This June, just as the school year was winding down, these hard-working schools were going the extra mile to launch their amazing new school website projects with Finalsite.

Let’s take a closer look at the user experiences, beautiful aesthetics, and engaging content of some of the inspiring private and independent school website designs from Finalsite!

The Peck School

The Peck School's new website is introduced with a professionally produced video showcasing the school's various divisions, programs, and community spirit, interjected with student testimonials that highlight why The Peck School is a special place.

The homepage leads to a call to action, encouraging visitors to start their journey at The Peck School, but there's a lot to explore, including:

• Engaging Introductions: The site effectively explains why the K-8 program is so successful and introduces the school's values of childhood, leadership, and horizons through an engaging horizontal scroll, seamlessly blending how the school's traditions meet its innovative programs of today. 
   
• Community Focus: Panels of testimonials present its students, faculty, parents, and alumni, illustrating how support and belonging are at the heart of everything they do. The site zooms in on content and design panels enter from left and right, creating a visceral user experience.
   
• Navigation and Functionality: The navigation expands into a full-page panel with quick links, log-in information, and popular resources throughout the site. Custom enhancements like video slideshows, testimonial slideshows, accordions, image buttons, stylized backgrounds, full-width panels, and left and right card treatments use the school's patterns to tie the branding together nicely.
   
• Strategic Support: The partnership with Finalsite Advantage gave the Peck School team a creative and strategic edge in bringing the site’s branding, content, and UX together for an amazing experience that effectively captures the essence of the school. Wonderful job!

The Alexander Dawson School

The Alexander Dawson School's new website showcases creative branding that incorporates forward-thinking design elements and creative typography, making it visually engaging from the start. You'll also notice the site uses parallax scrolling to beautifully showcase the surrounding community and mountains, providing a seamless (and scrollable) experience where users can access a lot of information without unnecessary clicks or distractions. But that's not all...

• Community Voices: Faculty and student profiles share the voices of the community, adding a personal and creative touch.
   
• Simplified Navigation: The top-level navigation is simplified and expands into different areas of the site, making it easy for visitors to find what they need quickly.
   
• Finalsite Enrollment: When families are ready to inquire, Finalsite Enrollment allows them to easily schedule a tour or find out more about tuition assistance.
   
• Consistency: The homepage and the interior pages are very consistent in terms of layout and content elements, creating a cohesive user experience.
   
• Blog Section: The blog section is rich with inbound and content marketing material, engaging parents at the top of the funnel with helpful information about exploring private school options.
   
• Creative Energy and Humor: The faculty directory is filled with creative energy and humor, featuring individualized photos that capture the community's spirit.
   
• Bear Motif: Subtle nods to the bear motif, which stands for Belonging, Engagement, Advocacy, and Resilience, are found throughout the site, tying everything together nicely under a theme. Beary good job—pawsome work!

Kent Denver School

Kent Denver School invites visitors to "Experience Extraordinary," and their new website truly embodies that spirit. You don’t want to miss this launch—it’s a visually stunning and highly functional site that showcases the school's extraordinary offerings and keeps users engaged with its seamless design and dynamic content. Here are some key features:

• Visual and Interactive Design: The site uses multiple complementary colors that blend seamlessly, presenting panels with student and teacher profiles and bold typography that highlights the school's differentiators and the impact of its education. Large video panels span the full width of the design, and colorful animated elements help reveal more content as you scroll.
   
• Dynamic and Engaging Content: Stories, school news, and videos capture the energy and life of student activities. The footer incorporates the mountains of Colorado, evoking a sense of adventure that's meaningful to the Kent Denver School experience.
   
• Enhanced Navigation and Functionality: Custom navigation features engaging images creatively integrated into the design. The top-level navigation is simplified, expanding into different areas of the site. Quick links provide easy access to directories, career pages, campus maps, and curriculum information. The detailed calendars lay out daily, monthly, and annual events, all filterable by keywords.
   
• Finalsite Enrollment and Application Process: When families are ready to apply, Finalsite Enrollment collects detailed information about students and families. There's also a dedicated section for summer programs, with comprehensive information about registration and activities, maintaining consistent branding.
   
• Mobile Optimization and User Experience: Both the homepage and interior pages are optimized for a seamless mobile experience, utilizing a scroll strategy to keep users engaged and tying everything together beautifully. The site includes custom image slideshows, image buttons, a campus map, and a directory, while timelines and pop-up notifications add to the user experience.

Foxcroft School

Foxcroft School, an experiential, boarding and day school in the heart of Virginia horse country, is now live with its new website! The site proudly shares Foxcroft's story with the world through bold and creative design elements, offering a seamless and visually appealing user experience. Be sure to check out:

    •    Custom Elements: The new site features custom elements like its resource pop-ups, animated duo content cards, and filtered post grids, all designed to reinforce Foxcroft's new visual brand identity supported by Finalsite Advantage.
 
    •    Creative Design and Functionality: The site includes custom image buttons and a creative application of more standard elements such as post slideshows, DIY timeline formatting, infographics, and research statistics. There are also full-width container panels to showcase key aspects of the Foxcroft experience, and they all work together to provide a dynamic and engaging user experience.

The site pulls various elements together to effectively demonstrate the portrait of a Foxcroft graduate, highlight its unique outdoor curriculum, and showcase the school's commitment to preparing students for college and beyond. Beautiful site!

Ensworth School

Ensworth School's new website beautifully captures the essence of the school, immersing users in the student-centered educational journey. Here are some key features:

• User Experience: The site encourages users to explore the school's various divisions early in their experience. Fast facts about the school and a dynamic panel of opportunities brought to life with a slideshow highlighting student life make it easy for users to get a comprehensive overview without feeling too overwhelmed.

• Sense of Belonging: Video testimonials emphasize the sense of belonging that unites the two campuses in Nashville, Tennessee. That connection is reinforced through video montages that play in the header and footer, creating a cohesive and engaging narrative from start to finish.

• Intuitive Navigation: The experience is enhanced with dynamic imagery, quick links, and brief text in the navigation, effectively highlighting each of the school's main focuses. This ensures that users can stay informed as they find what they need quickly and easily.

• Custom Design: The site features numerous custom treatments and design elements, including a content reveal treatment, custom content cards, and image buttons. The athletics achievement page and the athletic schedule are particularly noteworthy for their engaging content and design.

Far Hills Country Day School

Far Hills Country Day School has just launched its redesigned website with the strategic support of Finalsite Advantage. The new website perfectly captures the spirit and identity of Far Hills, offering an experience that makes it easier than ever to stay connected and informed.

• A sleek design, improved navigation, and stunning new photos and videos all come to life with image buttons, custom Posts, image sliders, full-width content boxes, and more.
   
• Video testimonials highlight the school’s community spirit, while a custom animated social media integration pulls the latest Instagram posts, keeping users updated with real-time content.
   
• The imagery and text emphasize connections, with phrases like "the whole child," "our stories bring us together" and "connect with us" reflecting the school's idea of embracing the pre-k to 8 co-day school model.
   
• Don't miss the slideshows, the infographics that cover the fast facts, and its giving thermometer to support advancement efforts.
   
• The site is wrapped in the school's branded green with subtle dabs of blues, yellows, and oranges, while the creative use of the school's shield creatively houses images and supporting text to enhance the overall aesthetic.

Wonderful job, and congratulations to all the schools on their launches!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Connor has spent the last decade within the field of marketing and communications, working with independent schools and colleges throughout New England. As Finalsite’s Senior Content Marketing Manager, Connor plans and executes marketing strategies and digital content across the web. A former photojournalist, he has a passion for digital media, storytelling, coffee, and creating content that connects.