DfE Compliance: Displaying your curriculum on your school website

This is quite a lot to process – but using built-in content templates and logical navigation options, you can ensure that this information is displayed quickly, easily and efficiently and can be accessible by all of your key stakeholders.  

Where your curriculum content should sit on your website 

Many of our schools choose to either have a top-level navigation menu called ‘Curriculum’ which takes you directly to the content or they opt for a top-level menu item called Academics or Learning which then has a sub-page called Curriculum, along with other elements of teaching information such as forest school, extracurricular, staff lists etc.  

Wherever you choose to place your content, it’s important that it is easily signposted from the homepage and accessible within a maximum of 3 clicks.  

As well as providing a good user experience (UX), this will also allow parents and other members of the public to find out more about the curriculum your school is following.  

How to display your curriculum content on the page 

Once you’ve chosen the location for your curriculum area – you then need to determine how to display the content in a way that is easy to read and allows you to share information on each different subject that you teach.  Some of the best ways to do this are:  

Using content templates; such as accordions 

Helena Romanes School has all the subject information for each key stage within one page but the content is broken down into accordions. Accordions allow you to see all of the topics at once, but give you the choice to read more in depth on the subject you’re interested in, without leaving the page. All you have to do is click the title box and it will drop-open to reveal more content.  

Individual pages for each content subject

St George’s is a great example of how you can use an individual page for each subject within your website. 

When you click into a specific subject page from the navigation menu, there is then a quote and photo of the pupils studying that topic – providing social proof and real-world context – followed by accordion sections – so it’s easy to jump to the information you want to read.  

In their English section, they have created an accordion within the page about phonics, to easily cover the specific point in the guidance about sharing the names of any phonics or reading schemes you’re using in key stage 1. 

Cottingham High School & Sixth Form has a similar style of layout whereby you can view individual subject pages. Cottingham High break their content down by subject and then split it into KS3 and KS4 sections, emphasising their offering for each stage with videos and links. Tetherdown School take all of this a step further, by not only having dedicated pages for each subject within their Teaching and Learning area, but also sharing information on curriculum overviews, expectations, SEND requirements and remote learning as well.  

Sub-navigation grids 

Another way of displaying your subjects is through a sub-nav grid, which whilst still requiring a page per subject, gives a more aesthetic overview than just a textual list.  

A great example of this is Copleston High School - each subject is displayed as a tile in a grid, so you can get a full overview of the whole curriculum, before choosing which page you wish to view. Within each page, they then share links, PDFs and imagery, to complement the information shared.  

Braidwood Trust School for the Deaf also have a tiled sub-navigation grid to display their subjects, but they have chosen to lay their sub-pages out in a tabular fashion, sharing details about the staff who teach the subject, what is covered at each Key Stage, further reading information and future careers associated with each subject. 

Lutterworth High have also chosen to use the sub-nav grid option, but instead of breaking their content down by subject like the other examples, they break theirs down by key stage area.  

They then show all of the subjects on one page, using accordions to ensure the page doesn’t endlessly scroll and is user friendly.  

Bespoke curriculum areas 

If you are really passionate about your curriculum, you may choose to invest in a bespoke  area which gives you more individuality in order to present your content in a unique way.  

Larkmead School have a fantastic bespoke curriculum area with a custom design and filters in order to segment their content by area and then by subject within.  

In summary: 

Thinking about updating your website?

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