Little Fruitcakes: School Website Design by Fruitcake Media
Every statutory item you must publish, built in from the start
Accessible, to WCAG 2.2 AA principles as far as the platform allows
Send us a policy, a letter or a photo and we publish it for you
Or update it yourself, from any device, whenever you like
Why Choose Little Fruitcakes for School Websites
Policies, performance data, SEND, pupil premium and admissions, each with a proper home.
Email, phone or app us a policy or a letter and we put it up for you.
Full content management access so the office can post news and swap a document.
SSL, daily backups and platform updates included as standard.
No large upfront fee; design, hosting and support in one monthly figure.
Speak directly to the people who built the site and look after it.
What We Offer
A bespoke, accessible site built around your school, with every page a school must publish included from day one.
Send us policies, letters, term dates and photos and we publish them for you, every time.
Regular reviews against the DfE statutory publishing requirements so nothing lapses between inspections.
What you get
A bespoke school website, designed around your school
Every statutory publishing requirement mapped and built in
Accessibility to WCAG 2.2 AA principles as far as the platform allows
Every change made for you, as often as you need it
The Fruitcake Media app to send us changes from any device
Full content management access for your own staff
Secure UK hosting, an SSL certificate and daily backups
Domain name and email mailboxes where you need them
Contact, admissions and enquiry forms
Real people on the phone, not a ticket queue
Every page a school needs
Statutory information and compliance
Policies, SEND and safeguarding
Admissions and open events
Curriculum and subject information
Performance tables and Ofsted reports
Term dates, calendar and newsletters
Staff, governors and trustees
Parent information and letters
Vacancies and recruitment
I would recommend Fruitcake Media to anyone looking for a stress free experience and a stunning website! Thank you for getting The Mother Hub off to a flying start!
I honestly cannot thank you and your team enough for the marvellous customer care and attention to detail
I cannot fault Fruitcake Media. Being a sole trader, having a website was daunting and seemed out of reach. David made the whole process seamless and easy
My website was live before the 10days was up. Very happy with the service so far. Will defo recommend them.
Meet the team behind Little Fruitcakes
Little Fruitcakes is Fruitcake Media, a small web design team at Glasshouse, Alderley Park in Cheshire, looking after 400+ websites. We work with schools anywhere in the UK, and the person who designs your website is the same person who publishes the policy you send us two years later.
No ticket queues, no account managers, no outsourcing. Just people who pick up the phone and take the website off your list.
School website design that keeps you compliant and keeps parents informed
Little Fruitcakes is the education side of Fruitcake Media, a web design team based at Glasshouse, Alderley Park in Cheshire, looking after 400+ websites. We work with schools across the UK. Heads, business managers and office teams kept telling us the same three things: we are never quite sure the statutory pages are right, nobody has time to keep it current, and the last provider was impossible to get hold of. This is built to answer all three.
Everything a school has to publish, mapped before we design
The Department for Education publishes two lists of what has to appear on a school website, one for maintained schools and one for academies, free schools and colleges. They are long, they change, and the items are easy to lose track of (we keep a plain-English version in what schools must publish online): admissions arrangements, curriculum information, key stage results, Ofsted reports, financial and governance information, the SEND information report, pupil premium and PE and sport premium reporting, behaviour and complaints policies, and equality objectives.
We go through the list that applies to you and map every item to a place on the site before a page is designed. You get the mapping document, so it is clear what sits where and what still needs writing. When the guidance changes, we tell you and we make the change.
Accessibility, treated as the legal duty it is
The Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) Accessibility Regulations 2018 apply to schools, and they also require you to publish an accessibility statement. Most school websites fail on the same handful of things: poor colour contrast, headings used for styling rather than structure, link text that reads "click here", documents uploaded as scanned images, and video without captions. Our guide to school website accessibility explains what the regulations actually require and what the partial exemption covers.
We build to WCAG 2.2 AA principles as far as the platform allows, check the things that actually fail, and help you write an accessibility statement that is honest about where you are. We will never tell you a website is certified compliant, because no honest supplier can promise that.
Built for the people who actually keep it updated
The website is usually maintained by an office team with plenty else to do. So there are two ways to change anything. Your staff can edit pages, post news and swap documents directly, with no training course required (our school website checklist covers what parents look for beyond the statutory list). Or send it to us, by app, email or phone, and we publish it for you, as often as you like and at no extra charge.
