I'm seeing a few emails come though our system from parents asking where the dates for this term are. They sound a little irate. After searching through a site, I guess they would be if all they can find is out of date dates.

So, if you haven't already please add your term dates to the site, and make sure they're linked to or in a prominent position.

Either email the Word doc, if it's in Word then link to the news item in the place for urgent messages just under the glassy tabs on your front page, or put them there in plain text by typing them in.

I favour this area under the tabs for this type of information. Bodnant Infants does this well, and consistently. As the inspectors noted, "parents have said that they love the site, they know that whatever they need to find out, it'll be front and centre on the front page of the website."

Whatever/whereever you decide, stick to it. Parents will learn where they are and appreciate that they can get the information rapidly. Remember, your visitors don't want to go scratching and searching for information! They want it now!

# Posted by steve hooker at 6/1/09; 1:36:35 PM to the Community dept.
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When's the holidays?

Here's a demo of sending several pictures, but having them as tiny thumbnails in your news item (or story page) in nice neat rows.

You just have to add the switch xs for extra small to the subject line. Here's the full subject line.
[xs] The nine faces of Valentines [[How tos]] [nc]
You'll see that I also added the 'how to' department and the 'no captions' switch.

The last thumbnail is the actual email that I'm about to send.

# Posted by steve hooker at 6/1/09; 1:07:50 PM to the How tos dept.
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The nine faces of Valentines

The Guardian:

"In England, the former chief inspector of schools Chris Woodhead once said 15,000 teachers deserved the sack.

Now Scotland is attempting to toughen up on staff who appear to be underachieving. For the first time, a teacher was "struck off" for incompetence last month."

Apparently, bad teachers look good when there's an inspector watching them. Then, when there's no adults around they turn into monsters.

# Posted by steve hooker at 6/1/09; 12:31:02 PM to the Education news dept.
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'Incompetent' teachers to be hounded