School Websites, Designed for UK Schools and Trusts
For most families your website is the first thing they see of your school, and it is the first place Ofsted looks. We have been building school websites for UK primary schools, secondary schools and academy trusts for over 20 years. Every one is designed for the school it belongs to. We don’t sell templates.
One price, free support, and a design refresh every three years.
The three reasons schools change website provider
Schools rarely move because they want a new design. They move because the support went quiet, or an invoice turned up that nobody had budgeted for. These are the three things we hear most often, and what we do differently.
Charges nobody warned them about
What schools tell usYou agree a price for the build. Then adding a page type, changing a template or getting your own content back all come with a separate invoice.
How we workOne annual price covers hosting, support, updates, training and a design refresh every three years. If it is on your website, it is in your price.
Support that goes quiet
What schools tell usA ticket form, an automated reply, and a first response some days later. Usually the week of your open evening.
How we workFree, unlimited support from a UK team who work with schools all day. We aim to answer within the hour and our average is under 30 minutes.
A system they can’t leave
What schools tell usA closed CMS with no export, so the policies and newsletters you wrote are stuck there when the renewal quote arrives.
How we workWe build on WordPress, which powers a large part of the web and has a standard export built in. We would rather you stayed because you want to.
Websites for schools, whatever kind of school you are
A primary school website and a trust website have very little in common beyond the logo. We design each one around the job it has to do.
Primary school websites
Warm, photo led design that your office can update between the register and morning break. Class pages, newsletters and galleries take minutes.
Secondary school websites
Built for volume. Departments, options, vacancies, exam information and sixth form admissions, arranged so a parent finds the right page quickly.
Academy trust websites
One trust identity across every academy, central control of the pages that have to match, and local freedom over the rest. Priced for the whole trust.
Specialist & sixth form
Special schools, sixth forms and independent schools, where accessibility and a very particular audience matter more than a standard layout.
Your team can update it without ringing us
A good looking website is no use if nobody in the office feels confident enough to change anything on it. We build ours for the people who do the updating, which is usually an office manager, an admin assistant or a teacher with a free period.
Adding a newsletter, swapping a photo or putting a letter home on the site takes a couple of minutes. You get a handover session to start with, and training carries on for as long as you are with us. When someone new joins the office we train them too.
Everything you have to publish, already built in
Maintained schools have to publish a set list of information online, and academies publish a comparable list through their funding agreement. The list is long, it changes, and it is the first thing an inspector checks.
We build that structure into your website when we build the site. Pupil premium, PE and sport premium, the SEN information report, curriculum, admissions, governance, financial benchmarking, equality objectives and exam results all get a permanent home, so nothing disappears into a PDF that nobody can find. You can read our full guide to school website compliance.
The features schools ask us for
Most web agencies give a school a blog and a contact form. We have spent 20 years building the things schools ask for instead, and they all come with your subscription.
Policy libraries that tell you when a policy is due for review. Vacancy listings with closing dates. Term dates and calendars. Site wide alert banners for a snow day. Newsletter archives, class pages, governor areas and social media walls. When we build something new for one school, every school on our platform gets it.
A public site and a private area in one place
Your website has two audiences and most providers only serve one of them. Families choosing a school need a shop window. Current parents, pupils and staff need somewhere to get things done.
Logged in dashboards give each person a homepage built around who they are, so a Year 7 parent, a sixth former, a governor and a member of staff all see something different. We also build MIS sync and Google Workspace tools for schools, so those logins can line up with the systems you already run.
Built to stay online on your busiest days
School websites get their heaviest traffic at the worst possible moment. Results morning, an admissions deadline, or the 6am when you need to tell 900 families the school is shut.
Every site sits behind Cloudflare DDoS protection on AWS, and we apply the WordPress and plugin security updates ourselves rather than leaving them to your network manager. We commit to 99.9% uptime and we monitor it.
How we design and build a school website
Five stages, and you see the site long before it goes live. Most school website projects take about a term from the first meeting to launch.
Initial meeting
We talk about what you want the website to achieve, both in how it looks and what it does, and who you are trying to reach.
Design presentation
We take your vision and create a design portfolio and a branding document, then work through any changes with you until you are happy.
Development
We turn the agreed design into a working website and give you a link, so you can watch it take shape and ask for changes as we go.
Content transfer
We move the content across from your existing site and tidy up how it is presented as we go. We can also help you write new content.
Training and go live
We train your team properly, then launch. Support and training carry on for as long as you are with us, at no extra cost.
Still under contract somewhere else?
This is one of the most common conversations we have, and it is easier to solve than most schools expect.
We work back from your end date
Tell us when your current contract finishes and we build the schedule backwards from it, so the new site is ready to go live the day you are free.
