What must a school website include? The 2026/27 checklist for maintained schools and academies

Every state-funded school in England has to publish certain information on its website. Maintained schools follow the School Information (England) Regulations 2008, while academies and trusts follow their funding agreement, so the two lists overlap but are not the same.

This guide turns the Department for Education (DfE) guidance into plain checklists for both, plus the accessibility rules and the key dates.

We checked this against DfE’s pages What maintained schools must or should publish online and What academies and further education colleges must or should publish online, both last updated on 24 October 2024, and against newer guidance on uniform and inspection. Rules do change, so please check the latest DfE guidance before you sign anything off. This is a practical summary, not legal advice.

What must schools publish on their website?

Almost every state school needs these on its website, in some form:

• Contact details and a named person for enquiries
• Admission arrangements, or a link to your council’s admissions pages
• Your latest Ofsted report, or a link to it
• A link to your page on the Compare school and college performance service, plus your latest published results
• What you teach in each subject and year
• Your behaviour policy
• Your SEN information report, including your SENCo’s name and contact details
• Your pupil premium strategy statement, if you receive pupil premium
• Your PE and sport premium report, if you receive it
• Your equality information and equality objectives
• Your complaints arrangements
• Careers information, if you are a secondary school

Whether each one is a “must” or a “should” depends on whether you are a maintained school or an academy.

Maintained schools: what you must publish

• Admissions. Foundation and voluntary-aided schools publish their own admission arrangements by 15 March each year, how they handle in-year applications by 31 August, and an appeals timetable by 28 February. Community and voluntary-controlled schools link to the council’s website instead.
• Behaviour policy.
• Careers (secondary schools). Your careers lead’s name and contact details, a summary of the programme, how you measure its impact and when you will next review it. Also your provider access policy statement, which sets out when providers of technical education and apprenticeships can speak to pupils in Years 8 to 13.
• Charging and remissions policies.
• Complaints policy.
• Contact details. Postal address, phone number and the name of the staff member who handles queries. Mainstream schools also give the SENCo’s name and contact details.
• Curriculum. What you teach in every subject in each year, including RE; parents’ right to withdraw their child from RE; how to find out more; and your accessibility plan. Schools with key stage 1 list their phonics or reading schemes. Schools with key stage 4 list their courses, including GCSEs.
• Financial information. The number of staff paid above the salary threshold in the DfE guidance, shown in the bands it sets out, and a link to your page on the schools financial benchmarking service.
• Governance. Information about your governing body and its committees.
• Ofsted report. A copy of your latest report, or a link to it.
• Gender pay gap. Only if you have 250 or more employees.
• PE and sport premium. By 31 July: the amount received, how it was spent, the impact, how it will last, and the percentage of Year 6 pupils who meet the swimming requirements. If you use the DfE digital form, convert it to a web page so it meets accessibility rules.
• Equality. How you meet the public sector equality duty, updated every year, and your equality objectives, updated at least every four years.
• Pupil premium. A strategy statement on the DfE template by 31 December each year.
• SEN information report. Updated every year, and as soon as anything changes.
• Results. A link to your page on the Compare school and college performance service, and your latest key stage 2, key stage 4 or 16 to 18 measures as published by the Secretary of State.

What maintained schools should also publish

DfE recommends a statement of your ethos and values, your opening hours (the start and end of the compulsory day and the weekly total), your uniform policy, information about remote education, a summary of your music development plan, and fuller details about governors: names, appointment dates, terms of office, who appointed them, attendance and relevant interests.

Academies, free schools and multi academy trusts: what is different

Academies publish information because their funding agreement requires it. Several items that are a “must” for maintained schools are a “should” for academies, including the behaviour policy, charging and remissions policies, curriculum content, contact details, the Ofsted report and results. In practice, treat them as essential. Parents and inspectors look for them, and your funding agreement may require them anyway.

What each academy must publish

• Admission arrangements, published by the trust, by 15 March, plus in-year arrangements by 31 August and an appeals timetable by 28 February (this does not apply to special academies, alternative provision or stand-alone 16 to 19 institutions)
• Relationships education, or relationships and sex education, policy
• SEN information report, including the SENCo’s contact details
• Pupil premium strategy statement by 31 December, if you receive it
• PE and sport premium report by 31 July, if you receive it
• Equality information and objectives
• Provider access policy statement (secondary and 16 to 19 academies)

Academies must also prepare an accessibility plan, and DfE says they should list the headteacher’s name, the chair’s contact details and a link to the trust’s website.

