What Schools Must Publish Online: The Statutory Website Checklist for 2026

School website requirements

The short answer

Every state school in England has to publish a fixed list of information on its website. For maintained schools the list comes from the School Information (England) Regulations 2008, as amended in 2012 and 2016, together with the Equality Act 2010 and the Children and Families Act 2014. Academies and free schools get an almost identical list through their funding agreement, with a few extra items about accounts and governance.

The Department for Education keeps both lists on GOV.UK and last updated them on 24 October 2024. This guide turns them into a checklist you can work through, with the deadlines pulled out, and points out where a school website usually falls short.

It is written for headteachers, school business managers, office staff and governors in England. If you run a nursery, our nursery website guides cover the early years rules instead.

Where the rules come from

There are two GOV.UK pages: what maintained schools must or should publish online, and what academies, free schools and colleges should publish online. Each item is marked either must (a legal requirement) or should (DfE recommends it). Ofsted inspectors read the website before an inspection and use it to check the statutory information is there, so the must items get noticed when they are missing.

A school without its own website has to publish the information on another site and give parents the link. Every school should also provide a paper copy free of charge if a parent asks.

1. Contact details

All schools must publish a postal address, a telephone number and the name of the member of staff who deals with queries from parents and the public. Mainstream schools must also publish the name and contact details of the SENCO. Academies should add the name of the headteacher or principal, the name and contact details of the chair of governors, and the trust’s contact details with a link to its website.

2. Admission arrangements

Foundation, voluntary-aided schools and academies are their own admission authority, so they must publish their admission arrangements: how applications are considered, the published admission number for each year group, how to apply, and how places are allocated when oversubscribed. Community and voluntary-controlled schools publish a link to the local authority’s admissions pages instead.

There are three dates attached: the admission appeals timetable by 28 February, the arrangements for September entry by 15 March (kept up for the whole academic year in which offers are made), and the in-year admissions arrangements by 31 August.

3. Ofsted report

Either a copy of the most recent Ofsted report or a link to it on the Ofsted website. A link is easier to keep accurate.

4. Exam and assessment results

All schools must link to the compare school and college performance service and their own page on it. Primary schools must publish their most recent key stage 2 measures: the percentage reaching the expected standard in reading, writing and maths combined, the percentage reaching a higher standard, and average scaled scores in reading and maths. Secondary schools publish their Progress 8 score, Attainment 8 score and the percentage achieving grade 5 or above in English and maths, and should add destinations and EBacc figures. Sixth forms publish their 16 to 18 progress, attainment, retention and destination measures.

5. Curriculum

The content of the curriculum in each academic year for every subject, including RE even where it is taught under another name, a note that parents have the right to withdraw their child from all or part of RE, and how to find out more about the curriculum. Schools with key stage 1 must list their phonics or reading schemes; schools with key stage 4 must list the courses on offer, including GCSEs. All schools are also expected to publish their music development plan alongside the music curriculum.

6. Behaviour, charging, remissions and complaints

Four policies that must be on the site: the behaviour policy (section 89 of the Education and Inspections Act 2006), the charging policy, the remissions policy and the complaints policy (section 29 of the Education Act 2002). Arrangements for complaints about SEN support must also be published, as part of the SEN information report.

7. Pupil premium

Schools receiving pupil premium must publish a strategy statement by 31 December each year, in the DfE template, explaining how the funding is being spent and the outcomes for disadvantaged pupils. Even a three-year strategy has to be updated annually with the current year’s spending and last year’s impact.

8. PE and sport premium

By 31 July each year: the amount received, a full breakdown of how it has been or will be spent, the impact on participation and attainment, and how the improvement will be sustained. The same deadline applies to the percentage of the year 6 cohort who can swim 25 metres, use a range of strokes and perform safe self-rescue. If you download the digital form return and publish that, the DfE says it must be converted to HTML, not left as a PDF.

9. SEND information report and accessibility plan

An SEN information report, updated every year and whenever something changes, covering the information in Schedule 1 of the SEND Regulations 2014 plus the admission arrangements for disabled pupils, the steps taken to prevent less favourable treatment, the facilities that help disabled pupils access the school, and the accessibility plan required by the Equality Act 2010. The accessibility plan also has to appear with the curriculum information.

10. Public sector equality duty

Details of how the school complies with the public sector equality duty, updated every year, and the school’s equality objectives, updated at least every four years.

11. Governance and financial information

Maintained schools must publish information about the governing body and its committees, and should publish for each governor who has served in the last 12 months their full name, date of appointment, term of office, who appointed them, attendance record and relevant business and financial interests. Schools must also publish the number of employees earning over £100,000 in £10,000 bandings, and a link to their page on the schools financial benchmarking service.

12. Careers information (secondary)

Secondary schools must publish the name and contact details of the careers lead, a summary of the careers programme for years 7 to 13, how its impact is measured and the date it will next be reviewed, together with the provider access policy statement required by section 42B of the Education Act 1997.

13. Gender pay gap (250 or more employees)

Schools with 250 or more employees must report their gender pay gap through the government service and publish it in a prominent place on the website within a year of the snapshot date, which for most public authority employers is 31 March.

Academies and trusts: the extra items

On top of everything above, an academy trust must publish its audited annual report and accounts by 31 January, the number of employees whose salary and benefits exceeded £100,000 in the previous academic year in £10,000 bandings, its memorandum and articles of association, the names of members and trustees, the relevant business and financial interests of members, trustees, local governors and the accounting officer, the funding agreement and any supplemental agreements, up-to-date governance arrangements, and details of its whistleblowing procedure. Academies must also publish their relationships education or RSE policy. If you look after more than one school, our multi-academy trust website service maps both the trust layer and each school’s list.

The should list

DfE recommends, without requiring, a statement of ethos and values, the official start and end of the compulsory school day and the total weekly hours, information about remote education, and for schools with a uniform, an easy-to-understand uniform policy that says which items are required or optional, which must be branded and where second-hand uniform can be bought.

The dates in one place

• 28 February: admission appeals timetable
• 15 March: admission arrangements for the following September
• 31 March: gender pay gap snapshot date (250 or more employees, publish within a year)
• 31 July: PE and sport premium report and year 6 swimming figures
• 31 August: in-year admissions arrangements
• 31 December: pupil premium strategy statement
• 31 January: academy trust annual report and accounts

PDFs, accessibility and where schools slip

Most schools have most of this. What goes wrong is the housekeeping: a pupil premium statement from two years ago, a governors page listing someone who left, results that stop at 2019, and policies buried in a single PDF library with no dates. Give every statutory item its own page or a clearly labelled document, put the review date on it, and keep one person responsible for the calendar above.

The other trap is accessibility. School websites are partially exempt from the public sector accessibility regulations, but the content people need to use your services must still be accessible and an accessibility statement is still required. Our guide to school website accessibility explains what that means in practice, and what a school website should include covers everything parents look for beyond the statutory list.

If you would rather hand the whole thing over, that is what Little Fruitcakes school website design is for: every statutory item built in from day one, with regular compliance checks so nothing lapses between inspections.

Common questions

More school website guides

• What a school website should include
• School website accessibility
• Little Fruitcakes: school website design
• Multi-academy trust websites
• Nursery website guides from Little Fruitcakes

Sources

• What maintained schools must or should publish online, Department for Education, last updated 24 October 2024
• What academies, free schools and colleges should publish online, Department for Education, last updated 24 October 2024
• Pupil premium: overview and strategy statement template, Department for Education
• Understanding accessibility requirements for public sector bodies, Government Digital Service, last updated 30 September 2024