What Parents Actually Want From a School Website
(From Someone Who Used to Answer Their Questions)
Before I designed websites for schools and nurseries, I worked in school admissions. For years, my job was to answer the phone, reply to the enquiry emails, and sit across the table from parents who were trying to work out if a school was the right fit for their child.
That experience changed the way I think about school websites completely. Because here's the thing: most of the questions parents ask on the phone are questions their website should already be answering.
The Questions Parents Actually Ask
After enough conversations, you start to notice the same handful of questions coming up again and again:
"Can we come and visit before we decide?"
If a website doesn't make the visiting process obvious, parents assume it's complicated or unwelcoming."What are the fees, and what's actually included?"
Vague or hidden fee information doesn't protect a school from awkward conversations later; it just delays them."Is this the right fit for my child?"
Parents are looking for reassurance as much as information. A generic site full of stock photography doesn't give it to them."What happens after we enquire?"
If a parent doesn't know what comes next, they'll often go quiet rather than follow up."What are the term dates, and how do I get in touch?"
Simple, practical questions that still get buried on too many school sites.
None of this is complicated. But it does mean a school website needs to be built with the parent's actual worries in mind, not just a list of facilities and a photo gallery.
What “Admissions-First” Website Design Actually Looks Like
In practice, this approach means a few things stay non-negotiable on every school or nursery site I build:
A clear, visible path to booking a visit or making an enquiry
Plain-English answers to the questions admissions teams get asked most
Funding and fee information written for parents, not just for compliance
A clear next step after every enquiry, so no one is left wondering what happens now
It's a small shift in thinking, but it changes the entire website; from something that just describes the school to something that does part of the admissions team's job before the phone even rings.
For Nurseries: The Funding Problem
Nurseries have an extra layer schools don't: government childcare funding. If you've ever tried to explain funded hours to a parent, you'll know it's one of the most confusing parts of enrolling a child in early years education, and one of the easiest places for a website to lose someone's trust.
I recently worked on exactly this for a nursery introducing places for babies from 6 months old. Getting this right meant going well beyond the legal minimum, covering how funding stretches across the year, what happens when hours need reconfirming, and how weekly hour caps actually work in practice.
The goal wasn't just compliance. It was making sure a parent could read the page once and actually understand what they were entitled to, without needing to ring the office to have it explained.
Seeing It in Practice
I recently applied this thinking to a full website project for Yarrells School & Nursery - my former employer, where I worked in both marketing and admissions before moving into web design. That combination mattered: the marketing background shaped how the content was structured for search, while the admissions experience shaped what it actually said.
The result is a site of over 60 pages, fully migrated and rewritten with SEO built in from the ground up, meaning the right pages show up for the questions parents are actually searching for, not just the ones a school assumes matter. It includes a completely rebuilt funding section and a Funding Quick Guide, all built around the real questions parents ask.
Just as important: it's built so the school's own administration team can update it themselves. They can add new pages, update term dates, review policies, and add weekly newsletters and menus, all without needing to come back to a developer for every small change. A website that admissions-first thinking built still has to be one that busy school staff can actually keep up to date.
You can see the result at yarrells.co.uk.
Why Schools Choose to Work With Me
A new website doesn't have to cost the earth, and it doesn't have to mean losing control of your own site either.
Here's how I keep it simple and affordable for schools and nurseries:
A flat rate of £30 an hour — no inflated “agency” pricing, and you only pay for the time the work actually takes
You can run it yourself afterwards — I'll teach you and your team how to update the site, so you're never stuck waiting on a developer for small changes
You supply the photos, videos and content — and if you need help putting that together, I can support you with that too
No unnecessary extras — you're paying for a website that works for your parents and your admissions team, not for jargon or add-ons you'll never use
The aim is a website that's genuinely yours: one your own staff can look after, built by someone who understands what a school or nursery website actually needs to do.
If your school or nursery website is still answering the questions you think matter, rather than the ones parents are actually asking, it might be worth a second look.
I offer a free 15-minute website review for schools and nurseries — get in touch and I'll point out three things your current site could be doing better.
Shore Design Dorset