Prior to this release all schools were asked to nominate staff to act as the school's editing team and the school business manager was included for every school. A training manual will be issued on request over the summer period and to all schools at the start of the new term in August.
Background
A school information site involves the inclusion of school information sites allowing information relevant to your school to be posted in one, easy-to-navigate location.
This should be viewed as an opportunity to move on from traditional school websites, where time has been spent by committed individuals creating and updating information from sources within and outwith the school to a more integrated information site where more staff can ensure the content is refreshed on a regular basis.
Rather than staff having to devote time to the design and navigation of a website the new Fife School Information Sites will allow a greater number of staff to add information relevant to their post from any computer attached to the Fife Education network without the need for any programming or web design knowledge. Initially, schools will be able to select from a pre-designed template those sub headings relevant to their school, the school badge may be added and staff can determine the colour scheme employed, normally one associated with the school colours. Flexibility will allow schools to have their own branding with the ability to add sections that are specific to their needs.
Information can then be added and deleted using FISH itself. Every Fife school already has staff trained as FISH updaters and the number of staff trained will be increased (a decision devolved to each school's senior management team in discussion with the FISH Education team) to include teachers wishing to add information such as examples of pupil work, course outlines and parents’ events.
In addition, other Education personnel with FISH editor or updater rights will be able to add items such as school booklets, policies, performance information, school holidays and school cluster information into a school's information site. This sharing and contribution of information will extend to other Council services.
The school information site will also be accessible from the Internet but the staff making the initial input within FISH will control the content displayed externally. Fife schools will have an Internet address in the form http://www.schoolname.fife.sch.uk and schools will be notified as to their unique address when the site is released to the Internet.
In Brief
An information site is a window into a school. It is an opportunity to celebrate a school's success and pupils' achievements. The target audience is likely to include current pupils, prospective pupils, parents, prospective parents, teachers considering applying for a post at your establishment and members of the local community.
The school information site can be:
- a live brochure, a display board, a newsletter, an events diary and a means of building learning communities.
- co-located on the Internet which allows visitors to communicate with you from any where in the world at any time!
- where parents and prospective pupils can view children's work, read newsletters, find out the date and time of events, check homework schedules and become involved in the school community.
- a gateway so that schools can form links around the world, and project their strengths and ethos to all who visit the site.
- content can be aligned to the Freedom of Information (FOI) Scheme of Publication. Thus allowing staff to retrieve information in response to an FOI request or to refer those making the FOI request to the relevant information.
- where high-quality materials can be posted and viewed by any visitor.
- a source of information about the Fife Education Service and living in Fife.