Tudor Grange Academies Trust is a multiple academy trust in the Midlands. Consisting of twelve schools: five secondary, one all-through academy and six primary academies.
I have been working with TGAT for several years, and after careful consideration, we collectively determined that a website refresh was necessary. One of the primary catalysts for this decision was the introduction of WordPress's Gutenberg editor, which presented exciting opportunities for enhancing their websites.
With the new Gutenberg editor, we recognised the potential to give staff members at each school the ability to make website amendments more efficiently and promptly. By entrusting the website amendments to staff members, we aimed to leverage their expertise and familiarity with their respective schools. This approach increased the efficiency of website maintenance and fostered a sense of ownership, allowing them to contribute directly to the online representation of their schools.
As part of the technical refresh, I provided training and support to all website editors. The training sessions covered the basics of the editor, as well as more advanced features, enabling staff to handle a range of amendments easily.
Project Phases
The project was divided into multiple phases to allow feedback to help with the next phase.
During the project’s initial phase, we focused on establishing the content framework for school websites. To accomplish this, we embarked on a process of identifying the existing website pages that we intended to retain and align with the rest of the schools within the trust. This analysis revealed notable disparities between the primary and secondary phases, prompting us to devise separate frameworks for each.
These guidelines ensured consistency and uniformity across all school websites, allowing for a smoother transition onto the new platform. By outlining the necessary features and content structure, we aimed to provide a seamless user experience for visitors and ensure that the websites effectively represented each school in the trust.
While retaining the website’s overall design from the previous version, I introduced a simplified design to enhance the ease of maintenance for website editors. The goal was to streamline the editing process and make it more user-friendly, allowing editors to manage and update the website more efficiently. I aimed to reduce complexities and provide a more intuitive experience for website editors while ensuring the website maintained its familiar design for visitors.
After the design concept was approved, the actual development of the websites began. The focus during this phase was on implementing all the identified features and ensuring the websites were easy to maintain. The development process adhered to website standards and guidelines, ensuring compatibility across different devices and browsers.
The next step after the theme development was completed was setting up the server. The server is config to handle a lot of non-logged-in visitors (students, parents and the wider community) by serving them a cached version of your web pages. This allows your websites to load quickly without over-purchasing server capacity.
After preparing the server, the main trust website was migrated to the new platform. The trust website offered additional functionality that all the school websites could utilise. Among these features was the capability to directly extract content from the trust website. This feature proved convenient for content that could be generated once on the trust website and distributed across all school websites.
The migration process involved transferring each website onto the new platform individually. This approach enabled me to allocate sufficient time and attention to each school's website individually, ensuring that any custom requirements they had could be effectively implemented.
The process for this phase typically followed a structured workflow. Here is a breakdown of the steps involved:
- Content audit and new structure - The first step was identifying any missing content from the trust content guidelines agreed in phase 1.
- Setup preview website and initial content meeting - The next step was sending a private preview website to staff at the school to review and then arrange a meeting to discuss any further changes.
- Website launch - Make the website live
The project included a support package that has been renewed this year. The support package comprises allocated hours that authorised staff members can utilise to make necessary adjustments to their website. It also ensures that the websites are regularly updated and security packages are promptly installed.