Your school website: a window to your school!
School websites perform an essential function of communicating a school’s vision and ethos. They are also a source of vital information for parents, a place where school policies and performance data are shared.
It has been a statutory requirement since September 2012 for schools to publish key information on their websites and it is the first place checked by Ofsted prior to an inspection commencing. If a website is not up to date, this may give inspectors cause for concern, leading to additional specific inquiries right at the beginning of their visit.
If you are a maintained school there is a compliance checklist available on the DfE site:
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/what-maintained-schools-must-publish-online
Academies and Free Schools need to check their funding agreements to find out what they are required to publish.
A number of telephone calls received by the Local Authority, as well as school inspection reports and a recent audit carried out by the SEND team, have highlighted varying degrees of compliance with the statutory requirements, with some incorrect information being given and gaps in information being provided.
In particular we would like to highlight the following:
Complaints Policy
- Is there one? If the school have adopted the Warwickshire model policy, has it been customised to the school’s profile?
- Is the policy up to date? Since the implementation of Section 45 of the Education Act 2011, on 1 August 2012, the Local Authority (LA) no longer has any power or duty to intervene in school complaints – does the policy mention this?
DfE Performance Data
- The school Data Dashboard was closed on September 30th. Has this been deleted and links to the school comparison tool added?
What should we do now?
Governor Services suggests that one or two governors should carry out a monitoring exercise using the attached checklist to ensure that all the relevant information is published or correctly signposted.
To ensure all schools are compliant, Governor Services will be conducting a school website audit and will be in touch with any school that doesn’t comply in the New Year.
If Governors need any clarification on school website requirements, please contact Governor Services on 01926 745120 or email governors@warwickshire.gov.uk
SEN and Disability Requirements
The recent audit highlighted the following statutory requirements missing from school websites:
- The admission arrangements for pupils with SEN or disabilities – linking to the WCC Admissions’ page or detailing arrangements for pupils with statements / EHCPs is not sufficient. Schools must ensure that prospective pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities, including long term medical conditions are not treated less favourably or unfairly in the admissions' process.
- The steps taken to prevent pupils with SEND from being treated less favourably than other pupils.
- Details of the school’s access facilities for pupils with SEND.
- The school’s Accessibility Plan, showing how the school is planning to increase access over time for pupils with disabilities.
Our recent audit found that many Access Plans had not been reviewed and updated for several years, were not resourced and did not cover the three required areas, i.e. how the school is:
- increasing the extent to which disabled pupils can participate in the curriculum;
- improving the physical environment of schools to enable those with disabilities to take better advantage of education, benefits, facilities and services provided; and
- improving the availability of accessible information to those with disabilities.
For more advice and to access a Model Accessibility Plan:
http://www.warwickshire.gov.uk/schoolsdisabilityequality
School SEN Information Reports
Although our recent audit found all but one school had an SEN Information Report, very few reports met the statutory requirements. The most common gaps were:
Hopefully these are three requirements which can be fixed really quickly.
“Guidance on Special Toileting Needs in Schools and Early Years’ Settings”
Reminder to schools and settings that the Local Authority’s guidance for those learners with toileting needs can be found on the ‘Disability equality – statutory duties for schools’ webpage:
https://apps.warwickshire.gov.uk/api/documents/WCCC-1090-123