School Website Checklist: CBSE Disclosure and Admissions

Every year, somewhere around November, the school office phone starts ringing nonstop. "Are admissions open for Class 1?" "What's the fee?" "Is there transport from our side?" "Can we visit on Saturday?"

Most of those calls happen because the parent opened the school website, couldn't find the answer, and gave up. Some of them don't call at all. They just go to the next school on their list.

If your school's admission season starts in the next few months, now is the time to fix the website, not in January when the office is already overloaded. Here's what we'd check.

What parents actually look for

Parents shortlisting schools are doing homework. They open five or six websites in tabs, usually on a phone, often late at night after the kids are asleep. They want quick answers to a handful of questions:

• Is admission open, for which classes, and what's the process? Dates, age criteria, documents needed, whether there's an interaction or test.
• Fees. Even a fee structure PDF is better than "contact the office". Parents read silence on fees as "expensive and hiding it".
• Location and transport. A map, the bus routes or areas covered, and school timings.
• The people. Who's the principal, and do the teachers look qualified and stable, or does the staff list change every year?
• Facilities. Real photos of classrooms, labs, library, playground and the toilets parents are too polite to ask about.
• Results and activities. Board results for senior schools, and some sign of sports, arts and events for all schools.
• Safety. CCTV, transport supervision, security at the gate, how the school handles medical emergencies.

Put the admissions information one tap away from the home page during admission season. A banner that says "Admissions open for 2027-28, enquire now" and leads to a proper page does more than any slider of stock photos.

The CBSE mandatory public disclosure section

If your school is affiliated to CBSE, this part is not optional. CBSE requires affiliated schools to publish a set of information on their own website under a mandatory public disclosure section, in the format CBSE prescribes. CBSE has issued circulars more than once reminding schools to put it up and keep it current.

We won't quote clause numbers here because CBSE updates its formats from time to time. Always work from the latest circular and the format on the CBSE website. But broadly, the disclosure covers these areas:

General information

The school's name, affiliation number, school code, complete address, the principal's name and qualifications, and official email and phone numbers.

Documents and certificates

Copies of things like the affiliation letter, registration of the trust or society running the school, the no objection certificate from the state, recognition certificate, building safety and fire safety certificates, and the self-certification submitted for affiliation, along with water, health and sanitation certificates. These are usually uploaded as PDFs.

Results and academics

The fee structure, the academic calendar, details of the school management committee and parent teacher association, and the last few years of board exam results for Classes 10 and 12 where applicable.

Staff

The principal, the total number of teachers broken down by category, the teacher section ratio, and details of special educators and counsellors.

Infrastructure

Campus and building area, number and size of classrooms and labs, internet facility, toilets for girls and boys, and a link to a video showing the school infrastructure.

A few practical points from building these sections:

• Make the PDFs readable. A blurry phone photo of a certificate taken at an angle doesn't count as a disclosure. Scan properly.
• Keep the link visible. Put "Mandatory Public Disclosure" in the main menu or footer, where an inspector or parent can find it in one click.
• Update it every year. Results, fee structure, staff numbers and certificates with expiry dates go out of date. Put a calendar reminder in for the office.
• Match your records. What's on the website should match what you've submitted to CBSE. Mismatches raise questions you don't want.

State board and ICSE schools have their own requirements, and many parents expect to see similar information anyway. It does no harm to publish it.

Online enquiry and admission forms

There are two different forms here, and schools often mix them up.

An enquiry form is short: parent's name, phone, child's name, class applying for, and maybe the area they live in. Its job is to get the parent into your system so the admissions team can call back. Keep it to a minute. Add a WhatsApp button next to it for parents who'd rather just message.

An admission form is the full application: child's details, parents' details, previous school, documents, and sometimes the registration fee. This can live online too, with uploads for the birth certificate, photos, Aadhaar and transfer certificate. It saves the office from typing in hundreds of paper forms.

Whichever you use, make sure someone owns the leads. An enquiry that sits unanswered for three days during admission season is a parent you probably won't see again. The forms should land in an inbox or sheet that the admissions team checks every day, with an automatic reply telling the parent what happens next.

And if you collect children's data online, look after it. Use a secure site (the padlock in the browser), limit who can see the submissions, and don't leave uploaded documents sitting in a public folder.

Notices the staff can post themselves

Holiday announcements, exam schedules, PTM dates, circulars, uniform changes. Schools produce a constant stream of notices, and if every one of them has to go through the web developer, the website ends up months behind.

Ask for a simple notice board section that the office or a coordinator can update from a login: title, date, a PDF attachment, done. Same for news and events. A school website with last year's annual day as its latest news looks abandoned.

Keep the WhatsApp groups for quick messages to parents, but put the official version on the website as well. It's searchable, it's permanent, and new parents can see what kind of communication to expect.

Fee payment links

Most parents would much rather pay fees online by UPI, card or net banking than stand in a queue at the accounts window. If your school uses a fee management system or a payment gateway, link to it clearly from the website, with instructions.

A few things to get right:

• Use your school's official payment page, not a personal UPI ID pasted on the site.
• Show the fee structure and due dates on the same page so parents know what they're paying for.
• Make sure parents get a receipt automatically.
• Add a contact for the accounts office for when a payment fails.

Photos, with consent

Photos sell a school better than any paragraph. Sports day, science exhibitions, classrooms in action, the library with children reading in it.

But these are children. Before their photos go on a public website, the school needs parents' consent, ideally collected in writing at admission time, with a way for parents to opt out later. Some practical habits:

• Prefer group shots and activity photos over close-up portraits of individual children.
• Don't put a child's full name next to their photo.
• Remove photos quickly if a parent asks.
• Check the background: a timetable on the wall or a name badge can reveal more than you'd think.

The quick checklist

1. Admissions banner and page with dates, process, age criteria and documents.
2. Fee structure published, or at least clearly explained.
3. Map, timings and transport areas.
4. Mandatory public disclosure section complete, current and linked from the menu or footer (CBSE schools).
5. Short enquiry form plus WhatsApp button, with someone checking leads daily.
6. Online admission form with document upload, if you're ready for it.
7. Notice board and news that staff can update themselves.
8. Clear link to the official fee payment page.
9. Recent, real photos, published with parental consent.
10. Everything checked on a phone, because that's how parents will see it.

We cover all of this when we build websites for schools, and the same ideas apply to coaching institute websites, where batch timings and demo class bookings take the place of admissions. You can see more of our work in education.

If you'd like us to go through your school's current website before admissions open, send us the link and tell us what you need. We'll come back with a clear list of what to fix.