What a website for an after-school or holiday club needs
Parents choosing a club want to know first that their child will be safe, and then want signing up to be easy. This is what I would put on a club’s website, drawn from the JellyBeans Out Of School Club site I built in Littleborough.
Updated
Lead with what parents ask first
Put your answers to the questions parents ask before anything else where they land, not three clicks in. The JellyBeans home page leads with DBS-checked staff, first-aid training, password-protected pickup and allergy awareness.
Take registrations online
A paper form can be lost, filled in twice or handed back half done. An online registration form asks for everything the club needs, in order, and arrives complete. A club’s own form can ask for the details staff rely on, such as allergies and who may collect a child, so they are written down in one place rather than spread across forms and notes. JellyBeans parents finish theirs in about five minutes.
Don’t make parents create an account
An account is one more password for a form most parents fill in once. JellyBeans asks for none: a link in the parent’s email reopens their registration, so details can be changed later without starting again.
Give staff their own side of the site
The people running the club need to see and manage registrations; parents should never see each other’s. The JellyBeans site has a separate admin panel for its staff, behind its own sign-in. Keeping the two apart means a change to what staff can see never risks showing it to a parent.
Publish a privacy policy of your own
A registration form collects personal details about children and their parents, and data protection law expects you to tell people what you collect and why. Say so in a privacy policy written for the club, as the JellyBeans site does.
Where to start
If the site does only one thing well, make it registration. Parents who have already chosen the club should be able to sign up the same evening, on a phone or a laptop, without printing anything. The safety information persuades them; the form is what gets their child a place.