Creating a digital platform for educating future stars

Responsive Website Design - Homepage Design - St Patrick’s Boys’ National School

Responsive Website Design - Emergency Banners on Mobile - St Patrick’s Boys’ National School

Responsive Website Design - Optional Emergency Banners, depending on importance of message - St Patrick’s Boys’ National School

Responsive Website Design - Online Application Form on a Tablet - St Patrick’s Boys’ National School

Responsive Website Design - Our School page on Desktop - St Patrick’s Boys’ National School

Responsive Website Design - Make an Appointment Page on Laptop - St Patrick’s Boys’ National School

Responsive Website Design - News Page on Mobile - St Patrick’s Boys’ National School

Responsive Website Design - FAQ's Page on Laptop - St Patrick’s Boys’ National School

Responsive Website Design - Mobile Navigation - St Patrick’s Boys’ National School

St Patrick’s Boys’ National School

St Patrick’s Boys’ National School (Hollypark) is a primary national school located in the parish of Foxrock in Dublin. It caters for approx. 650 primary school boys. The Principal of the school approached us in early 2020 looking to redesign the school website with a fresh and clear design. The website also needed to be easy to use, both for the visitor and the school staff who maintain the website content.

Challenge

The school’s old website was cluttered and some of the content was poorly presented and difficult to read. The website suffered from a lack of maintenance over the years, resulting in a breakdown in the design and layout. Some of the images had been accidentally deleted resulting in numerous broken image links. The school needed a new clean design, that was clear and easy to read. The content editing experience needed to be overhauled too, making it easier for editors to add/edit content without the ability of accidentally deleting content. A robust back-up facility was also required.

Covid19

While we were close to the end of the design process, Covid19 hit. We were actually in the Principal’s office in March 2020 presenting our final designs for the new website when the government announced that schools would be closing the following day. This announcement resulted in a new sense of urgency to get the new website built and live, so the school had a working digital platform to communicate with the boys and their parents.

Solution

We pulled out all the stops and we got the new website built in less than 2 weeks. So by the time the government announced that schools would not be reopening and the boys would be learning remotely, the new website was live. This allowed the school to post remote learning material for all the boys to work from home.

Once this initial stage was up and running, additional facilities were added to the website. Applications for Junior Infants 2021 and beyond are now handled by the website. No more camping out overnight for parents hoping for a place for their son. The application system opened at 8am and the website easily handled all the concurrent applications with ease. The new application system received a very positive response from both the school staff and parents alike.

In addition, due to Covid19, nobody is allowed into the school without an appointment. So we built a Make an Appointment form on the website. A parent can choose their son’s teacher on the form, so their appointment request/details are sent directly to the correct teacher. This has resulted in a significant drop in calls to the school secretary, freeing her time to carry out her normal duties.

Finally, we added a three tired notification banner to the home page. This allows the school to optionally post a message at the top of the home page. The banner colour is automatically coloured based on the urgency of the message.

Visit the website www.hollyparkbns.ie