Featured Project | Garden Fields School
Project Overview
We started working with Garden Fields School in 2011. Their website at the time was difficult to update and maintain. We worked closely with the school to determine how they wanted to organise their content and we made recommendations on the look and feel in keeping with their branding. The new website was designed in WordPress and training was provided to allow the office staff to make changes to content with Pink Desk Studio providing ongoing support and maintenance.
We have a great working relationship with Garden Fields School and, to respond to the rapid growth in site traffic over the years, have completed several website updates and re-designs to make improvements, to keep the website looking fresh and to provide the tools needed for timely communication with parents. Their current website went live in 2021 in line with the school joining the Alban Academies Trust.
We were invited in to take photographs of the children and staff in the school setting with the pictures being used on all the pages of the site.
News Ticker
The school wanted a news ticker on the homepage to draw attention to important announcements. We added a simple line of typewriter-style text which is easily updated by the client. This simple animation is eye-catching but without being overpowering on the page.
Google Calendar Integration
One of the main forms of communication with parents is through the school calendar. Embedding the school Google calendar allows parents to copy events directly to their own calendar app quickly and easily. They can also change the view of the calendar from a list of events, to a weekly or monthly view.
During the training session we showed the school how to add links to documents and letters so that parents could easily access further information in each event.
Statutory Website Information
The Department of Education requires all schools to publish a list of key information on their websites. When building any school website we ensure that their list mirrors the DofE website list so that it is easy to maintain.
As part of our regular maintenance checks for schools we compare the list against the government page to makes sure the list is still accurate and advise the school if it needs to be updated.
Tables
The school offer a large number of extra curricular clubs. We used a table to display all the information in a clear, easily digestible format which allows parents to see what is offered at a glance. Links were added in the table so that the specific club related information can be easily accessed. The table works equally well on desktop and laptop screens as well as on mobile and tablet devices.
Blog Integration
We helped the school to create new blogs for each year group as well as for a number of other groups such as Sport, Music and Arts. These can be easily updated by members of the teaching staff without having to access the main website.
Responsive Design
All our websites are checked on desktop computer screens, laptops, tablets and mobile phones to ensure that user experience and website functionality is maintained no matter what device it is being viewed on.
