No doubt you are in the middle of your summer holidays and not thinking about school website compliance but September is just round the corner!  In this blog post we’ll take a look at some things you could do before the start of the academic year to get on top of your website compliance and make a really good start to the year.  If you haven’t already done so, one of the best ways to keep on top of your website compliance is to download our free School Website Requirements Guide.  Our compliance software is also a great tool if you want the flexibility of dipping in and out of your website to check it remains compliant all year round.

So, what can you be doing to ensure you’re compliant?

Policies

One of the most important jobs that needs doing is to ensure all the policies on your school website are up to date.  The number of times we carry out pro-audits and find that many policies are out of date or haven’t been reviewed would amaze you.  So, make sure that you open every single policy on your website and check that it is in date.  It is not good enough to have an up to date policy printed out and stored in a file in the office.  It needs to be on your website too.  Remember, the first place an inspector will look is your website!

Pupil Premium Grant

Now is the time to review your Pupil Premium Grant (PPG) spending and evaluate the impact that the funding had on your school.  Hopefully, you’ve been doing this at various points throughout the year and grabbing the evidence you need.  If you haven’t then you’ll need to spend some time reflecting and gathering the impact evidence for reviewing your PPG spending.  Make sure you upload this evaluated copy to your website to keep in line with website compliance.

As well as reviewing last year you’ll need to start thinking about the academic year ahead.  Firstly, you need to make sure you state how much PPG you will be in receipt of and when the next review will take place.  Start by identifying the main barriers to learning and list these at the start of your pupil premium plan.  This will help structure your thinking and you can refer back to this during the year.  You then need to detail how you’re going to reduce or eliminate those barriers to learning and the reasons for the approach you’ve chosen.  And finally, how you will measure the effect of the PPG.

Year 7 Literacy & Numeracy Catch-Up Premium

If your school receives Year 7 literacy and numeracy catch-up premium funding you will need to review this document.  This includes detailing how you spent your year 7 catch-up premium last academic year and how it made a difference to the attainment of the pupils who were in receipt of the funding.

Similar to the PPG, you will then need to plan out what you’re going to do with the funding receive for this coming academic year.  You need to include how much you receive and the details of how you intend to spend it.  It’s good practice to update your document as the year progresses so you know how the premium is impacting.

Again, make sure these documents are updated in line with school website compliance as well as the printed paper copy.

Curriculum Information

A big section of the new inspection framework is around curriculum and the three I’s: Intent, Implementation and Impact.  With regards to presenting your curriculum information it would be worthwhile giving some thought to how you can present this by incorporating the three I’s into your curriculum plans.  A high quality curriculum will be the product of clear sequencing of content for children to make progress and to provide them with the knowledge they need for subsequent learning.  Ofsted are keen to point out that the quality of the curriculum will be at the core.  Alongside publishing your curriculum content it is vital that you back this up with evidence and what it looks like in practice. For example, backing it up in your class blog through pictures or videos, news items or integrating social media within your website.

Be consistent

We know that inspectors actively use your website to find out more about your school before they visit.  So it’s really important to make sure that you are doing more than meeting a list of requirements.  Part of this is ensuring that your content is presented in a consistent and clear format.  If you don’t have the technology in place to help you display your content consistently then make sure you use the same format across your site.  With regards to publishing policies and documents, it would be advisable to display these by categorising them into clear groups eg ‘teaching and learning’, ‘safeguarding’ etc or displaying them alphabetically.  The key part is being consistent.

Summary

In summary, ensure that policies and other documentation are reviewed and up to date, making sure that you publish them on your website as well as printed in paper format.  Publish curriculum content ready for the autumn term and think about how the three I’s are incorporated into your curriculum, not just as a year group but across the school as a whole. Be consistent; publish content using the same clear format.  Once you’ve got all these things in place and you’re on top of your website compliance you’ll be freed up to tell the stories of daily life in your amazing schools.