Signage for schools and nurseries: a plan that follows the school year

Good signage for schools splits into two piles. The first changes with the calendar: banners on the railings for admissions, open days, sports day and inspection results. The second barely changes at all: the signs that get a visitor from the gate to reception, set the rules for the playground and label the toilets. Buy the first pile in cheap, reusable PVC and the second in something that shrugs off five winters and a football. Here’s how that looks across a year.

The railings: free advertising parents pass twice a day #

Every parent walks or drives past the school fence at drop-off and pick-up. So does half the neighbourhood. A few well-timed banners there cost less than a single local newspaper ad and stay up for weeks. All our education banners are 440gsm PVC with eyelets, made in 4 working days on Standard.

September and the autumn term

• Admissions open banners. A headline, the application deadline and your website. That’s it. It needs to be readable from a moving car, so resist the urge to add a paragraph about your ethos.
• Open day banners. When it is, and that everyone’s invited. Skip the year and it comes back out every autumn.

Spring: second open days and inspection results

• A second outing for the open day banner, if you run a spring event.
• Ofsted banners after an inspection. More on wording below, because this is the banner schools most often get wrong.

Summer term

• Sports day banners. A finish-line banner or one for the field fence. No year on it, and it’s good for a decade of egg and spoon races.
• Graduation banners for leavers, in the same material.

All year round

A general school banner in your colours with the badge, or a simple welcome at the gate. Nurseries have their own designs, and PVC-free banners are there if governors want to avoid PVC.

Picking a banner size for a fence #

Where it’s going	Size to try	Why
Beside the gate, a few railings wide	6 ft × 3 ft (1829 × 914 mm)	Clear to someone on the opposite pavement
A longer frontage	8 ft × 3 ft (2438 × 914 mm)	Room for a headline drivers can take in
A playing field fence by a main road	10 ft × 3 ft (3048 × 914 mm)	Big type for fast traffic; over 3 m, so £15 extra on delivery

For more on sizing, see what size banner do I need. For getting it tight on railings with cable ties, read how to hang a banner.

Inspection banners: say it exactly as the report does #

It’s natural to want to shout about a good inspection. Do it in words, word for word from the published report, and add the year of the visit. Leave the inspectorate’s logo off unless you’ve been given permission, since it’s their mark. Reporting has also shifted in recent years, so read the latest guidance on GOV.UK before you order.

Honestly, one good sentence quoted from inspectors tends to beat a one-word grade on a fence. Parents trust a quote.

Permanent signage for schools: follow a visitor’s route #

The second pile of signage for schools does a quieter job. The easiest way to plan it is to walk in as a stranger would: from the pavement, into the car park, through the right door, and round the building. Wherever you’d hesitate, you need a sign.

The school, park and community range is made in three A-sizes, A3, A2 and A1 (the biggest is 594 × 841 mm), and you choose the board: Correx, Foamex or Dibond.

Pavement to front door

• Getting to the office. Visitor entrance and reception signs, some with arrows, so a delivery driver never ends up wandering across the playground.
• The car park. Signs for visitor bays, a seat belt reminder for parents, and a 5 mph limit warning wherever children walk between cars.
• Doors that aren’t for guests. A no-admittance sign that sends visitors back round to reception.

You won’t find a ready-made safeguarding sign in our range, and that’s on purpose. Every school names its own designated leads and shows their faces, in wording set by its own policy. A printed indoor Foamex board carries all of that, your way.

Playground and grounds

• Playground Rules signs, including a version with set hours for playgrounds the community uses after school.
• Dog signs for the field and gates: clean up after your dog, dogs on leads, and no dogs in the play area.
• Boundary signs about loitering, alcohol and drugs, and taking photos or video of pupils.
• An anti-bullying sign for a corridor or the playground wall.

Inside the building

Toilet door signs for boys, girls, accessible toilets and baby changing start small, at 150 mm square, in sticky-backed vinyl. For fire exits and the assembly point, go to the fire safety signs and let the fire risk assessment decide placement.

Which material for which sign #

Match the board to how long the sign has to last and how rough its life will be.

• Correx. Weighs almost nothing and costs little. Good for a notice that only needs to last a term, tied to a fence. See what is Correx.
• 5 mm Foamex. Inside, or outside under a canopy.
• 3 mm Dibond. Gates and field fences, anything that faces weather and the odd stray ball for years.

Open evenings: when the signs move indoors #

Families visiting on an open evening form a view fast, usually before they’ve reached the hall.

• Roller banners by the entrance or behind department tables. Keep the important words high up; a trestle table blocks the lower third.
• Foamex presentation boards for subject work and achievement walls.
• Posters to dress the corridors and flag what’s on where.
• Flyers to send home in book bags.

Ordering signage for schools without the last-minute panic #

Write the order-by dates into the diary in September. On Standard, banners and roller banners need 4 working days and most rigid signs need 3, starting once the order and file are both signed off. Then allow for the courier.

• Delivery: £7.95 to UK mainland addresses, free on orders of £100 or more after discounts. We can send straight to the school office. The delivery page has the details.
• Artwork: upload your own file and a person checks it for free, build it in the free online designer, or use the paid artwork service. Typesetting your crest and wording into a clean layout is one of its fixed-price options.
• A whole-school set? Pop everything into get a quote and we’ll price the lot together.

Get the calendar banners and the permanent signs sorted once, and signage for schools becomes a job you only revisit when something actually changes.