How it works
1. Book a call. We talk about your school, who updates the site and what is not working. No forms and no sales script.
2. We map the statutory requirements against what you have now, and tell you honestly what is missing.
3. We design and build it, and share a draft for your approval.
4. It goes live, and we look after the hosting, security, backups, accessibility and changes from then on.
Fruitcake Media holds 23 five-star Google reviews. We are a small team, we answer the phone, and we would rather be straight with you than sell you something you do not need.
Looking after more than one school? Our page on multi-academy trust websites covers shared design systems, central publishing and statutory tracking across a whole estate. Little Fruitcakes began with early years: schools with a nursery class, and standalone settings, are covered by our nursery website design service.
More than the website, when you need it
Most schools come to us for the website and that is usually where it stops. But the same team can help with what sits alongside it, and it is simpler when one supplier does both.
Digital signage for reception and corridor screens: what is on this week, achievements, lunch menus, parent information and safeguarding messages, run from the school office and sharing content with the website rather than duplicating it.
It is not a condition of the website. It is there if it helps.
Questions schools ask us
What does a school website have to include by law?
More than most people expect. The Department for Education publishes two separate lists, one for maintained schools and one for academies, free schools and colleges, and between them they cover admissions, curriculum, performance, Ofsted reports, financial information, governance, policies, SEND, pupil premium, PE and sport premium, and equality objectives. We map every applicable item against your site before we design anything, so each one has a proper home rather than being buried inside a PDF. We keep the mapping and give you a copy. The full list, with deadlines, is in what schools must publish online.
Does a school website have to be accessible?
Yes. The Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) Accessibility Regulations 2018 apply to schools, and they also require you to publish an accessibility statement. We build to WCAG 2.2 AA principles as far as the platform allows, cover the things that most often fail in practice such as colour contrast, heading order, link text, keyboard access and PDFs, and help you write the statement. We will not tell you a website is certified compliant, because no honest supplier can. See school website accessibility: what the regulations require.
Can our office staff update it themselves?
Yes, in two ways. Every site comes with full content management access, so the office can post news, change term dates, add a letter or swap a policy document without asking anyone. And when it is easier not to, you send it to us through the Fruitcake Media app, by email or over the phone and we publish it for you. That is included, not an extra.
Can you move our existing school website across?
Yes. We rebuild it on our platform, keep your domain, set up redirects from your old addresses so you do not lose your search history, and handle the switch. If you are still inside a contract with your current provider, tell us when it ends and we will plan around it.
Do you only work with schools in Cheshire?
No. We are based at Alderley Park in Cheshire and we work with schools across the UK. Everything we do for a school website is done remotely, so where you are makes no difference to the build or to the support.
We are part of a trust. Is this the right page?
If you need a website for one school, yes. If you are looking after several schools and a central trust site, the requirements are different enough to need their own answer. We have written one: see our page on multi-academy trust websites.
School Website Advice & Guides
The full list of what a maintained school or academy in England must publish on its website, taken from the DfE guidance updated in October 2024, with every deadline in one place, the academy trust extras and the housekeeping mistakes that get noticed.
A practical checklist of what a school or academy website should include beyond the statutory list: the first screen, admissions, term dates, letters, uniform and dinners, SEND and safeguarding, curriculum for parents, governors and vacancies, with a copyable list at the end.
Schools are partially exempt from the public sector accessibility regulations, but the content families need must meet WCAG 2.2 AA and an accessibility statement is still required. What that means in practice, the PDF problem, and a one-hour audit you can run yourself.
Ready to hand the website over?
Book a call with the Little Fruitcakes team at Fruitcake Media. We’ll talk through your school, show you the platform and be straight with you about what we would and would not change. No pressure and no jargon, and from then on every update is ours to make.
About Us
Fruitcake Media is a family-run web design and digital marketing agency. Our monthly subscription website model enables small businesses across the UK to get online from just £39 a month.
Contact Us
Glasshouse, Alderley Park, Congleton Road, Nether Alderley, Macclesfield, Cheshire, SK10 4TG
enquiries@fruitcakemedia.co.uk
01625724284