New School Website Requirements – What They Are and What You Need To Do

In May 2024, the Department for Education (DfE) released their most significant update to school website requirements in recent years. While you may already meet many of the updated standards, it’s essential to cross-check your website with these new requirements and take action where necessary. Here’s a breakdown of everything you need to know.

What update did the DfE release regarding school website requirements?

The DfE released this statement:

“Reformatted the guidance to improve usability. Added a new section on ‘Pay gap reporting’, updated the ‘Test, exam and assessment results’ and included information about publishing a music development plan in the ‘Curriculum’ section.”

Published 15 May 2024 

Before we get into the details of what you now need to include on your school’s website, let’s take a look at how this update makes things a lot easier:

1. The requirements are now placed in alphabetical order making the guidelines more user-friendly
2. To make the guidelines easier to use, some elements have been combined, such as listing your school’s details on the benchmarking service, which is now part of the ‘Test, exam and assessment results’ section.
3. Specific sections such as ‘what academies must publish online’ are included in each requirement.

What are the new school website requirements?

All schools now must meet two new requirements:

New Section: Pay Gap Reporting

This is now a mandatory requirement for all schools and trusts with over 250 employees. However if your school has fewer employees, you are encouraged to comply voluntarily.

Here are the requirements directly from the DfE:

What schools with 250 or more employees must publish

Schools with 250 or more employees must, in line with the Equality Act 2010 (Gender Pay Gap Information) Regulations 2017:

• report their gender pay gap information to the government via the gender pay gap service
• publish this information in a prominent place on their website within one year of their ‘snapshot date’, which, for most public authority employers, will be 31 March

Statutory guidance on the gender pay gap information employers must report is available.

What schools with 250 or more employees may wish to publish

Most public authority employers, including schools, do not need to publish a written statement on their public-facing website.

However, schools with 250 or more employees may wish to publish:

• a supporting narrative to explain their gender pay gap
• an action plan that sets out how they plan to address it

What schools with fewer than 250 employees should publish

Schools with fewer than 250 employees:

• are not required to comply with the regulations, but should give serious consideration to the business benefits of doing so.

Guidance on who counts as an employee is available.

For schools interested in looking at their ethnicity pay gap, guidance for employers on voluntary ethnicity pay reporting is also available.

Amended Section: Music Requirement Added to the Curriculum Section

All schools must publish their ‘music development plan’ alongside their music curriculum. The DfE has supplied a template to make this straightforward.

Here are the requirements directly from the DfE:

Alongside the content of their music curriculum, all schools are expected to publish information about their music development plan. A template is available to support with this.

The best practices for implementing the new requirements

We recommend that you treat the requirements as mandatory – even if the requirement is listed as ‘should’ on the DfE requirements, it’s best to treat it as a ‘must’ to ensure best practice and that your website is fully robust and compliant.

It’s also worth noting that for trusts, there is a broadening of responsibilities. For example, admission arrangements are now clearly a trust-level responsibility. 

Where should you be focusing your efforts?

To keep your school’s website compliant, we recommend the following steps:

• Carry out an immediate audit: This will help you identify areas that need updating
• Put together an action plan: Develop a plan with deadlines and assigned tasks to address what you find in your audit
• Schedule annual reviews: Regularly reviewing your website and making sure updates are implemented is the best way to ensure ongoing compliance
• Be prepared for future changes: Staying proactive means you can accommodate further updates more smoothly.

How can Happy2Host Education help you?

To help keep up to date with the changes, we’ve created a checklist with all the latest requirements included. Broken down into Essentials, Desirable and Expert, you can easily cross-check the guidelines with your website and tick them off as you go. Complete the form below to receive this vital checklist:

Short on time or need an extra pair of eyes to review your website? We can carry out a full audit of your school’s website and generate a report that highlights areas to focus on for improvement – contact us to find out more.