eNews: The Meerkat edition

August 4, 2021


sponsor-ed's a Teenager

Yes, we've just turned 13. My, how we've grown thanks to you.

Today, The sponsor-ed Group (our very formal name) is Australia's premier developer of school websites. Hundreds of schools have a sponsor-ed website and we support more than 2,500 web administrators. We have websites from Broome to Moe and parts in between. Every month our servers deliver over one million webpages to your community. We've upgraded our websites eight times, with our ninth coming later this year.

Thanks for all your feedback, because it keeps making the websites easier to use, along with a growing array of features. 

If you've been with us for a while, here's a little reminder of what we do.

And please keep the feedback coming, we're not done yet.

Website Features

  • Helpdesk support
  • Training PD's
  • Website hosting
  • Daily backup of your website
  • Free app
  • eNews creator
  • Choice of web themes
  • Simple text editor
  • Drag and Drop photo gallery creator
  • Online forms (e.g; absentee)
  • Online calendar with RSVP's
  • Save events to PC and mobile
  • Compass calendar integration (and Google, Sentral etc)
  • Google translator
  • Inbuilt email system
  • Email scheduler; pre-set day/time to send
  • Email subscriber export and import
  • Email analytics; measure readership


Great job Ms Phillips - teaching legend

Spotlight on Bentleigh Secondary College for their very successful, ‘I am….’, teacher promotion. The program was designed to build community confidence in the capabilities of its teaching staff and it delivered in spades.


Respectfully, sometimes parents don’t realise the talent that’s assembled in front of their children. So, every now and then it’s good to remind them; it makes for better working relationships.

The structure of the communication is pretty simple. It comprises of a photo and the teacher’s bio. Extracting the bio is probably the hardest bit; they’re a pretty humble lot our teachers.

It was during the compilation of the teacher’s data that some gems were uncovered. Bentleigh SC discovered that one its staff members worked at NASA, there's an Olympian and many have had the most remarkable overseas experiences. The principal has even taught at Eton (that’s the posh school in the UK where everyone speaks like Hugh Grant).

The material was posted on the website https://www.bentleighsc.vic.edu.au (check it out) and also on Facebook. And didn’t Facebook light up! Have a look at a few of the comments below.

The ‘I am’ program has created quite a buzz around the school and community.

If you’d like to understand more about the communications theory that underpins the teacher promotion, download the free paper ‘What principals need to know about the principles of school marketing’; check out pages 9 to 12. 

Oh, and well done Ms Phillips; to you and all your colleagues.



The Paper: What principals need to know about the principles of school marketing. 

Click on the paper's cover to download the PDF.



Upcoming PD's and Free eNews trial

WEDNESDAY 18th AUGUST 11.30am (9.30am WST)

Introducing eNews - Are you sick of creating and formatting your PDF newsletters? It's time to start thinking about trialling the sponsor-ed eNews system. It's free for all Term 3.Create visually stunning newsletters with ease, from inside your website. Contact helpdesk@sponsor-ed.com.au to start your free trial, then join us for a 1 hour PD on how to use eNews to its full potential. Suitable for school's who have not yet used the eNews system.



Here's a few schools using eNews
Register here.

THURSDAY 26th AUGUST 11.30am (9.30am WST)

Get more from your site -
a one hour session that will run you through some of the more enhanced features of your website.  We'll look at widgets, embedding forms, uploading videos and a few tidbits that will help you with your website editing.

Register here.

Acknowledgement of Traditional Owners - Widget

Many schools are displaying an Acknowledgement of Traditional Owners on their website in a prominent position (as per DET Policy).

If you would like to display an Acknowledgement, there are two main options:

1.  Placed in the footer of your website, so that every page states the Acknowledgement as you navigate through the site.  (Text Only)



2.  Placed in a widget on your website, where you can add an image and choose to add it to all or some of the pages on your website.



We can assist you with this.  Simply email helpdesk@sponsor-ed.com.au with either footer option or widget option and we will do this for you.

If you would like your own wording, please specify in the email, otherwise we will use this:  "We respectfully acknowledge the Traditional Owners of country throughout Victoria/Western Australia and pay respect to the ongoing living cultures of First Peoples."