Modernising and updating our website has been on the to do list for a very long time. One of the problems has been the difficulty we have had in determining just what the purpose of a website is when there are so many other ways of communicating - Email, Blog, Twitter, Facebook etc.
Concern about communication has been an ongoing "bugbear" for some parents - with some complaining that they don't receive enough information and others complaining there is too much. In this day and age, just as we want to provide personalised learning programmes for our students, so people expect to be able to receive communications in the way that suits them best . They want personalised communication. Facebookers, for example, are happy to receive information as it becomes available. Others want to be able to catch up on all the communication from the school in one go. Hence the Amesbury Digest.
Our goal has been to think of a way to ensure that all parents are able to access information in the way that works best for them and to create a one stop shop where everything can be accessed in one place. We knew we were well on the way to achieving this goal when we discovered Hail - which we use as our communication hub. This enables us to create content and make it continually available to parents and then use the articles to create digests. Through Hail, we are able to push content out quickly and easily to Email, Facebook, Twitter and to our Blogs.
So what is the role of our new website? Well....it contains static information about our school - information that won't change frequently. It will definitely be the place for prospective parents and interested parties to find information about our school. But for parents, it will also be the go-to place for all information - to see the latest notices, order lunches and make bookings, for example. All the content in the Hail communication hub will be available on our website. Latest publications such as Amesbury Digests will be available on the Homepage of the website as will articles about learning at Amesbury School. Events, news and notices will also be available on our new website under the News and Events tag.
The thing about personalised learning is that we can create the programmes that target the needs of students, but in the end whether students actually learn is up to them - fortunately, children are eager learners. The same is true of access to information. We can provide all the information so that parents can access it in multiple different ways. But in the end it is up to the user to access and use the information. However, to assist people get to grips with the new website, we will hold some brief sessions to point out where important information is that parents might wish to access.
We hope you will enjoy the new website. A big thanks to Firebrand for being so great to work with and to Urs for facilitating the work with Firebrand and ensuring that 2015 was not yet another year when the website was not upgraded! We will let you know when the big launch is taking place.
