Winners of the Snowfire Design Awards 2024 – our job is to ensure every child graduates!
The website is so important for us, says Fatma Andersen, deputy principal at Västsvenska Gymnasieskolan. Parents and students hear about us and find us online, so the website needs to show who we are and directly reflect what we do.
It feels amazing that we have won the Snowfire Design Awards 2024. I knew we were nominated, but to actually win! 🎉
What sets Västsvenska Gymnasiet apart from other high schools?
The difference between us and other schools is that here, students notice that the adults are present. They are seen and receive love, but we also set demands, explains Jörgen Frohm, the principal of the school.
All staff are carefully selected for their expertise in special education. We give students the tools to build self-confidence, learn cooperation. We prepare them for a future career and to achieve their dreams.
We started Västsvenska Gymnasiet in 2017 after consulting with educational researchers and politicians. I have experience from elite sports through my work with Malmö FF, Häcken, and the Gothia Cup. It's strange that children function well in club activities but not in school? We wanted to change that.
We have about 260 students from socio-economically disadvantaged areas like Hammarkullen, Angered, Kortedala, Biskopsgården. At this school, we take in the target group of IM students. These are students who have two or more F's in their elementary school grades and are not eligible to apply for national programs in high school.
At our school, 93-95% of these students graduate in three years and move on to college or get jobs. In all of Gothenburg, it's about 10%, and looking nationally at this group, only under 1% of these students make it through high school.
How did you choose Beegleton as web agency?
We did a solid job of searching and comparing agencies online and looking at their portfolios. There was something about Beegleton that just felt right. Their websites were different and stood out," says Fatma, who was responsible for the website project.
Yes, so we got in touch and it was just right. The system (Snowfire) is so easy to work with. Even colleagues who don't know much about the web can change and insert text and replace images. We are so satisfied!
Launching a website in just over two weeks
I came to the kickoff meeting on August 6 and was told that the website would launch within two weeks, so it was just a matter of rolling up the sleeves and getting to work. We launched the website on August 18, 2024, just in time for the school start, says Maria Östlund, project manager at Beegleton.
The result – a website with a lot of joy
Together with Jörgen and Fatma, Viktor Linder and I developed the key messages and what makes them unique. We really wanted to capture the community at the school, where it's about all students being involved in their studies. They have a clear goal that everyone should succeed in graduating. Our hero image on the website symbolizes just that joy.
A clear structure so everyone finds their way Viktor and I work closely together. We create 'live' and shape the page together with image and text. I have the knowledge of the client while Viktor handles UX and codes directly into Snowfire. It's more fun, faster, and the end result is so much better when we work together in this way.
The biggest challenge for us was that there is so much information that needs to fit when it's a high school. Here it was important to create a clear structure to make it manageable for everyone the school addresses. To reach more people who speak different languages, we integrated Google Translate on the page. Here we chose the most spoken languages for this target group.
We are also very satisfied with the contact page. It is easy to filter by functions which makes it easy to get in touch with the right person.
Why did you choose Snowfire for the website?
We always try to get our clients to choose Snowfire. It's a platform that is easy to work with even for those who have no experience.
When we hold training on how our clients can grow with the platform, it's impossible to miss the joy when they realise how easy it is to work in the system. We feel that our clients are satisfied with the end result.
And for us, it's a platform that gives us the opportunity to create unique websites. Snowfire, which is entirely developed in Sweden, is not limiting and that allows us at Beegleton to create experiences in the way that is best for each client.
What do you think is the best thing about Snowfire?
It is that we all in the design community have such contact with each other down to what is coded in the Snowfire platform.