Ofsted and DfE Requirements for School Websites

The team at Peter Bourne Communications have experience of working with primary, secondary, independent and academy schools, we can guide you through your school website requirements and creative a fantastic website for your school. The following list is for Academies and Free Schools. If you are maintained by your local authrity - the list is slightly different. We can help - please get in touch!

School contact details

Your school's website should include the following contact information:

• Your school's name
• Your school's telephone number
• Postal address
• The name of the staff member who deals with queries from parents and other members of the public
• Name of Head teacher
• Name and address of Chair of Governors
• Name and contact details of your SENCO, unless you're a special academy or 6th form or FE college

Admission arrangements

These should comply with the School admissions code and appeals code (where appropriate - not 16 - 19 academies, FE colleges or sixth form)

• Publish your school's admission arrangements, explaining how you consider application for every age group, including arrangements you have in place for selecting pupils who apply.
• Publish your oversubscription criteria (what do you do is you have more applicants than places).
• Publish an explanation of the process parents needs to follow if they want to apply for their child to attend your school.

Ofsted reports

You must do one of the following:

• Publish a copy of your school's most recent Ofsted report - or a link to it on the Ofsted website.

Exam and assessment results

Schools are not required to publish their exam and assessment results from the 2019 to 2020 academic year as these have not been published as performance measures by the Secretary of State. You must, however, continue to display your 2018 to 2019 performance measures until new performance measures are published.

Key Stage 2 (KS2) results - if you are a KS2 school, you must publish the following details from your school's most recent KS2 results:

• progress scores in reading, writing and maths
• percentage of pupils who achieved at least the expected standard in reading, writing and maths
• percentage of pupils who achieved at a higher standard in reading, writing and maths
• average ‘scaled scores’ in reading and maths

Key Stage 4 (KS4) results - if you are a KS4 school, you must publish the following details from your school's most recent KS4 results:

• Progress 8 score
• Percentage of pupils entering the English Baccalaureate (EBacc)
• Pupil destinations - percentage of students staying in education or employment after key stage 4
• Attainment in English and maths - percentage of pupils achieving a grade 5 or above in GCSE English and maths
• Attainment 8 score

Key stage 5 (16 to 18)

If you have a sixth form, you should publish the following details from your 16 to 18 performance tables page school or college’s most recent key stage 5 (16 to 18) performance measures as published by the Secretary of State (for most schools, the performance measures published for the 16 to 18 accountability headline measures 2018 to 2019 academic year):

• progress
• attainment
• English and mathematics progress
• retention
• destinations

Performance Tables

• If you’re an academy or college, you should publish a link to the school and college performance tables and your school or college’s performance tables page.

Curriculum

You must publish the following information about your school's curriculum.

• the content of the curriculum your school follows in each academic year for every subject, including for mandatory subjects such as Religious Education, even if it’s taught as part of another subject or subjects or is called something else
• your approach to the curriculum should also include how you are complying with your duties in the Equality Act 2010 and the Special Educational Needs and Disability Regulations 2014 about making the curriculum accessible for those with disabilities or special educational needs
• how parents or other members of the public can find out more about the curriculum your school is following
• how you meet the 16 to 19 study programme requirements (if you have a sixth form or offer education at 16 to 19)

The DfE also recommend, depending on phase of education:

• the names of any phonics or reading schemes you are using in key stage 1
• a list of the courses available to pupils at key stage 4, including GCSEs
• the 16 to 19 qualifications you offer

Remote education

You must publish information about your school’s remote education provision on your website.

Behavior policy

• You should publish details of your school's behavior policy (Further info here)

Pupil premium

Your school must publish details of how your school spends its pupil premium funding and the effect this has had on the attainment of the pupils who attract the funding. You should aim to update the online strategy statement by the end of the autumn term each year to reflect your plans for the academic year after assessing the needs of your pupils, both new and existing. For the current academic year, you must include:

• your school’s pupil premium grant allocation amount
• a summary of the main barriers to educational achievement faced by eligible pupils at the school
• how you’ll spend the pupil premium to overcome those barriers and the reasons for that approach
• how you’ll measure the effect of the pupil premium
• the date of the next review of the school’s pupil premium strategy

For the previous academic year, you must include:

• how you spent the pupil premium allocation
• the effect of the expenditure on pupils

 

Year 7 literacy and numeracy catch-up premium

If your school received year 7 literacy and numeracy catch-up premium funding, your school must publish details of how it spends the funding and the effect this has had on the attainment of the pupils who attract it. You must publish:

• details of how you spent your allocation for that year
• how your use of that allocation made a difference to the attainment of the pupils who benefit from the funding

As final payments of the Year 7 catch-up premium were made in relation to the 2019 to 2020 academic year, the 2020 to 2021 academic year will be the last year on which schools must report how this funding was used.

