Updating the School Website St George’s C of E (V.A.) Primary School

General Concepts In the past we thought of a website as a collection of pages. We needed to update a page and then link to it from somewhere else on the website. Updating a page was difficult – it was hard to format the text and include pictures and be sure that it would then appear correctly to others viewing the pages.

General Concepts We need to think differently now. Our school website has a theme which automatically formats the pages. The theme has been set up with various ‘containers’ to store content. All we need to do is to put content in the ‘container’ and the website will present it for us. This is much a much quicker process and keeps what others view consistent.

Content Posts Photo Albums Photographs Links Documents Comments

Logging On Each user has their own unique user name e.g. mrhewitt. Your user name will appear at the bottom of any post you add. You can log on directly from the website near the bottom of any page.

Logging On Log in and you will be taken to the dashboard.

Dashboard Clicking here will take you back to the website.

Dashboard As you hover over the menu at the left hand side of the dashboard new options appear.

Post The content you are most likely to add is a post. A post is a piece of information you wish to display on the website. It may be e.g. a news item or a link to a document that has been recently placed on the website.

Post Its title will appear in the Recent Posts widget in the sidebar down the left hand side of the website if it is one of the latest five posts.

Adding A Post Hover over Posts in the left hand menu of the dashboard and click Add New.

Adding A Post Enter the title (please use capital letters at the start of each word). Enter the text you wish to write. Choose the Category for the Post – this is the ‘container’ for the post and how the website knows which page to display the post on. Typically you will choose your class but you can put it in more than one category e.g. in News as well.

Photographs Photographs are the other content you are likely to want to add. Before you add photos, they need to be stored in a folder your computer can access. First, you need to add an Album for the photographs.

Adding An Album Hover over Photo Albums in the left hand menu of the dashboard and click Album Admin.

Adding An Album Hover over Photo Albums in the left hand menu of the dashboard and click Album Admin.

Adding An Album This is a list of all the current Albums – you may need the ID later.

Adding An Album Enter the name (please use capital letters at the start of each word). Choose the parent album. Typically you will choose your class but you could put it in e.g. Whole School. Note that you don’t need to save the album – that happens automatically.

Photographs Now, you can upload photographs to the album. Click on Upload Photos.

Uploading Photos There are three ways to upload photos. Whichever way you choose, ensure that you choose the album to upload them into.

Photographs Photo albums automatically appear in the Photo Albums area of the website.

Photographs In Posts But, you can also add them to a Post as a slideshow. Simply add the following text to your post – [wppa type="slideonly" album="xx"][/wppa] You will need the album number of the album you wish to include.

Adding A Link Hover over Links in the left hand menu of the dashboard and click Add New.

Adding A Link Enter the name (please use capital letters at the start of each word). Enter the web address of the link. Choose the Category for the Link – this is the ‘container’ for the link and how the website knows which page to display the post on. You can put a link in more than one category.

Link Categories Bullying Information (for documents to be included on the Anti-Bullying page). Child Web Links (used for links on the children’s Launchpad – note that these links need pictures). Derbyshire Web Links (used as a category on the Links For Parents page). Government Web Links (used as a category on the Links For Parents page). Governor Links (list of links on School Governor page). High Peak Web Links (used as a category on the Links For Parents page). New Mills Web Links (used as a category on the Links For Parents page). Other Web Links (used as a category on the Links For Parents page). Quick Links (used for links on the homepage) Report Abuse (do not use – used as a category for the Report Abuse link on the sidebar)

Link Categories School Curriculum Information (used as a category on the Parents Information page). School Forms (used as a category on the Parents Information page). School Information (used as a category on the Parents Information page). School Policies (used as a category on the Parents Information page). School Prospectus (used as a category on the Parents Information page). School Web Links (used as a category on the Links For Parents page). Staff Information (for documents to be included on the Staff Links page – note that this document is in this category). Staff Web Links (used for links on the Staff Links page – note that these links need pictures). Website Links (a default category – do not use).

Adding A Document Hover over Media in the left hand menu of the dashboard and click Add New.

Adding A Document Add the document to the library. Then go in to the Media Library to see all the media.

Media Library

Selecting A Document Click on the document you want to use. Select the url of the document and copy it (Ctrl-C).

Using A Document You can now use the url in a Post or in a Link and a hyperlink to the document will be included on the website.

Comments When you add a post, you can allow visitors to post comments. The is useful if the children are blogging or if you want comments on a particular subject. No comments appear on the site until they have been approved.

Quick Editing While you are logged on, an ‘edit’ link will appear next to the content on the website. You can go directly to this content by clicking on the ‘edit’ link.

Quick Editing By using this and the link to go the website on the dashboard, you can flip between posting and viewing at how it looks on the web site without needing to keep logging in and out.