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 The Essentials
Doing a search on scalbyschool.org.uk is easy. Simply type one or more search terms
(the words or phrase that best describe the information you want to find) into the search box and click on the ‘Go’ button.
In response, the website produces a results page: a list of web pages related to
your search terms, with the most relevant page appearing first, then the next, and
so on.
Here are some basic tips to help you maximise the effectiveness of your search.
Choosing search terms
Choosing the right search terms is the key to finding the information you need.
Start with the obvious – if you're looking for general information on students,
try students.
But it's often advisable to use multiple search terms; if you're wanting information
on student uniforms, you'll do better with student uniform than with either student
or uniform by themselves.
Capitalisation
Searches are NOT case sensitive. All letters, regardless of how you type them, will
be understood as lower case. For example, searches for scalby school, Scalby School,
and ScAlBy ScHoOl will all return the same results.
Query Type
By default, the search only returns pages that include all of your search terms.
This is no need to include “and” between terms. Keep in mind that the order in which
the terms are typed will affect the search results. This type of search can be seen
on the search results and advanced search pages as the query type ‘All Words’.
You can easily change the query type using the drop down menu to search using different
methods. By selecting ‘Any Words’, searching will return all of the pages that contain
any of the search terms. You can also choose to search using a Boolean Expression,
Exact Expression, or Natural Language.
Exclusion of Common Words
The search ignores common words and characters such as ‘where’ and ‘how’, as well
as certain single digits and single letters, because they tend to slow down your
search without improving results. The results page will indicate if a common word
has been excluded.
If a common word is essential to getting the results you want, you can include it
by putting a ‘+’ sign in front of it (be sure to include a space before the ‘+’
sign).
Another method for doing this is conducting a phrase search, which simply means
putting quotation marks around two or more words. Common words in a phrase search
are included in the search.
Negative Terms
If your search term as more than one meaning (bass, for example, could refer to
fishing or music) you can focus your search by putting a minus sign (‘-‘) in front
of words related to the meaning you want to avoid (be sure to include a space before
the minus sign).
Sort Order
By default search will return results in ascending rank – each item that has been
indexed on the site is assigned a rank by the search to denote how closely it relates
to your search terms. It may be more useful to order your results by Document Title
or the date it was Last Modified. To change the sort order, use the ‘Sort Order’
drop down box on the advanced search or search results page. You can also choose
whether to sort in Ascending or Descending order using the drop down box next to
the ‘Sort Order’ box.
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