A practical school website content audit

Define what the audit must achieve

Choose a clear scope: the whole public site, a pre-launch review or one area that causes repeated enquiries. State what counts as success. For example, every policy might need a confirmed current version, or the most common parent tasks might need a clear route from the homepage.

Do not start by rewriting everything. First establish what exists and where errors affect people. A busy homepage is easier to spot than an outdated contact buried inside a PDF, but the buried contact may cause more serious disruption.

Build a page and document inventory

Record each public address, page title, format, audience, subject owner and last verified date. Include linked PDFs, images containing instructions and documents found through search. Material can remain public even when it has disappeared from the main menu.

Add columns for action, priority and proposed replacement address. Keep notes factual: "lists the previous office telephone number" is more useful than "looks old". Where possible, record the precise correction needed so the owner can approve it quickly.

Check accuracy before style

Inspect names, telephone numbers, dates, opening hours and service instructions. Then check whether policy summaries agree with the current approved documents. Look for contradictory instructions across the website, newsletters and connected parent systems.

Ask the relevant owner to verify facts. An editor should not infer a new admissions deadline or change a policy interpretation to make the page sound clearer. Mark uncertain content as awaiting approval and explain what evidence is needed.

For publication duties in England, use the separate requirements guide alongside the current official guidance. A general editorial audit does not replace that applicability check.

Prioritise by harm and usefulness

A simple three-level system works well:

• Urgent: information that could misdirect safeguarding concerns, expose personal information or prevent an essential task.
• Next: outdated arrangements, inaccessible important documents and conflicting instructions.
• Routine: cosmetic inconsistencies, weak summaries and genuinely low-value historical content.

Traffic can help identify popular pages, but it should not decide importance alone. A rarely visited accessibility contact or complaints procedure can still be essential. Record why an issue received its priority so another colleague can understand the decision.

Decide whether to keep, combine or remove

Keep pages that answer a distinct useful question. Combine pages when they repeat the same instructions and can share one clear destination. Rewrite pages that contain necessary information but make the visitor work too hard.

Before removing anything, check whether it has a continuing publication or recordkeeping purpose and whether other pages link to it. A historical news item can remain clearly dated; an obsolete operational instruction may need replacement. Do not relabel old information as current merely to avoid deleting a page.

Use a relevant redirect when a genuine replacement exists. When no equivalent remains, provide a helpful explanation and navigation rather than pretending an unrelated page is the same information. The migration guide explains URL mapping in more detail.

Inspect documents and hidden disclosures

Open documents rather than judging them by filename. Check that a public file contains the intended final version, not tracked changes, comments or a private appendix. Inspect visible pupil information and image captions against the school's publishing arrangements.

A document that has been deleted from a page may still be accessible at its old address. If sensitive information has been exposed, follow the school's incident process; a routine content tidy-up is not an adequate response. Record the issue without copying personal information into a widely shared audit spreadsheet.

Give every correction an owner

Separate the subject approver from the publishing editor when they are different people. Record a due date and a way to confirm completion. After a correction is made, reopen the public page in a fresh session and check linked files as well.

Work in short batches. An office team might review contact and attendance pages in one session, while curriculum leads verify their own sections. A shared template makes those reviews comparable without requiring one person to know every subject.

Turn the audit into maintenance

Keep the inventory after the initial clean-up. Add review triggers such as staff changes, new policies, reporting cycles and system migrations. Review repeat enquiries to identify information that still needs a clearer explanation.

A sustainable audit leaves fewer contradictory pages, better ownership and a shorter route for families to find answers. It is not simply a count of pages checked or an opportunity to add fresh dates to unchanged content.