Services · Website development · Education websites

Education websites for Greater Manchester colleges, trusts and schools.

Codeeo provides education website development Manchester colleges, academy trusts, schools and skills providers use to recruit learners and keep families informed. We build course finders that cover GCSE resits, A levels, T Levels and apprenticeships, trust sites that hold several schools under one design, and school sites that publish what the Department for Education requires. Every build is organised around the decisions people in Greater Manchester actually make: which route after Year 11, which college is reachable, which adult course fits around work.

We have no office in Manchester. Our team works with clients across the city region remotely, and discovery, reviews and editor training all take place by video call, recorded and summarised in writing.

Built for
Further education and sixth form colleges, multi-academy trusts, primary and secondary schools, independent training providers and adult learning services across Greater Manchester.
Typical timeline
Planned once discovery shows how much content, data and integration is involved, and timed so recruitment campaigns and enrolment periods are never disrupted.
What you own
Your organisation owns the site, source code, CMS, course data, domain, hosting and every enquiry and application record.
Rated
4.7 / 5 from 23 Google reviews

200+ companies servedFrom a first store to an ADX listed developer

Modon
Majid Al Futtaim
HP
Belkin
Dulsco Group
OneClickDrive
Hanayen
HMS
Clocksprings
Ghezlan

What we build into the site

Features that help Manchester learners pick a route and act on it.

A sixteen year old in Oldham, an adult retraining in Trafford and an employer in Salford looking for an apprentice all land on the same college website with very different questions. Schools in a trust share policies but each has its own head, uniform and term quirks. Education website design Manchester providers need starts with sorting these audiences early and giving each a short path to what they came for. Below are the capabilities we plan most often for the city region. Discovery decides which go into your first release, because a two form entry primary needs a fraction of what a general further education college does.

Explain your project
  • Course finder with real filters

    Courses held as structured data, filterable by subject, level, study mode, age group and campus. Each course page shows entry requirements, what learners study, progression routes and how to apply. The same data can feed printed prospectus exports and course listing sites, so details are corrected once and stay consistent everywhere. Course pages also carry start dates as text rather than images, so search engines and screen readers can read them.

    Learners find the right course in a few taps.

  • Routes after Year 11

    Side by side explanations of A levels, T Levels, vocational qualifications and apprenticeships, written for young people and their parents. Each route links to matching courses and shows what it can lead to next, whether university, a higher apprenticeship or work. This is the section school leavers in the city region use most. Short videos from current learners can sit beside each route, captioned and hosted so they do not slow the page.

    Young people understand their options before choosing a course.

  • Employer and apprenticeship section

    A separate area for employers covering how apprenticeships work, how apprenticeship funding works in general terms, with a link to official guidance, and how to advertise a vacancy with you. Enquiry forms ask the questions your business development team needs, such as sector and number of roles, and route to the right person rather than general admissions.

    Employer enquiries reach the people who handle them.

  • Adult learning and funding eligibility

    Adult skills funding in the city region is devolved to the Greater Manchester Combined Authority, and eligibility questions are common. We build clear eligibility guidance, evening and part time course listings, and a simple checker that points adults to the right course or to a conversation with an adviser, without collecting more data than needed.

    Adults see what they may be eligible for before they enquire.

  • Trust and multi-school structure

    One platform for the trust and every school in it, sharing a component library and central policies while each school keeps its own colours, news, staff list and statutory pages. Trust leaders can update a policy once and see it reflected on every school site, and each head teacher's team edits only its own pages.

    Consistency across the trust without losing each school's identity.

  • Statutory publishing checklist

    Schools and academies in England must publish set information online, from Ofsted reports and performance data to SEND information, pupil premium and governance details. We build a checklist page in the CMS that shows each requirement, where it lives and when it was last reviewed, so gaps are obvious to your team.

    Required information is published and kept current.

  • Travel and campus information

    Campus pages with maps, Bee Network bus and tram routes, cycling and parking information, and accessible entrances. Learners from across the ten boroughs weigh travel time heavily when choosing a college, so we place this information on every course page, not buried in a contact section. Where a campus has step free access or a quiet entrance, the page says so plainly.

    Learners can judge the commute before they apply.

  • Many languages, one clear structure

    Manchester families speak a wide range of languages at home. We translate the pages that matter most, such as admissions, attendance and safeguarding, choose human translation for anything with legal weight, and keep a consistent language switch so parents always know where they are.

    Parents who read English as an additional language can act on key pages.

