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Screenshot of Tanglin Trust procession

Tanglin Trust School

At nearly a century old, Tanglin Trust School is the oldest British international school in Southeast Asia. With students from the Infant School to Sixth Form, 2,800 students and 600 staff embrace the school’s mission of creating a community of lifelong learners who contribute with confidence to the world.

But as a critical component of Tanglin’s admissions and marketing efforts, the international school’s website was in need of a creative refresh to offer a more targeted user experience while also promoting their key messages and values.

Challenge - An outdated website no longer fit for purpose

Tanglin’s 2017 website was outdated and no longer achieving optimal results. With technological advancements, the site navigation was not optimized and the user experience was fragmented. More focus was needed on the mobile experience, video content, and user journeys that lacked clear calls-to-action to drive conversions.

“We were looking for an agency to design and develop a fully responsive, innovative new website that offered a visually rich and dynamic representation of our school’s positioning, culture and competitive advantages," stated Tom Evans, Tanglin’s director of marcomms, admissions and community relations. "More than 2/3 of visits to our website were through mobile, so that experience had to be impressive.”

Evans submitted a comprehensive design project brief that detailed the goals and objectives for their new website — an extremely useful document for their Finalsite designer.

Tanglin Trust students in the lab

 

At a Glance

Established in 1925, Tanglin provides the English National Curriculum with an international perspective to children from 3 to 18 years in Singapore and is a vibrant co-educational school of 2,800 students representing over 50 nationalities.

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The Solution - A content management system designed for schools

Tanglin understood the importance of a robust content management system (CMS) and needed a solution that could manage school news and calendar feeds, user permissions, version control, image filing, Google tag management, redirects, as well as the ability to easily edit a page's search engine optimisation settings, like its meta title and description. 

But the list did not stop there — Tanglin also required accessibility features and the ability to comply with WCAG 2.1 guidelines, a set of recommendations for making web content more accessible, primarily for people with disabilities.

Nur Firzillia, communications executive for over 11 years at Tanglin, also stressed the importance of content migration support, a dedicated help desk, and user training. Website hosting and backup, content delivery network access and DDOS prevention, along with security, data protection and compliance were also mandatory.

Once Tanglin considered all of its requirements, it was clear that Finalsite’s CMS, Composer, was still the best solution on which to build their new best-in-class website.

The Results - A best-in-class website and increased site traffic

The initial results were very promising — Two months after launch, traffic to their admissions page more than doubled and page views increased 81% across all devices as compared to the same period a year ago.

Screenshot of Tanglin Trust programs

Tanglin’s design objectives informed and inspired Finalsite’s designer to deliver:

  • A responsive design that offers flexibility and great usability on all devices. 
  • Dynamic and interactive pages that improve user experience and engagement. 
  • Simplified architecture with a clean and intuitive website navigation.
  • Scroll-based, vertical layouts that are visually rich, colourful and vibrant.  

 

The finished product is a stunning interactive homepage that promotes Tanglin’s key messaging of “Generations of Excellence” and “Team Tanglin.” 

Now, strong imagery coupled with interactive elements and high-quality photos, entice prospective families and faculty to dive deeper into content catering to their interests. That first-time school parent looking to enroll in the Infant School is treated to a delightful video showing children at school exploring, creating, and learning.

And for that 6th Form student researching academic programs and what life is like after graduation, the college matriculation information and alumni success stories are beautifully detailed in images, concise text, videos, and infographics.
 

More notable features

Screenshot of Tanglin Trust news

Keeping its external community engaged was also important, so Tanglin once again uses the Posts module to filter by keywords to further personalise the results of important news and events.

Screenshot of Tanglin Trust history

With over 97 years of experience, Tanglin has a well-established history of excellence in education.  Their interactive timeline cleverly mixes the history of Tanglin with Singapore and the influence of pop culture as a frame of reference.

Screenshot of Tanglin Trust fast facts

Academic Excellence is also a highlight of their new site, as well as a differentiator for the school. Tanglin is the oldest school in Singapore that offers the British Curriculum, as well as the only school in Singapore offering both A-Levels and the IB Diploma in Sixth Form.

The enhanced website has inspired other departments in the school to take the same initiative. The HR, development and alumni teams all now have projects underway to improve their sections of the website to be more engaging and impactful and provide greater utility on all devices.

“We really did our homework by researching other school sites,” Evans added. “Developing a clear and comprehensive brief, and working closely with our designer helped bring it to life.”

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