Smart Houses

4 steps 5 min Updated 29 October 2026

Overview

Smart Houses lets you set up your school's houses in WordPress and show them on the website. Each house can have a name, colour, crest or logo, motto, link and a points total. You set the houses up once. After that, the only thing to change is the points, and staff can do that from the Dashboard.

Smart Houses must be switched On on the Smart Plugins hub. Only administrators can set up the houses. Who can update the points is your choice: see Who can update points.

Getting set up

Step 1: Turn on Smart Houses

Go to Smart Plugins and make sure Smart Houses is switched On.

Step 2: Add your houses

Go to Smart Plugins → Smart Houses. Under Your houses, select Add a house once for each of your school's houses. Each new house gets a box of its own, in a different colour.

Step 3: Fill in each house

Select a house's name to open its box. Type its Name, click its Colour (or choose your own), and select Choose a picture to add its crest or logo from the Media Library. The picture is shown the way visitors will see it: whole, in a circle of the house colour. Motto and Link are optional. Then select Save Changes.

Step 4: Show the houses on a page

Edit the page, add a Shortcode block and paste [smart-houses] into it (the Smart Houses page has a Copy button for it), then update the page. On websites using the new editor, add the School houses block instead. The top of the Smart Houses page lists the pages your houses are already on.

Updating house points

The points boxes are in three places, all the same:

the House points box on the Dashboard, the first page after signing in
Dashboard → House points in the menu
the top of Smart Plugins → Smart Houses (administrators only)

To add points, type the number in a house's Add box, for example 15, and select Save points. To take points away, put a minus first: -5. While you type, the box shows the house's new total. You can fill in several houses and save them all at once.

To set a total yourself, for example back to 0 at the start of a new year, change the house's Total box instead.

Under the button you'll see when the points were last changed, and by whom. The website shows the new totals straight away.

If two people add points at the same time, both are counted.

Who can update points

Where to find it: Smart Plugins → Smart Houses → Who can update points?

Choice	Who can update points
Administrators only	Website administrators
Administrators and editors	Administrators, and anyone with the Editor role. This is the default.
Any staff member who can write posts	Administrators, editors, authors and contributors: usually every member of staff who signs in to the website

Whoever you choose can only change the points. Only administrators can change the houses themselves.

Adding or removing a house

Go to Smart Plugins → Smart Houses.

To add a house, select Add a house. Anything you have typed in the other houses is saved at the same time.
To remove a house, open its box and select Remove this house, then confirm. Its name, colour, crest and points are deleted, and the houses after it move up one place.

Settings

Your houses

Where to find it: Smart Plugins → Smart Houses

Setting	What it does	Default
Houses	Your houses, and the Add a house button (up to 30 houses)	None
Who can update points?	Who can change the points. See Who can update points	Administrators and editors

For each house:

Setting	What it does	Default
Name	The house name	House N
Colour	The house's colour: click one of the named colours or choose your own	A different colour for each house
Crest or logo	A picture for the house, from the Media Library. The whole picture is shown, in a circle of the house colour	Empty
Motto	A short motto or tagline. Visitors see it when they point at the house, or under the points on a phone or tablet	Empty
Link	A page the house links to, if any	Empty

On the website, light house colours such as yellow are made a little darker for the points, and their mottos are shown in dark text, so everyone can read them.

Showing houses on a page

Where to find it: Add the [smart-houses] shortcode in the page or post editor.

Parameter	What it does
`order_by`	Changes the order houses are shown in. Accepts `most_points_desc`, `most_points_asc`, `alphabetical_asc`, `alphabetical_desc`, `by_id_asc` and `by_id_desc` (`by_id` is the order of the houses on the settings page). If you leave it out, websites converted from the previous SmartPress version show houses in house order; other websites show them in points order, most points first.
`style`	On websites converted from the previous SmartPress version, `style="list"` shows the houses in a vertical list instead of side-by-side blocks. On other websites this has no visible effect.

Troubleshooting

Houses aren't showing on the page

Why it happens: Smart Houses may be turned off on the Smart Plugins hub, no houses may have been added yet, or the [smart-houses] shortcode may be missing from the page.

How to fix it:

Confirm Smart Houses is On on the Smart Plugins hub.
Go to Smart Plugins → Smart Houses and check your houses are listed under Your houses.
Check the [smart-houses] shortcode is on the page and spelled exactly [smart-houses].

A member of staff can't see House points

Why it happens: Who can update points? doesn't include their role, or no houses have been added yet.