Summer is almost here! We've put together the most important summer jobs that you can do. If you take the time to get your head around these simple tasks you'll be way ahead for the coming year.

Summer School Website Reading

I love a good book. Largely I don't like missing out on the opportunity to learn something new. Summer is one of my favourite times of year because I'm able to find more time to get on top of some great reading.

In the brief sections below you'll find some links to articles that will spice up your website and set you up for the coming year. If you really want to go to town, dive deeper into our School Website Design Blog. It's packed with weekly advice on how to keep your website up to date, engage your users likes never before and exceed the statutory requirements.

Planning Ahead for Events & News - Your school's most important content

One of the great things about schools is that they largely know what's coming up throughout the year. By spending a little bit of time over the summer adding next year's events to your school website you'll be ahead of the game.

Really great school website software will even prompt you to write a news article after the event has taken place! So there's no excuse for your website to be out of date.

Make sure that the content you add isn't just a list of dates but engaging content so that users are drawn in and you're more likely to see improved engagement with those events.

Policy Management (Yawn!)

Yes, we know! It's the most deathly dull part of your school website. Sadly, it's also a really important one. We have just the article for you, School Website Policies = Yawn? This post talks us through why they're so important. It also describes practically how you can effectively manage policies on your school website. Summer is the perfect time to get ahead on this one.

Get Social sorted!

More and more schools are using social media, particularly Twitter, to engage with their wider audience. A great example is schools that are tweeting to keep parents up to date when a class are on a trip. It's useful, it's helpful and reassuring and meets the needs of the audience. And that's what you should be aiming for with everything on and around your school website, including socially.

If you've no idea where to start, here's an article about Social Media and Your School Website. You'll find everything you need to get started. If you want to take that one step further into social then this is the blog post for you - How Social Media can Improve Parental Engagement.

Ofsted school website compliance - ongoing changes.

This is the truly critical one. Changes are often made by DfE to the ever-expanding list of school website requirements. Summer is the time when the biggest round of changes usually come. Thankfully, there are things you can do to be ahead of the game. Here's our advice on the top steps to take:

1. Download and implement the ultimate School Website Requirements Guide. It's packed full of expert advice taken from years of working with hundreds of schools and key contacts with inspectors. It's much more than just any old checklist and is relied upon by nearly 4000 schools all over the UK.
2. Check your emails! Once you've downloaded our guide, we send out regular updates so that you're always up to date with the latest requirements. Ignore those emails at your peril because the information is accurate, relevant and always current.
3. Enrol on our School Website Compliance Course over on SchudioTV and work through the finer detail of all the latest requirements. What's more, you'll learn skills that will set you up to manage your school website hugely effectively.

Hopefully, that's set you up nicely for some critical reading over the summer! We try to keep everything concise so you'll have plenty of time for the good book that's been sat on your bedside table for months.

We always love to hear about the changes you've made and the impact you've seen. Drop us a line with your thoughts and plans, it would be a real pleasure to chat those through with you. Happy holidays!