Hadlow College

What we did

• Information architecture and user experience design
• Responsive website design (mobile, tablet, desktop)
• ExpressionEngine CMS build and configuration
• Online shop integration with Sage Pay
• Absence reporting system
• Calendar with iCal feed subscription
• Photo gallery with tagging and categorisation
• Google Maps integration
• Quality assurance testing and deployment
• WCAG/W3C/WAI accessibility compliance

About the project

Hadlow Rural Community School is a large educational institution in Kent that needed a website capable of far more than displaying term dates and a prospectus PDF. The school required a platform that could serve multiple audiences - prospective students browsing course details, parents reporting absences, staff publishing news and updates, and the wider community engaging with school events. The existing site was no longer fit for purpose, and the school needed a partner who could deliver a modern, accessible replacement within a realistic budget and timeline.

Tinderhouse was appointed to design and build the new site, drawing on our experience delivering website development projects for organisations with complex content requirements and multiple user groups. The project was scoped, designed and delivered within 10 to 12 weeks, with regular status updates provided throughout using our extranet project management system.

The result was a fully responsive website built on ExpressionEngine, giving the school complete editorial control over their content while providing students, parents and visitors with an engaging, accessible experience across smartphones, tablets and desktops.

The Challenge

• The school needed to communicate effectively with multiple distinct audiences: prospective students, current students, parents, staff and the local community
• Course information, events and news needed to be easy to find and navigate across hundreds of pages
• Non-technical staff required the ability to publish and update content without developer involvement
• The site had to be fully accessible, meeting WCAG and W3C standards as a minimum
• Parents needed a reliable way to report pupil absences directly through the website
• The school wanted an online shop for merchandise and supplies, integrated with their existing payment infrastructure
• The platform had to work well on mobile devices, which were increasingly how parents and students accessed school information
• Budget and timeline constraints meant the project needed to be delivered efficiently without compromising quality

Our Solution

Information Architecture and User Experience

Before any design or development work began, we established a clear information architecture that mapped out how each audience group would navigate the site. A sixteen-year-old exploring course options has fundamentally different needs from a parent checking the term calendar or a staff member posting an announcement. We structured the site so that each user journey was intuitive, with course details, news, events and administrative tools all accessible within a few clicks from the homepage.

Responsive Design Across All Devices

The site was designed to adapt its layout for the device in use, whether a smartphone, tablet or desktop computer. This was not simply a matter of making content smaller on narrow screens. Each breakpoint was considered carefully to ensure that navigation remained usable, course catalogues remained scannable and interactive features like the calendar and absence reporting form worked reliably on touchscreen devices.

ExpressionEngine Content Management

We recommended ExpressionEngine as the CMS for this project, and it proved to be the right choice for an education environment with varied and structured content. ExpressionEngine's channel architecture allowed us to model course entries, news articles, events and gallery items as distinct content types, each with their own fields and validation rules. Staff members were given appropriate permissions through user groups, so a teacher posting a news update did not have access to the same controls as a site administrator managing the online shop.

The CMS was configured with established third-party modules including Structure for page management, SEOLite for search engine optimisation and Freeform for form handling. This gave the school a stable, well-supported platform that could be maintained and extended as requirements evolved.

Integrated Functionality

Several features were built to address specific operational needs:

The absence reporting system provided parents with a simple form to notify the school when a pupil was absent. Reports were stored in the CMS and simultaneously emailed to a central administration address, replacing what had previously been a phone-based process.

The calendar system supported tagged events, allowing users to filter by event type and subscribe to calendar feeds via iCal on their phones or desktop calendars. This meant parents and students could keep school dates synchronised with their personal calendars automatically.

The photo gallery allowed staff to upload, resize and tag images through the CMS, organising them into galleries by subject matter. The online shop was delivered using an ExpressionEngine shopping module compatible with Sage Pay, giving the school a secure payment processing solution integrated directly into the site.

Accessibility and Standards Compliance

The site was built to HTML5 standards using semantic markup and CSS, with JavaScript used sparingly for progressive enhancement. We tested across all major browsers and ensured compliance with WCAG, W3C and WAI accessibility standards to a minimum Priority 1 level. For an educational institution serving a diverse community, this was not optional - it was a core requirement that informed every design and development decision.

The Results

• A fully responsive website serving students, parents, staff and the community across all devices
• Complete editorial independence for school staff through a well-configured ExpressionEngine CMS
• Streamlined absence reporting replacing manual phone-based processes
• An integrated online shop with secure Sage Pay payment processing
• Calendar system with iCal subscription, keeping families synchronised with school events
• WCAG-compliant accessibility ensuring the site was usable by all visitors
• Delivered within the agreed 10 to 12 week timeline
• A stable, extensible platform that provided a foundation for future development

Technical Highlights

• CMS: ExpressionEngine with Structure, SEOLite and Freeform modules
• Languages: PHP, MySQL, HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript
• Payment: Sage Pay integration via ExpressionEngine Store module
• Mapping: Google Maps V3 API
• Standards: WCAG/W3C/WAI Priority 1 compliance
• Design: Fully responsive layout (mobile, tablet, desktop)
• Calendar: iCal feed support for cross-device subscription

Ready to build a digital platform for your school or college?

Tinderhouse has been delivering website development and ExpressionEngine solutions for education organisations since 2003. Whether you need a new institutional website, a student portal or a complete digital transformation, we can help.

Get in touch to discuss your project.