Running a student project showcase website: consent, review and take-downs
A showcase is a good reason for students to finish something properly, and a good way for families and the wider school to see it. The risks are about people, not pages: work published without permission, a full name next to a photo, a piece nobody can remove. A student project showcase website works when consent comes before upload, names are kept minimal, colleagues check it before launch, and take-downs are quick.
Who does what
- Lead teacher
- Owns the showcase: collects work and consent forms, enters pieces, publishes, handles take-down requests.
- Colleagues
- Review the preview before launch: check names, photos and anything that could identify a student.
- Students
- Choose the piece, write a short description in their own words, and say whether they're happy for it to be shown.
- Parents or guardians
- Give written consent where your school's policy requires it, usually for younger students.
- School office or data lead
- Confirms the plan fits the school's policy before anything is collected.
Collect work and consent together
Send one consent form with the request for work. It should say where the work will appear (a public page anyone can see), what will be shown (the work, the student's first name, the class), for how long, and how to ask for removal. Collect the files yourself through the school's usual route: forms on Anticode sites don't accept file uploads. Keep a simple sheet with a row per piece: student, consent received, piece title, file name, published date. Only pieces with a tick in the consent column go any further.
Build the showcase
- Describe it: "a showcase of Year 9 design technology projects, with a page per project and a short introduction from the department".
- Pick a calm design system so the work stands out. Swiss or Editorial suit most showcases.
- Create a CMS collection for projects, with fields for title, first name, class, a description and one or more images. Each project gets its own page under the collection's address.
- Add the pieces. Add photos of the work as entries in a CMS collection whose image field holds hosted addresses; check the photos show no faces, uniforms with names, or name labels on the work itself. Write a short description of each photo so it makes sense to someone using a screen reader.
- Write the introduction from the teacher: what the brief was, what the students learned.
Review before it goes live
Two colleagues should check everything before launch. For the main page, make a client review link to the preview: they don't need an account, and each comment is tied to a section, so "surname visible in the introduction photo" lands in the right place. The review link shows the page itself rather than each collection entry, so for the project pages, go through the entries in the dashboard with a colleague, or give them a seat in the workspace. Fix everything they find, revoke the link, and only then publish.
| Check | Why |
|---|---|
| First names only, no surnames anywhere | Full names plus a school make a student findable |
| No faces in photos unless consent covers it | Photo consent is often separate from work consent |
| No names visible on the work itself | A name written on a poster defeats the first-name rule |
| Descriptions are the student's own words, lightly edited | It's their work being shown |
| Every piece on the page has consent in the sheet | The sheet is the record |
Taking a piece down
Promise a take-down within one school day, and keep the promise. Delete the entry from the collection; the collection's pages stop showing it as soon as it's saved. If the piece also appeared in a section on the main page, publish again. Mark the sheet with the date. If the piece was on the main page, earlier saves of the site still hold it in version history, which only people with access to the project can see; if the request covers those too, tell the student honestly what remains and where.
At the end of the showcase
Decide at the start how long the showcase stays up: a term, a year, until the students leave. When the time comes, unpublish it or delete the entries. If a student or parent wants a copy, export the site as one self-contained HTML file to keep offline.
Limits
Showcase pages are public: there are no logins or private galleries, no comments, no file uploads from students or parents, and no embedded videos (link to them hosted elsewhere if your policy allows). Anticode doesn't collect consent for you. For a single class's page see class website; for the weekly side of class communication, sharing class updates with parents.
Questions people ask
Do I need consent to publish student work online?
Usually yes, and your school's policy will say whose. Collect it in writing before anything is uploaded.
Can I make the showcase private to parents?
No. Published pages are public. Show only what you'd be comfortable with anyone seeing.
How fast can a piece be removed?
In a minute: delete the entry and it stops showing on the collection's pages once saved.
Can students submit work through the site?
No, forms don't take file uploads. Collect work through your school's usual system.