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School website checklist: what parents look for
Parents visit a school website at two moments: when choosing a school, and almost every week once their child is there. This checklist covers both, so the site helps new families decide and saves your office from answering the same calls.
For families choosing a school
- The board or curriculum, the classes you offer and the medium of instruction
- Admissions: the process step by step, age criteria, documents and dates
- Fees for each class, with what's included and when they're due
- Timings, for each section if they differ
- Transport: routes and stops written as text, not only a map image
- Facilities with real photos: classrooms, labs, library, playground
- Teachers and leadership, with qualifications where you can share them
- Results and achievements you can back up, with consent where students are named
For current parents
- Notices and circulars, newest first, with dates and categories
- The academic calendar: holidays, exams, parent-teacher meetings
- Uniform, books and stationery lists
- A link to the fee payment or parent portal you use
- Who to contact for what: office, accounts, transport, class teachers
Required information
Many boards expect certain information on a school's website. CBSE, for example, requires affiliated schools to publish a mandatory public disclosure in a set format. Check what your board and state require, give it a clear page linked from the footer and keep it current. Parents increasingly look for it too.
Safety and privacy
- Children's photos only with parents' permission, without full names next to faces
- No student marks, phone numbers or addresses on public pages
- Admission forms that send details securely to the right staff only
Works for every parent
- Loads quickly on basic phones and slow connections
- Readable text, strong contrast and large buttons. See accessibility basics.
- Key pages in the language most parents read comfortably, if that isn't English
- Circulars as text where possible, with small PDFs as a backup
Contact and location
- Office hours, phone, WhatsApp and email on every page
- A map link to the gate parents should use
- The same details on your Google Business Profile. See listings for schools.
I build school websites around this list, set up so office staff can post notices themselves. More on my page for school websites.