What the trust must publish

• Audited annual report and accounts by 31 January
• Memorandum and articles of association
• Names of members and trustees, and the relevant business and financial interests of members, trustees, local governors and accounting officers
• Funding agreement and any supplemental funding agreements
• Up-to-date governance arrangements
• The number of employees paid above the threshold in the guidance, in salary bands
• Whistleblowing procedure
• Gender pay gap figures, if the trust has 250 or more employees

What has changed for 2026/27?

The two DfE publishing pages have not changed since October 2024, but other guidance has.

• Uniform. From September 2026, schools must limit compulsory branded items of uniform and PE kit to three, or four for secondary and middle schools if one is a tie. The Cost of school uniforms guidance says your uniform policy should be on your website, clear about what is compulsory and what is optional. Check your uniform page matches the new limit.
• Results. Schools only publish the measures the Secretary of State has actually published. Check what DfE has released for your phase this year before updating your results page.
• Inspection. Ofsted has a new operating guide for inspections from September 2026. More on that below.
• Photos. DfE added a section on photos and videos to its data protection guidance in March 2026. If your website shows pupils, our guide to filming and photographing in schools covers it.

Does a school website need an accessibility statement?

Yes. The Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018 cover public sector websites. Schools and nurseries are partly exempt: the rules apply to content relating to essential online administrative functions. GOV.UK’s example is a form for school meal preferences. GOV.UK is clear that partly exempt organisations still need to publish an accessibility statement.

The standard to aim for is WCAG 2.2 AA. Your statement should explain how accessible the site is and give contact details, so people can tell you about a problem. Review it regularly.

The Equality Act 2010 still applies whatever the exemption. If a parent needs information in large print or another format, you need to make reasonable adjustments. GOV.UK also notes that you are legally responsible for your website even if a supplier runs it.

One common mix-up: an accessibility statement is not the same as an accessibility plan. The plan explains how you will improve access for disabled pupils. The statement is about the website. You need both.

Do schools have to have a website?

In practice, yes. DfE says a maintained school without its own website must publish the required information on another website and give parents a link to it. Schools and academies should also provide a free paper copy of this information if a parent asks for one.

Two more items belong there. DfE’s data protection guidance says every school must make its privacy notices freely available, and the website is the obvious place. If your website uses cookies beyond the essential ones, the ICO says you must explain them and get consent. The ICO is revising this guidance, so check the latest version.

Does Ofsted check your school website?

Yes. Ofsted’s operating guide for inspections from September 2026 tells lead inspectors to look at the school or trust website while they prepare. It asks them to check governance arrangements and governance information and, for an academy, the trust’s scheme of delegation. They also review any other relevant information on the website.

So your website forms part of an inspector’s first impression. An out-of-date governors page is easy to spot and easy to fix.

Key dates for your website diary

When	What to publish	Who
31 December	Pupil premium strategy statement	Schools that receive pupil premium
31 January	Audited annual report and accounts	Academy trusts
28 February	Admission appeals timetable	Schools and trusts that set their own admissions
15 March	Admission arrangements for the following year’s intake	Schools and trusts that set their own admissions
31 July	PE and sport premium report and Year 6 swimming figures	Schools that receive the premium
31 August	In-year admissions arrangements	Schools and trusts that set their own admissions
Every year	Equality information, SEN information report	All schools
Every four years	Equality objectives	All schools

How to keep your website compliant without the stress

• Give every item on the checklist a named owner.
• Check the list once a term, and after an inspection, new results or a policy review.
• Put the date approved and the next review date on every policy.
• Gather everything on one clearly named page, such as “Key information”, so parents and inspectors can find it in one click.
• Publish key information as web pages rather than scanned PDFs, which screen readers often cannot read.

How Moments can help

Moments designs, refreshes and maintains websites for schools, trusts and education providers. We can set up your statutory pages so they are easy to find and simple to keep up to date, and look after them for you. See our school website design service.

Your website is also where admissions start. For the bigger picture, see our guides on increasing pupil numbers and what a school prospectus should include. When you are ready, get in touch and we will send you a clear, fixed quote.