision is communicated, and how a place is confirmed. It converts, and it cuts the admin office's workload enormously.
Fees: what everyone looks for and almost nobody publishes
This is the sector's uncomfortable conversation. The institution fears the price will scare people off; the family can't decide without it. And the result of staying quiet is worse than it looks: it doesn't prevent comparison, it just gets you eliminated without a phone call.
| Institution | What to publish | What not to do |
|---|---|---|
| School | Enrolment fee, monthly fee, and how many months are charged per year | Advertising the monthly fee and omitting enrolment, transport and uniforms |
| Academy or course | The price of a complete level and its length in weeks | Giving only an hourly rate: nobody knows how many hours they need |
| Technical programme | Total programme cost and financing options | Publishing the monthly instalment without saying how many months |
The teachers are the institution
The building is forgotten; the teacher isn't. And yet most education websites give more space to photos of the facilities than to the people who actually teach. It's an inversion of priorities that families notice.
You don't need the entire staff list. The leadership team, the heads of department and a sample of teachers is enough: name, qualification, years teaching, and one line in their own words. It signals stability, which is precisely what's being assessed.
Calendar and communication: the site your current families use
There's a function that gets forgotten at design time: the website doesn't only attract new families, it serves the ones already inside. Term dates, exam periods, closures for weather, equipment lists, newsletters. If that isn't on the website, it ends up in ungovernable WhatsApp chains.
A well-maintained notices section saves hundreds of calls to the office each year. And it has a valuable side effect: a website updated every week signals that the institution is running properly — something no mission statement achieves.
Mobile and accessibility aren't optional here
A large share of your readers are parents checking on a phone between other things, and grandparents who also weigh in on the decision. Small text, downloadable PDFs and tiny menus exclude exactly the people deciding. The substance of this is in web accessibility and why it matters.
One concrete rule: nothing important in a PDF. Equipment lists, the calendar and admissions requirements belong in HTML, readable without downloading anything. A PDF can exist alongside as a printable version — never as the only way in.
Photos of children: consent before aesthetics
Photos with pupils work best — they show a real atmosphere rather than an empty building. But they're images of minors, and that requires written authorisation from guardians, filed, reviewable, and revocable.
If that permission isn't in order, there are dignified alternatives: wide shots with no identifiable faces, photos from behind, or images centred on the work — hands, materials, the board — instead of faces. What isn't an option is publishing first and asking afterwards.
What it costs and what to insist on
An education website has more pages than average — year groups, admissions, staff, notices, calendar — but little technical complexity. What raises the cost is integrating it with the academic platform, and often that isn't needed: linking to the existing portal is enough. Ranges are in how much a professional website costs.
Insist that the domain is in the institution's name — not the head teacher's, not the provider's — that notices and the calendar can be updated without depending on anyone, and that there's control over who holds panel access when administrative staff change.
Frequently asked questions
Should we publish our fees on the website?
Yes, and in full. Families will find out anyway, and learning it from a third party costs you credibility. Publishing filters out those who can't afford it — saving you interviews — and builds trust with those who can. If annual increases worry you, state the academic year the figure applies to.
Do we need a website if we already have an academic platform?
They're different things. The platform serves families already inside: grades, homework, notices. The website attracts the ones who haven't joined yet, and it's what people reach from Google. One doesn't replace the other; the sensible setup is a public website that links to the private platform.
What about social media?
It's good for showing daily life and holding the current community together, but not for recruitment: nobody chooses a school from Instagram. You also don't control the order in which information is seen or who sees it. Use it as a shop window and let the website do the explaining and converting.
How often should a school website be updated?
Notices and the calendar, the moment they change. The rest follows the school year: fees and admissions dates before the window opens, photos and staff once a year. A homepage still showing last year's admissions is the fastest signal that nobody is minding the shop.