Pupil Home Page

Whilst at Cygnet IT we developed a bookmarking system for schools - we wanted to develop this further but Cygnets core business was IT support and not website development, as such this feature was never developed to its full potential even though several schools found it very useful.

What is Pupil Page?

With schools using so many online resources these days, it is increasingly difficult for students (and teachers!) to keep track of the URL's of the many 3rd party systems that a school may be utilising. The Machew Pupil Page is a way of organising links to all the websites and systems that the pupils are expected to use. In essence it is an advanced bookmarking system which is available from within the school and from home. With our Homepage system, pupils only need to remember one URL to have quick access to all the resources they are expected to use.

How does it work?

The system allows you to add visual bookmarks and organise these into groups; you can choose to use year groups or individual classes. You can also have certain links that appear for all groups, for instance links to the school email system, safeguarding and the school VLE/MLE.

Links can be easily added, with you just needing to set a title, the URL and an image (normally an easy to recognise logo). When you add a new link, you tick which groups should see the link, for instance you may have a Key Stage 2 resource site and you only want that to appear for years 3, 4, 5 and 6. Once you have added links, you can drag and drop them to re-order how they are displayed for the students.

In addition to the groups of quickly accessible resource bookmarks there is also an information banner above the links. The information banner can be used to display important notices specifically for pupils. This banner is very quick to update and you can also set a separate banner to be displayed outside of the school (the page recognises whether the page is being accessed from within the school network).

What are the benefits/advantages?

Our system offers an uncluttered interface that works well on mobile devices, creating a quick route to the free or paid resources that the school is choosing to use. Rather than pupils having to navigate the main school website for a links page or look through old emails for links, this page is publicly accessible at all times and shows only the links you want your pupils to see.

Our system ensures the links that pupils see are unified and consistent, and directly controlled by the school website administrator.

To find out more about the Machew Pupil Page System please contact us.

Screenshot of the Pupil Homepage (note, will look different with your logo and colouring).
screenshot of the our Pupil Page system