Recent Projects

Background & Challenges

In 2003 parents and carers across the London Borough of Lambeth set up the Parent Promoters Foundation in response to community concern over the lack of secondary school places in the borough. After tireless lobbying and campaigning, government funding was made available and The Elmgreen School was born. Initially based on a temporary site, the school finally moved into their state of the art new building in September 2009 and local MP Tessa Jowell officially opened The Elmgreen School on February 5th 2010. The need to engage parents in school life was crucial due to their role in setting it up and a new website was the most obvious way to address that.

The school’s vision was clear; they wanted a clean and modern looking website to tie in with the look and feel of the brand new school building. As the school grows, they want more people to get involved with using the website so a content management system that was easy to use was another key requirement.

Solution & Benefits

The Elmgreen School first met School Website at London’s annual BETT Show and after seeing our powerful yet simple to use CMS in action and learning how we would tackle such a project, felt confident it was the best partnership to produce a cutting edge website to be proud of.

Head of ICT Ross Fryer was in charge of the project at the school’s end. He explained, "Some school websites aren’t up to the standard of a commercial website. We wanted it to be as good as anything else out there and felt School Website’s approach could deliver this. The CMS was the best feature for me. If you can use a word processor then you can use the CMS – that is how easy it is."

The modern feel of the school is reflected in the clean, minimalistic design. The quick links on the homepage make important information instantly accessible for a variety of audiences. The modern attitude of the school is reflected in the way they embrace new technology and links to their Twitter page and Virtual Learning Environment are also prominently displayed. Overall the website acts as a positive marketing tool for Elmgreen School, a vital concern for Mr Fryer; "we are a business and more and more schools are cottoning on to that view. There is a wide selection of schools in London and parents have choices, you can’t sit back and wait for the pupils to come to you."

http://www.the-elmgreen-school.org.uk/

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