  • Safeguarding and wellbeing access

    A route from every page to your designated safeguarding lead and wellbeing support, written for both learners and parents, with forms that send concerns to restricted inboxes. Under eighteens need a privacy notice they can understand, and we draft the structure with your data protection lead.

    Support is one tap away for anyone who needs it.

  • Accessibility built in

    Templates designed and tested against WCAG 2.2 AA, including keyboard use, screen readers and colour contrast. Colleges and other public sector bodies publish an accessibility statement, and every provider has Equality Act duties, so we check accessibility at each stage rather than once at the end.

    Learners with disabilities use the site on equal terms.

Who this is for

Four types of Greater Manchester provider we build for.

Greater Manchester has large general further education colleges, specialist sixth form colleges, fast growing academy trusts and many independent training providers, often recruiting from the same postcodes. As an education web development company Manchester providers work with remotely, we shape each site around what that kind of organisation is judged on. Each brief below shows what we usually prioritise and what tends to wait for a second phase.

01

A general further education college group

Hundreds of courses, several campuses and audiences ranging from school leavers to employers. The site needs a dependable course data model, enrolment and enquiry routes for each audience, and campus pages people trust for travel. We plan integrations with your course management system so staff are not maintaining the same course twice in different places. Employer pages, adult courses and school leaver content each get their own entry point from the homepage.

Course data quality decides how well the finder works.

02

A multi-academy trust

You need a trust site that explains your values, vacancies and governance, plus school sites that each meet statutory publishing requirements. A shared design system cuts cost per school and makes it simple to bring a new school into the trust without a separate website project. Companies House details for the trust as a charitable company appear in the footer of every site.

03

A primary or secondary school

Parents want term dates, clubs, uniform, menus and quick contact routes. Prospective families want to see the school's character and understand admissions through the local authority. We keep the structure lean, the editing simple and the statutory pages complete, so the office spends minutes on the site each week rather than hours. Absence reporting and parent letters can link to the systems you already use for those tasks.

04

An independent training or apprenticeship provider

Your website must win employers and learners at the same time, and show quality signals such as your latest Ofsted report. If you take bookings or payments for commercial short courses, consumer cancellation rights and clear total pricing apply, and we plan that wording carefully even though taking payment online is scoped as a separate build.

Employer pages and learner pages need different tones.

The six stages of a Manchester education website project.

  1. 01Audience and data discoveryVideo workshops with marketing, admissions, curriculum and IT teams, plus a look at your analytics, course data and the enquiries that never converted.
  2. 02Information architectureA sitemap built around learner routes, employer needs and parent tasks, tested with simple card sorting before design begins.
  3. 03Design systemReusable components for courses, events, news and statutory content, designed for phones first and checked for accessibility on every element.
  4. 04Build and course dataCMS setup, course data import or integration, enquiry and event forms, and connections to your CRM or student record system where available.
  5. 05Migration and redirectsEvery old course URL and document mapped to its new home so search rankings and links from schools and partners keep working.
  6. 06Launch before recruitment peaksGo live ahead of your busiest recruitment weeks, with editor training, monitoring of enquiries and search performance, and fixes in the first weeks.

Technology

What we build this with.

For course heavy college sites we typically pair a headless CMS with a Next.js front end, so course data stays structured and pages stay fast. Schools and smaller providers often suit WordPress, which office staff learn quickly.

01Web

  • React
  • Next.js
  • TypeScript
  • Node.js
  • Laravel
  • WordPress

02Commerce

  • Shopify Plus
  • WooCommerce
  • BigCommerce
  • Headless storefronts

03Data and cloud

  • PostgreSQL
  • MySQL
  • MongoDB
  • AWS
  • Azure
  • Docker

04Marketing and tracking

  • GA4
  • Google Tag Manager
  • Search Console
  • Meta Pixel
  • Looker Studio

Questions Manchester providers ask before starting.

Course data, learner routes and enquiry handling, more than page design.

For a college the hard work sits behind the pages: deciding how courses are structured, which system is the source of truth, how enquiries and applications flow into your CRM, and how campus and travel information is kept current. Design matters, but a course finder fed by messy data will frustrate learners however good it looks. Discovery settles these questions before any screen is built. We also look at how school leavers and adults currently arrive on the site, because the two groups behave very differently.

Tell us what the business needs. We will tell you what to build first.

Schedule a free consultation and get a written recommendation, with costs, before you commit to anything.

Get in touch

PROVEN RESULTS

4.7 / 5from 23 Google reviews