Your school website offers visitors the opportunity to get to know your school community better. But there are also opportunities for you to encourage their involvement and to make your website more than just one-way traffic.

Here’s some of our favourite things to do with your website to encourage your visitors to get involved with your website, but ultimately more involved in the life of your school or college.

NOTE: It’s really important to think about who your visitors are before you think about using each of these options within your website.

Answer these questions:

1/ Does this option enhance the experience for my specific school website visitors?
2/ Will the content I offer through this option meet the needs of my visitors and entice them to engage?
3/ What am I hoping to achieve by using this option?

So, with those questions in mind, here are the options…

Social Engagement

I mentioned this first because it’s something of a hot potato in lots of schools. While there are many schools using Twitter and the like to interact with their wider school community, lots and lots are still very wary of social media and the issues it can cause.

But let’s assume you’re using Twitter or Facebook and you are looking at ways to actively engage the school community, and indeed beyond. Firstly, don’t be afraid to engage with your followers. If you have the option and the staffing then answering queries (at set times if it helps), providing a way of communicating with school and encouraging the community to celebrate the good things going on in and around school are all sure fire ways to encourage greater involvement with the school community.

There are risks of course and a Social Media Policy is a must (ask us how we can help) but the benefits far outweigh the risks.

A couple of examples of great use of Twitter and other networks that we know of.

1/ When you go away …

Why not use Twitter (other social networks are available!), to keep in touch with parents if you take students, particularly primary aged, away on a trip for a few days. A school we work with in Bolton did a trip to France and parents were delighted to see daily updates through Twitter and on the blog on their school website. The News article (http://www.walmsley.bolton.sch.uk/news/latest/2014-06-17-chateau-du-broutel-2014) they posted when they returned is a great example of how content can be used to effectively engage the school community.

Parents loved being able to see what was going on daily and interacted on Twitter with the fun. The school office was also left be because parents were being kept up to date. Bonus!

2/ Celebrate Success

This is definitely the best way to use social media to promote your school. Talk about the brilliant things that are going on in your school as often as possible; celebrate the achievements of students, shout about examples of great teaching and provide useful resources to back up everything you do in school.

Make sure that you use appropriate hashtags and tag any individuals, or the parents of any individuals when you’re celebrating success. It’s really easy to make a few changes to the way you Tweet or post on Facebook and see Likes and Shares increase dramatically this way.

A big plus? This type of content is great to show OFSTED to give them a greater picture of live in your school and if you can show them how you engage with parents socially, you have some very tangible evidence of effective parental engagement.

Live Chat

For some schools, having an option to get in touch with school via a Live Chat options is a fantastic idea. It gives prospective parents the option to get in touch in a way that suits them and adds another communication tool to your armoury.

A decent website system will enable you to do this and if done correctly you’ll be able to set the times at which you’ll be available online and directly meet the needs of anyone wanting to get in touch through your website to have any questions answered, to complete application forms or to simply be signposted to the right place.

It’s a quick and easy way for people to interact with you through your website in a great way.

Feedback

Never be afraid of a little feedback. It is of course a key part of parental engagement and there are a number of ways you can provide parents and students with the opportunity to feed their thoughts and feelings back in to school in a constructive, manageable way.

1/ Simple Forms

Use simple forms on your website to offer a means for parents and students to send you feedback on live in your school. You will certainly get some rubbish to filter through but offer an option on your main school form for people to submit feedback and you’ll be able to respond quickly and effectively.

2/ Link to ParentView

This is something that OFSTED likes to see, although it isn’t mandatory. Clear, in fact, obvious links to ParentView on your website show that you’re not afraid to get that feedback.

3/ Clear Communication Options

Make it very clear to your visitors how they can get in touch with you when they need to. OFSTED demands this of your website (find out more in our detailed report) but more importantly, knowing that you’re available to parents is reassuring, encourages engagement and wider involvement and is simply the right thing to do.

There are of course other ways to engage your community but if you are writing content that is of interest to your visitors and offering them ways of interacting with you through your website you are doing a fantastic job. Let us know what kind’s of things you’re doing that work well in your school or college.