Coronavirus (COVID-19) catch-up premium

If your school gets the coronavirus (COVID-19) catch-up premium grant in academic year 2020 to 2021, you should publish details of:

• how it is intended that the grant will be spent
• how the effect of this expenditure on the educational attainment of those pupils at the school will be assessed

PE and sport premium for primary schools

If your school receives PE and sport premium funding, you must publish details of how your school spends this funding and the effect it has had on the pupils' PE and sport participation and attainment. You must include the following:

• the amount of premium received
• a full breakdown of how it has been spent
• the impact the school has seen on pupils’ PE and sport participation and attainment
• how the improvements will be sustainable in the future
• the percentage of pupils within their year 6 cohort that can do each of the following:
  • swim competently, confidently, and proficiently over a distance of at least 25 metres
  • use a range of strokes effectively
  • perform safe self-rescue in different water-based situation

Equality objectives

As public bodies, academies and FE institutions must comply with the public sector equality duty in the Equality Act 2010 and the Equality Act 2010 (Specific Duties and Public Authorities) Regulations 2017. This means you must publish:

• details of how your school complies with the public sector equality duty - you must update this every year
• your school’s equality objectives - you must update this at least once every 4 years

The Equality Act 2010 and Advice for Schools provides information as to how your school can demonstrate compliance. For example, including details of how your school is:

• eliminating discrimination (see the Equality Act 2010)
• advancing equality of opportunity – between people who share a protected characteristic and people who do not share it
• consulting and involving those affected by inequality, in the decisions your school or college takes to promote equality and eliminate discrimination (affected people could include parents, pupils, staff and members of the local community)

Special educational needs and disabilities (SEND)

You must publish an Information Report on your website about the implementation of your school’s policy for pupils with SEN and should update it annually.

You should update any changes occurring during the year as soon as possible. The report must comply with section 69 of the Children and Families Act 2014, meaning that it must contain:

 

• the ‘SEN Information’ specified in Schedule 1 to the Special Educational Needs and Disability Regulations 2014. (Statutory guidance on this is contained in section 6.79 to 6.82 of the Special educational needs and disability code of practice: 0 to 25 years);
• information as to:
  • the arrangements for the admission of disabled pupils
  • the steps you have taken to prevent disabled pupils from being treated less favourably than other pupils
  • the facilities you provide to help disabled pupils to access the school
  • the plan prepared under paragraph 3 of Schedule 10 to the Equality Act 2010 (accessibility plan) for:
    • increasing the extent to which disabled pupils can participate in the school’s curriculum
    • improving the physical environment of the school for the purpose of increasing the extent to which disabled pupils are able to take advantage of education and benefits, facilities or services provided or offered by the school
    • improving the delivery to disabled pupils of information which is readily accessible to pupils who are not disabled

 

Careers programme information

Academies and colleges should publish information about their careers programme. This information should relate to the delivery of careers guidance to year 8 to 13 pupils (12 to 18-year olds) and any requirement set out in your funding agreement to deliver careers guidance. For the current academic year, you should include:

• the school or college’s Careers Leader’s name, email address and telephone number
• a summary of the careers programme, including details of how pupils, parents, teachers and employers may access information about the careers programme
• how the school or college measures and assesses the impact of the careers programme on pupils
• the date of the school or college’s next review of the information published

Complaints policy

DfE recommend that all academies and colleges publish their complaints policy online.

If you’re an academy, FE or sixth-form college, DfE recommend that you publish your whistleblowing policy online.

Academies must publish any arrangements for handling complaints from parents of children with special educational needs about the support provided by the school.

Annual reports and accounts

Academies

You should publish the following financial information about your school:

• annual report
• annual audited accounts
• memorandum of association
• articles of association
• names of charity trustees and members
• funding agreement

FE and sixth-form colleges

Colleges should publish their instruments and articles of government on their website.

They should also publish their annual members’ report and audited financial statement every year.

Executive pay

DfE state that you must publish how many employees have a gross annual salary and benefits of £100,000 or more. You should publish these figures in £10,000 increments.

Trustees’ information and duties

Academies

Academy trusts must publish accessible and up to date details of governance arrangements.

FE and sixth-form colleges

You should publish the following details about your college’s governing body:

• the governing body’s structure and responsibilities
• details of any committees
• the names of all governors, including the Chair

You may wish to simply publish your governors’ handbook, which should include all this information.

Charging and remissions policies

You must publish details of your school's charging and remissions policies. The policies must include details of:

• The activities or cases for which your school will charge pupil's parents.
• The circumstances where your school will make an exception on a payment you would normally expect to receive under your charging policy.

Values and ethos

• Your website should include a statement of your school's ethos and values.

Requests for copies

If a parent requests a paper copy of the information on your school's website you must supply one.

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Full details are available at https://www.gov.uk/guidance/what-academies-free-schools-and-colleges-should-publish-online including further links to relevant information.

Other useful information for visitors on your school website

• Social media feeds - most common would be Twitter.
• Before and After school club provision - include booking systems
• Letters home - including trips and permission slips
• Secure governor areas
• Pupil pages - opportunity to get pupils to create content for the website
• Newsletters - online version and PDFs
• Information about parent teacher associations (PTA)
• Class pages
• Links to useful information - Local Authority Websites, Direct.Gov Schools and DfE.
• School meals information and how to pay
• News feeds
• Commonly asked questions
• Safeguarding Information
• Extracurricular activities
• Google Translate
• Website searches
• Filtering for news and letters

Take a look at our portfolio to see examples of website designs for schools.

We develop bespoke content managed website for our school clients - so we can develop functionality that works for each school.