If every school is different, why do their websites all look the same?

Spend time with any leading independent school and one thing becomes immediately clear: they know what makes their school different. Their culture. Their history. Their values. Their students. The kind of young people they hope to send into the world. And they should. In education, identity matters enormously. Yet look across the digital landscape of Queenslands independent schools and something interesting happens. That difference starts to disappear. The same structures. The same visual language. Similar photography. Similar navigation. Similar messaging. Schools that are fundamentally different from one another can begin to look remarkably alike.

We think that's the problem.

There seems to be an accepted idea within education that a “school website“ needs to look and behave like a school website. Perhaps that comes from years of working within a relatively small ecosystem of education specific platforms and providers. Perhaps it's simply what the sector has become accustomed to. But when Brisbane Girls Grammar School approached Bigfish, they wanted something different. They didnt want to look at other school websites for inspiration. They wanted a digital identity that reflected the calibre, confidence and individuality of the school itself. In fact, one of the references was to align with another client of ours from the arts sector, Queensland Ballet.

That shift in perspective changed the conversation entirely. Rather than asking, what should a school website look like? We could ask a far more important question: What should Brisbane Girls Grammar School look and feel like? We worked closely with the school to create a confident, aspirational identity and digital experience that celebrated 150 years of educational excellence while feeling distinctly contemporary and distinctly Brisbane. Colour became more expressive. Typography became a defining graphic element. Imagery captured both the student's and the architecture of the campus. The result doesn't feel like a template for education. It feels like Brisbane Girls Grammar School.

A school website has a much bigger job than looking good. It sits at the intersection of brand, communications, enrolments, community engagement and information. Prospective families are forming impressions long before they walk through the gates. Current families need information quickly. Communications teams need to manage large volumes of content efficiently. And behind all of that sit increasingly important expectations around performance, accessibility, governance and security. So while we wanted BGGS to look completely different, the technology behind it needed to work incredibly hard.

The website was built on Tank, Bigfish’s CMS and brand management software, configured around the needs of the school rather than asking the school to change the way it works to accommodate an off the shelf system. Developed and refined by Bigfish for more than 15 years, Tanks individual installations incorporates functionality specific to each organisation and undergoes an independent security review annually. For BGGS, that meant thinking deeply about the people who would actually use the platform: the communications team, prospective families, current families and the wider Grammar community. Beautiful on the outside. Powerful on the inside.

Working with Brisbane Girls Grammar School has made us look more closely at the education sector. And we think there is an enormous opportunity. Not for every school to become more contemporary. Not for every school to become bolder. And certainly not for every school to look like BGGS. Quite the opposite. The opportunity is for schools to become more themselves. 

If heritage defines a school, we should feel it. If innovation defines it, we should see it. If its culture is warm, progressive, academic, creative, disciplined, unconventional or fiercely individual, its brand and digital experience should communicate that before someone has read a single prospectus. Because one of the most powerful questions a school asks itself is: What makes us different? Its digital presence should be capable of answering it. For Brisbane Girls Grammar School, that meant being brave enough to step outside what a school website was expected to be. We think more schools should be asking whether the conventions of the sector are helping communicate who they are, or quietly making them look like everyone else. If your school is different, it should look different too.