What is PrimaryWeb.ie?
A website platform built specifically for Irish primary schools. Everything you need to know, in one place.
The idea behind it is simple: schools should be able to have a modern, professional and easy-to-manage website without needing web design skills, technical knowledge or a large budget.
Instead of taking a general website builder and adapting it for schools, we started with the needs of primary schools and built the platform around them. This means there are no page builders, plugins, coding tools or complicated design settings to learn.
Your website is already built. You simply add your school's information, news, photos, policies and other content through a straightforward dashboard.
How it works
Getting started with PrimaryWeb is intentionally straightforward.
We create your school account and give access to whichever staff members you choose. From there, you can begin adding your school content through simple forms and fields.
There's no website designing involved. Your school name, crest, colours, photographs and content are used to personalise the website while PrimaryWeb takes care of the underlying layout and structure.
You can work on the website at your own pace, and our team is available if you need help along the way.
When you're ready to launch, we take care of the technical side for you, including getting the new website running on your school's domain.
List of features
Add all of the important information parents and prospective parents need about your school.
Rather than building individual web pages, you simply complete the relevant information in your dashboard and PrimaryWeb takes care of how it is presented on the website.
Enrolment
Provide prospective parents with the information they need to learn about your school and the enrolment process.
Paste the Aladdin link or upload your enrolment form.
Your enrolment section brings together all the relevant information in a clear and accessible format.
Policies & documents
School policies and important documents can be uploaded and organised through a dedicated area of the PrimaryWeb dashboard.
Simply click Upload, give your document a name and that's it – your policy is instantly available on your school website for parents and the wider school community to access.
Keeping everything organised is just as easy. Use the intuitive drag-and-drop system to reorder policies or move them between categories whenever you need to.
News & announcements
Keep parents and your wider school community informed with school news and updates, as regularly as you wish.
News posts are easily created through the dashboard – just add your title, content and images and publish when ready.
For shorter updates, the school bulletin provides a quick way to display timely announcements prominently on the website.
Calendar & key dates
Keep important school dates in one easy-to-find place.
Use the built-in calendar, upload your calendar PDF or embed your Google calendar.
Schools can add upcoming events, closures, holidays, meetings, activities and other dates.
Photo galleries
Use the simple Gallery feature to share photographs of school life, activities, events and achievements.
Photos are uploaded directly through the dashboard, with PrimaryWeb automatically resizing and presenting them correctly on your website.
Simply choose the album you want to add your photos to, upload them, and that's it; they'll be automatically displayed in your school's gallery.
Initiatives
Showcase the programmes and initiatives your school participates in without having to create and design additional pages.
Schools can highlight initiatives such as Active School, Green-Schools, Creative Schools and other programmes, adding information and updates as required.
Resources
Grow a useful area for parents, pupils and the wider school community to access links, downloads and other resources.
Everything can be managed centrally through the school dashboard.
Google Translate
If pupils in your school come from multilingual homes, providing easy access to translated content can help make your website more accessible to the whole school community.
Google Translate is built directly into PrimaryWeb. Simply choose which languages you'd like to make available, and visitors can translate your website into their preferred language at the click of a button.
Contact
Your school's important contact information is presented clearly across the website, with a dedicated contact area making it easy for parents and prospective parents to get in touch.
Built for multiple staff members
A school website doesn't necessarily have to be the responsibility of one person.
PrimaryWeb allows different members of staff to have their own access, making it possible to share responsibility for keeping the website up to date.
The system is designed so that anyone can use it without training.
This also means the website doesn't become dependent on the one staff member who happens to know how the existing system works.
Designed for schools rather than web designers
Most website platforms are designed to accommodate almost anything.
WordPress, Wix and similar systems can be used for restaurants, online shops, businesses, blogs, portfolios and thousands of other types of websites. That flexibility means they naturally include considerably more functionality and configuration.
PrimaryWeb takes the opposite approach. It only builds primary school websites.
That allows us to remove much of the complexity associated with conventional website management. There are no themes to choose, plugins to maintain or layouts to construct.
We've already made those decisions so that staff can concentrate on the part that actually matters: the school's content.
What can we customise?
PrimaryWeb isn't intended to be a completely open-ended website builder.
Your school's website uses a professionally designed PrimaryWeb layout, personalised with your:
This means there is less design flexibility than a bespoke website or a general-purpose system such as WordPress. That's intentional.
By limiting unnecessary design controls, we can provide schools with a consistent, modern website while keeping the management experience considerably simpler.
You can see our sample and existing school websites before getting started, so you'll know exactly what your website can look like.
No technical work required
You shouldn't need to know what DNS, nameservers, hosting or SSL certificates are in order to run your school website.
PrimaryWeb takes care of the technical infrastructure behind the website, including hosting and ongoing platform maintenance.
When it comes time to launch, we'll also help with connecting your school's domain and moving from your existing website.
You manage the school content while we manage the website technology.
What happens to our existing website?
There's no need to immediately delete or dismantle your existing website.
Depending on your school's requirements, the old website can be archived, retained temporarily alongside the new website, or replaced completely when the new PrimaryWeb website is ready.
We'll discuss the best approach with you and take care of the technical transition.
This means staff can concentrate on preparing the new website rather than worrying about how the changeover works.
Accessibility, privacy & good practice
PrimaryWeb gives us an advantage that conventional school websites don't always have: we maintain the underlying platform centrally.
Rather than every school independently maintaining its own website software, we can continue improving PrimaryWeb as standards and requirements evolve.
The platform has been developed with accessibility, privacy and modern web standards in mind, and improvements made to the core platform can be rolled out across PrimaryWeb websites without individual schools having to rebuild their sites.
This allows schools to benefit from ongoing development without needing to become website experts themselves.
Support is included
PrimaryWeb isn't provided as a piece of software that schools are expected to figure out themselves.
Our team will help get you started, answer questions and take care of the technical aspects of running the website.
Later on, if you're unsure how to do something, you can simply ask us.
This support is included as part of your PrimaryWeb subscription.
How quickly can we get started?
Very quickly.
Because the website itself has already been built, there's no lengthy website design or development process.
We can set up your school and staff access within a short period of time, after which you can begin adding your content immediately.
Some schools may want to prepare everything before launching. Others may prefer to launch the new website and gradually build up their content afterwards.
Either approach is fine.
Pricing
PrimaryWeb costs €17 + VAT per month per school. This covers all ongoing costs to have your school website online. There is no setup fee.
Who's behind PrimaryWeb?
PrimaryWeb.ie is provided by The Website Shop, a Dublin-based web design and development company established in 2015.
We work with hundreds of clients, ranging from small local organisations to larger national and international organisations.
PrimaryWeb takes that experience and applies it to a single problem: making school websites easier.
A school website should be useful, current and easy to manage.
It shouldn't require a member of staff to become a web designer. With PrimaryWeb, the website structure, design, hosting and technical side are already taken care of. Your school simply adds and manages the information that makes the website yours.
There's no coding or designing and no complicated website builder. Just a straightforward way to keep your school website up to date.
Get Started →or book a 15-minute call