News is one of the best, if not the best, way to show off your school to everyone. News is used every day whether that is done through radio stations, social media, through newspapers or even your school website. It's efficient and can travel very quickly if done correctly.

News is perhaps a crucial part of your school website design so its really important to keep this section updated regularly with exciting and engaging content.

So why choose News?

News occurs naturally. Something new happens in your school every week if not every day. This is a good way to keep parents informed with anything happening around your school. Giving prospective students/parents and insight into your school life through your school website.

How times have changed

Not so long ago the way to communicate with parents and prospective parents in your area was to send letters home with your pupils and post them in people's homes. As a former pupil myself during this time I know all too well that these letters were rarely given to my parents and they were regularly not informed with school events. This would lead to them calling the school and I know this was the same for many parents. I know many schools still use this method along with their school website so they are easy to find. 

Insight into your school through your School Website

News is one of the best ways to keep constant insight into your school. News is always happening and the clue is in the name as it is “new”. I said earlier on that you will always have at least one piece of news once a week if not more. This allows you to take full advantage of our news tool and really show off your school in style on your school website.

When a news article is published on your school website it will remain there until it is removed. This means that people will be able to go through your news archives if they are interested. They will be able to see everything your school does on your school website.

Features to enhance your news on your School Website

One main feature which can be found in most news articles is photos. In our School Website Software, we have embed codes which photos come under for you to put in a slideshow or grid format. This blog here will help you with that {here}. You can also add an image which will act as a thumbnail to entice people to read your news on your school website.

Another great feature you can use is choosing the date and time. This can allow you to schedule news to come out at a later date or choose a date that's gone for which the news occurred on.

The last great feature is Tags. If you create categories you can use tags to group them all together. You can also then tag them on pages you have created on your school website and they will appear at the bottom of that page.

Some examples of what your news could be about could be Star of the week. You can show off your hard working pupils through this. Another idea could be World Book Day. Where you can take lots of pictures of your children all dressed up and then show them off.

News with your Schudio App

In the Free School App we have created for schools there is a section for news to appear. There is no special way to add this to your news section on the app. When you create a news article on your school website it will also appear straight on your app. This means that if any of your Parents have our app downloaded they will get notifications whenever a news article is added.

They will be able to click on it from their phone and view it in the app. They will also stay on the app in the news section so people can go through and look at these at any time.

Facebook/Twitter

Another great feature in our system to use with your news is linking it to your Facebook and Twitter accounts. This means that once you have posted it on your school website you can then post it on Facebook and twitter to through our system. This saves time as you don’t have to do it three separate times on three different platforms.

News is not only used by schools, everyone uses it in some way or form to keep people posted with anything from what they are doing. Just one question to sign off with. Are you fully utilising your news page on your school website, if not, why not?

News Best Practice

Here is a good example from Walmsley Primary School. They are using news regularly to show off their school and keep everyone up to date with what's going on. They have used pictures for each news article which helps to grab the readers attention to entice them.

Another good example is Lytham High School. This is very nicely laid out and often kept up to date with showing off their school and showing what they are doing. They have used a mixture of generic photos of their school, some they may have created and some which they would’ve taken when it was happening. This is a good balance and shows the school in a different light to the one above

Our last good example is Carr Hill High School. As you can see it is constantly updated to help assist students whilst still showing the school at it's best. Many schools are doing this due to the current circumstances. They can still engage with parents and children and from news this is a good way to do it.

If you need any help starting it drop us a line at support@schudio.com. We would love to hear from you.