St
James Primary School is a popular primary school
based in Armitage, Staffordshire (UK).
First established in 1915, the school
caters for children from the ages of 4 to 11, and have
been serving their community for over 90 years.
Above: Scaled
down screen-shot of the site's front page
We
were delighted to team up with the enthusiastic staff
and pupils of St James Primary School in order to develop
an outstanding and highly commended Web resource for the
benefit of both pupils and parents alike. This process
entailed all of the following aspects:
Intelligent
content planning:For this
project we were given a large amount of potential content
in various formats. This included print & disk which
we judiciously organised, transcribed and edited into
easily manageable quantities and specific subject matter
for prospective use within the site.
Before
we begin to even contemplate the design or structure
of any Website we carefully address the issue of how
the content will be suitably organised and eventually
presented online. Good content planning consequently
ensures that we design accessible Websites with clear-cut
navigation and uncomplicated
well laid out
structures. As a result
visitors are able to find the information they want
without any apprehension, delay or frustration.
Original
custom design & build:Embracing
St James's existing school colours, we set about
creating a site that would engaging and useful
to both children and adults. As
with all of our work, this site was painstakingly
custom crafted from the ground up to encompass
the school's every need.
Custom
graphics and artwork:Various original key
graphics & images were created for this Website.
Logo
recreation:The
schools existing emblem was sensitively recreated
to create a definitive branding for the school.
As well as being used within our Website design,
our new logo artwork has been subsequently used
on the schools computer desktops and professionally
printed onto several St.James branded fund raising
products.
Image
scanning & formating:
Scores of slides and photographs were scanned
in and appropriately formatted for use within
the sites gallery area. Various images were also
painstakingly enhanced and manipulated for inclusion
within the site.
Custom
scripting & programming:All of our Websites utilise
in-house custom written scripting / programming making
everything work smoothly behind the scenes. As well
as the custom programmed games alredy mentioned, this
particular site utilises a custom written enquiry form
providing a friendly and effortless way for parents
to get in touch with the school...
When
the site's enquiry form is used, the contents of the
form are immediately sent to the school, whilst an automated
"thank you" response is also courteously sent
out to the enquirers email address.Our
enquiry form feature also incorporates various sophisticated
anti-spam filters. Six
custom created Flash games:As a splash of fun for the
site we created SIX fast
loading games using Macromedia
Flash. These games serve to be fun,
whilst also being educational,
effectively helping to develop the children's hand to
eye co-ordination / computer and even literacy skills. In
the "want it now!"
world of the Web, few surfers are willing to wait whilst
a Flash feature loads. Accordingly we are always mindful
to create FAST loading and efficiently designed Flash
features, ensuring the greatest experience for all Web
surfers. Pupil
involvement:With
the help of the enthusiastic children at St James, one
particular game that we created was a classic 'word
search' with 28 puzzle variations. To achieve this,
we first gave a selected class a set of Akumenta word
search design guides / grids on paper. They then filled
out the grids with their own imaginative choice of subjects
and words. Once the children had created their 28 different
word puzzles on paper we then cleverly assimilated them
(along with each authors name) into our interactive
online game, so as to form part of St James Website.
In-house
development: As with all
of our work, every element of these games was created
from scratch and developed entirely in-house by the
Akumenta team, including the original sound tracks.
Additional
special Flash custom features:As
well as the Flash games described above, we also
created two fairly simple but also rather unique
extra features for this site: Historical
comparison: After
being handed a wonderful old photographic postcard
of the school, dated some time around 1910, we
could not resist visiting what is now Longdon's
village hall and taking an up-to-date photograph
from exactly the same spot where the original
photographer must have set up his camera almost
100 years ago! We then took both past and present
images and creatively placed them in a custom
Flash feature enabling them to be faded between
each other. This feature was then placed to great
effect on the St James Website's history page.
Puffin
crossing guide: After
much local campaigning, the residents of Longdon
and the parents of St James were eventually rewarded
with the new installation of a Puffin crossing,
providing safe passage across the nearby busy
A51 road. To celebrate this we created a brief
but informative piece of animation demonstrating
how to safely use the new crossing.This
was then added to the front page of the StJames
Website for all the children to use. Our feature
was also highly
commended
during a visit to the school by a local road safety
awareness officer.
Accessibility
testing: As
with all of our Website's, we robustly tested this site
at various key development stages making certain that
it would be fully compatible with all popular Web browser
packages, (such as Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera and
Netscape Navigator for example). Ensuring
the widest available audience: We
understand that not all Web surfers use the same Web browser
packages, screen resolution or technology, meaning that
many poorly written sites cannot be properly viewed by
large clusters of Web surfers. With this in mind we take
great care to ensure that anything we place on the World
Wide Web can be properly accessed and viewed by the widest
available audience. Format
conversion:Various
files were appropriately converted into formats more suited
for Web use and good end user compatibility. We continue
to routinely provide this ongoing service as part of our
standard Web hosting remit for St James (see below). This
ensures that all visitors to the St James Website receive
the best experience. Web
hosting and housekeeping services - an ongoing commitment:
Through our own fast and reliable hosting services we
successfully deliver the St James Website around the world.
As part of our annual hosting remit we also regularly
handle all Website content updates for St James. This
includes keeping their calendar
and vast online gallery
up to date. We
perform such housekeeping services for many of our customers
who find our ongoing commitment to their needs invaluable.
Our response time for update requests is incredibly
swift, generally within the
hour or at least the same day. As well as being refreshingly
responsive, our overall approach to content updates is
also extremely flexible
and generously accommodating
within our standard and very affordable
hosting / housekeeping plan. Indeed many of our clients
have moved over from other service providers to us, for
this rare and refreshingly receptive level of ongoing
service.
Schools ...don't be held back by your budget!
We have a good understanding
of the budget constraints that most schools experience,
especially primary schools. Accordingly, we see
every school Web project as a superb opportunity
to demonstrate the excellence that can genuinely
be achieved for a reasonably low fee. Indeed we
are well aware that we charge far less for our
custom crafted Web services than many of our competitors
demand for simply passing on generic template
based designs. (We are also aware that many companies
see the public sector / schools as an area where
they can often charge MORE than they usually would
a private customer, a practice that Akumenta wholly
denounces). Simply put, excellence and individuality
in the realm of Web development for schools need
no longer come at an impractical cost.
Continued
care and service: We
also understand that it's not always easy to set
aside the time or staff needed to keep a Website
up-to-date once it has been launched. Accordingly
we provide generous / flexible ongoing 'housekeeping'
and updates as required all-year-round, as part
of our standard and affordable Web hosting
remit, meaning that you don't have to!
OFSTED:Also worthy
of note is that the appropriate use of technology
& the use of such technologies to keep parents informed
etc, can be of significant benefit to OFSTED appraisals.
If YOU are a
school looking for friendly advice from an experienced
and affordable Web developer,
then we would love to hear from you. Even if you already
have a site with someone else, we can most likely save
your school money and offer you a better service all round.