All the work happens beforehand
Design, build and content migration can all be done while you are still with your current provider. Nothing goes live until you say so.
We move your content for you
Getting content out of an old system is the part schools dread. It is included in your price, and we tidy up the presentation as we move it.
Twenty years of working with schools
Realsmart recently supported our Trust in the redesign of 4 school websites and a Trust website. I found the team to be enormously patient in supporting me to achieve what we wanted with the sites, and highly responsive to queries, it seemed that nothing was too much trouble. It also felt like the team had a real appreciation for our budget constraints, I am convinced that working with them delivered excellent value for money for both the schools and for the Trust. I would highly recommend them as a partner.
We have worked with Realsmart for over ten years and are currently working with the web development team to refresh all of our school websites. I could not recommend the team enough. They are friendly and approachable and at the same time very skilled and extremely professional with their work. Their customer service is exemplary and second to none and they completely understand the school sector and what is important to schools.
One price, with everything in it
Schools tell us the same story over and over. The quote looked competitive, then the invoices started. So here is what a Realsmart school website subscription covers, and what we will never bill you for separately.
- Design and build of your school website
- Hosting on AWS with Cloudflare protection
- Free, unlimited support from our UK team
- Ongoing training for your team
- Every feature we build, now and in future
- Security and CMS updates, applied by us
- A design refresh every three years
- Content migration from your existing website
What we don’t charge extra for
- Adding a new page, section or template
- Changing your colours, logo or branding
- Getting your own content back if you leave
- Support tickets, however many you raise
School website FAQs
Can we edit the school website ourselves?
Yes, and most of our schools do it every day. The content management system is built for school office staff rather than web designers, and training carries on for as long as you are with us, so when a member of staff leaves we train whoever takes over.
Our previous supplier had hidden charges, can you clarify that you have none?
We can. Your subscription covers design, build, hosting, support, training, every feature we build, all security updates, content migration and a design refresh every three years. We don’t charge for adding pages, changing your branding, raising support tickets, or getting your content back if you decide to leave.
What CMS do you use for school websites?
We build all of our websites with WordPress. It powers a large part of the web, so it is a tried and tested platform with plenty of support and security, and we have built a suite of school features on top of it. We don’t want you to feel tied in, and WordPress has an easy export method should you ever want to take your content elsewhere.
What additional features do you offer on your school websites?
Quite a few, and they all come with your subscription. Policy libraries with review date reminders, vacancy listings with closing dates, term dates and calendars, site wide alert banners, newsletter and letters home archives, class pages with their own blogs and galleries, staff and governor directories, social media walls, parents evening booking and logged in dashboards. When we build something new for one school, every school on our platform gets it.
Are Realsmart school websites DfE compliant?
Yes. We build the statutory publishing requirements into the structure of the site from the start, covering what maintained schools must publish and what academies and trusts publish through their funding agreement. We also tell you when the guidance changes, so your site doesn’t fall out of date without anyone noticing.
How secure are your sites?
We take security very seriously and protect your website with several layers. Those include Cloudflare DDoS protection, the latest AWS security updates and WordPress security updates, which we apply ourselves rather than leaving them to your school. We commit to 99.9% uptime.
Is it possible to change the look of our website later?
Yes. You can change colours, imagery and branding yourself whenever you like, and every school with us gets a full design refresh every three years at no extra cost. Your site won’t slowly date until you are forced into another procurement round.
We are still under contract with our current provider, can you help?
Yes, and it is a conversation we have often. Tell us when your contract ends and we work backwards from that date, so the new site is designed, built, filled with your content and ready to launch the day you are free to switch. All of that can happen while you are still under contract.
Can we have social media integration?
Yes, and we usually recommend it. We pull your school social media feeds into the website, so a post you make once appears in both places and the site stays visibly current without anyone doing the work twice.
How long does a new school website take?
Most projects take about a term from the first meeting to going live. It depends on how much content needs moving and how quickly design decisions get signed off. If you have a fixed deadline such as an open evening or a trust rebrand, tell us and we will build the schedule around it.
Do you work with multi academy trusts as well as single schools?
Yes. We build the trust website and its academy websites as one connected estate, with central control over the branding and policies that have to match and local freedom over everything else. Trusts are priced for the whole group rather than school by school.
More on school websites
Guides and advice we have written for schools thinking about their website.
Hit with hidden charges from your website provider?
What to check in a quote so you don’t get billed later for things you assumed were included.
Designing a school website: our essential guide
What to think about before you start, from structure to photography.
The anatomy of a school website
The sections every school website needs, and where parents look for them.
See what your school website could look like
Book a free demo with no obligation. We will show you the content management system, walk you through websites we have built for schools like yours, and answer the awkward questions about cost and contracts.