Digital services for schools

A school website does several jobs at once. It is the first impression for prospective families, the place current parents check term dates and letters, and the place where certain information has to be published by law. It also has to work for every family, including parents and pupils with disabilities. WE-DEV builds and supports websites, parent apps and newsletters for primary and secondary schools, academies, multi-academy trusts and independent schools across the UK. Most of the work is delivered remotely; our team is based in St Albans and visits schools in London and the Home Counties when that helps.

What we offer schools

School website design and redesign

We build school websites that parents find easy to use and office staff find easy to update. A typical site has clear sections for admissions, term dates, news, clubs, curriculum, policies and statutory information, with an editor that does not need a training day.

In England, maintained schools and academies are expected to publish specific information online, such as admissions arrangements, curriculum details, key policies and performance information, and the Department for Education publishes separate guidance for each type of school. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have their own requirements. We build templates for these sections and go through the current guidance with you before launch, because the lists change and the guidance, not our checklist, is what counts.

If you already have a site with one of the specialist school-website providers, we move your pages, news, documents and images across and set up redirects, so links in old letters and search results keep working.

Accessibility

Every template is built to WCAG 2.2 level AA. The Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) Accessibility Regulations 2018 give schools and nurseries a partial exemption, but content needed for essential online administrative functions, such as admissions information and forms, remains in scope. Equality law (the Equality Act 2010 in Great Britain, and disability discrimination legislation in Northern Ireland) applies to everything you publish, and to independent schools as well as state schools. Building the whole site to WCAG 2.2 AA is the simplest way to cover all of that, and we can help you write an accessibility statement. Our guide to website accessibility and UK law explains the detail.

Websites for multi-academy trusts

A trust usually needs a trust website plus a site for each school. We normally recommend one shared theme with per-school colours, logos and menus, rather than separate builds. Each school keeps its own identity, staff can only edit their own school’s pages, updates are done once for everyone, and governors approve one supplier rather than several. It also costs noticeably less to maintain.

Custom school apps

A dedicated app can put the things parents check most in one place: a calendar of events, push notifications for closures and reminders, news, letters and links to the systems you already use. We build apps in Flutter for iOS and Android from one codebase, and connect them to your website or existing tools through their APIs where those tools allow it. See mobile app development.

On-demand technical support

Not every school has someone with time to look after the website. We handle updates, backups and security, add new pages, fix problems and help you connect new digital tools. You buy hours in advance and use them when you need them. Prepaid hours never expire, which suits budgets set once a year.

Monthly newsletters

We design email and web newsletters in your school’s colours that read well on a phone, and we can produce them each month from the news and photos you send us. Families stay informed without adding another job to the office’s list.

Specialist photography

Through our partner photographer, we can arrange school portraits, event photography and images for your website and prospectus. Our partner has experience photographing children with special educational needs (SEN) and works at a pace that suits each child. Consent and image use are agreed with you in advance, in line with your safeguarding and data protection policies. Photography is available for schools within reach of our partner, mainly London and the Home Counties, so ask us if you are further away.

Safeguarding and data protection

Schools hold sensitive information about children, and suppliers should treat it that way.

• Data protection by design. Forms collect only what they need, personal data is kept on UK or adequately protected servers, and we sign a data processing agreement under UK GDPR whenever we handle personal data on your behalf.
• Images and consent. We set up galleries and news posts that respect parental consent choices and avoid publishing children’s full names alongside photos.
• Supplier checks. In England, Keeping children safe in education (KCSIE) expects schools to think about online safety and about which outside organisations have access to their systems. We answer supplier questionnaires in writing and tell you exactly who on our side can access what.
• Security. The DfE’s digital and technology standards for schools set expectations on cyber security, including backups and multi-factor authentication. Your website should not be the weak point, so sites run behind Cloudflare, with a firewall, login protection, two-factor authentication for staff accounts and automatic backups.

Working with schools across the UK

Remote by default, in person when it helps. We start with a video call with the head, the business manager and the staff who will update the site. You review progress on a staging site, and we run staff training over a screen-share and record it, so a new office manager next September can watch it too.

Tailored to your school. A small village primary and a large secondary academy need very different things. We listen first, propose only what you need, and set out costs clearly so they can go to governors or the trust board.

Built to last. Your website runs on WordPress with a hand-built theme and no page builders, so it stays fast and can be maintained by any competent WordPress developer. Once the project is paid for, the site and its content belong to the school.

Costs

All prices exclude VAT. Whether your school can recover the VAT depends on its status, so check with your business manager or finance team.

What	Price
Pro Website package: 10 pages with a content management system	£750
Elite Website package: up to 15 pages, custom forms, newsletter sign-up and newsfeed	£999
Website design, by the hour	£45
WordPress development, by the hour	£50
Support block, e.g. 20 hours of WordPress development (15 % off)	£850 (£1,020 incl. VAT)
Parent app (Flutter, iOS and Android)	Written quote; mobile development is £70 an hour

Hourly discounts run from 5 % for 10 hours to 25 % for 100 hours. As a rule of thumb, a primary school is usually well served by the Pro Website plus a block of support hours. Secondary schools and trusts with a lot of statutory content tend to need the Elite package or a custom quote. See our website packages and prepaid hours for the full details.

Let’s talk

If your school website needs a refresh, or you want to know what an app or a support arrangement would involve, we are happy to arrange a call or, if you are within reach, a visit. Contact us or call +44 (0)1727 309243. You can also read about our approach to content management systems and UX design.