Skole 50 – Kids School WordPress Theme

I picked up Skole for a small private kindergarten site where the client wanted “something cheerful, not corporate, and easy for the receptionist to edit.” Famous last words. The old site was a pile of WPBakery leftovers, broken sliders, and 2017 inline CSS, so Skole looked like a decent escape route.

And honestly, parts of it are nice. The demo import worked, Elementor sections were readable, and the kids-school vibe didn’t look like a stock-photo crime scene. But yeah, I still had my usual WordPress evening: DevTools open, coffee cold, muttering at PHP templates.

Setup and demo import

In my build, Skole relied on Elementor plus its companion theme plugin for custom widgets and post types. The demo import lived under:

Appearance -> Import Demo Data

The import pulled pages, menus, media, and Elementor layouts without exploding the database, which I appreciate. Some themes dump 900 fake posts like they’re seeding a landfill. Skole was not that bad.

Still, after import I had to go straight into:

Settings -> Permalinks -> Save Changes

because the class archive URLs were throwing 404s until rewrite rules were flushed. Classic.

What you can change without touching code

Most safe changes are inside Elementor. Hero sections, teacher cards, class blocks, testimonials — all editable there. The client could replace images and text without entering the danger zone.

Typography was split between:

Appearance -> Customize -> Typography

and Elementor’s own Site Settings. That annoyed me. Pick one control system, please. I had to set body fonts in Customizer, then override headings again in:

Elementor -> Site Settings -> Typography

Colors were also duplicated. The global accent color looked fine until one button widget ignored it and used a hardcoded orange from the demo style. I absolutely hate that kind of “almost global” styling.

What is hardcoded and needs dirty hands

The header structure in Skole was not fully builder-based in my install. For proper cleanup I had to inspect:

wp-content/themes/skole/header.php

and a setup file around:

wp-content/themes/skole/inc/class-theme-setup.php

The logo output and menu wrapper classes were theme-side, not Elementor-side. So if you want a weird custom mobile header, don’t promise it in 20 minutes.

I also found template parts for custom post types under something like:

wp-content/themes/skole/template-parts/

The class listing layout needed PHP edits because the client wanted “age group” shown before price. Elementor didn’t expose that field in the widget settings, so I hooked into the template and added the meta manually. Not elegant, but it shipped.

DevTools reality check

I opened Chrome DevTools -> Network and Skole was loading too many font weights. I saw 300, 400, 500, 600, 700 for the same Google font, plus Elementor CSS, Swiper, Font Awesome, and the theme stylesheet.

Not catastrophic, but not lightweight either.

In Console, I got one annoying mobile menu error after optimization:

Uncaught TypeError: Cannot read properties of undefined

It happened only after delaying JavaScript in LiteSpeed Cache. My fix was boring but effective: exclude these handles from delay/defer:

jquery-core
elementor-frontend
swiper
skole-main

After that the hamburger menu stopped acting possessed.

The caching problem I had to babysit

With LiteSpeed Cache, CSS combine was fine, but JS delay broke the sticky header and mobile dropdown. In:

LiteSpeed Cache -> Page Optimization -> Tuning

I added exclusions for the theme’s main script and Elementor frontend. I also disabled “Load JS Deferred” just for logged-out mobile testing until I confirmed the menu behaved.

For WP Rocket, I’d do the same thing under:

File Optimization -> JavaScript Files -> Excluded JavaScript Files

Do not blindly delay everything on Skole unless you enjoy fake victories in PageSpeed and angry parents unable to open the menu.

GPL and update workflow

The package I used for Skole is 100% GNU GPL compliant. No license keys are needed in principle, and the premium functionality, including demo data import, is available out of the box, fully unlocked, with Unlimited Website Usage.

The tradeoff is updates. Since there’s no key-based updater involved, I install updates manually. My normal flow is:

1. Backup files and database.
2. Test the new zip on staging.
3. Upload via Appearance -> Themes -> Add New -> Upload Theme.
4. Or replace the folder through FTP/SFTP.
5. Clear cache, resave permalinks, check Elementor CSS regeneration.

Also, before deploy I go to:

Elementor -> Tools -> Regenerate CSS & Data

because otherwise half the layout bugs look scarier than they are.

Performance notes

Skole is not a featherweight theme, but it’s not a dumpster fire either. The DOM gets chunky on pages with class grids, teacher cards, testimonials, and sliders all stacked together.

My quick wins were specific:

• disable unused Elementor widgets from Elementor -> Settings -> Features;
• remove extra font weights in typography settings;
• replace demo PNGs with compressed WebP;
• turn off unused social icons in the header template;
• avoid putting three sliders on the homepage, because why would you do that to yourself?

After cleanup, the kindergarten homepage was acceptable. Not blazing. Acceptable. Sometimes that’s the honest WordPress target.

Stuff I got asked after deploy

Why does the mobile menu stop opening after cache setup?

Because delayed JS hits the theme menu script. Exclude jquery-core, elementor-frontend, swiper, and skole-main.

Can the class cards be edited fully in Elementor?

Partly. Text and images, yes. Custom field order or extra meta may require edits in template-parts/ or the theme widget PHP.

Why are font changes inconsistent?

Because Skole mixes Customizer typography with Elementor global styles. Set both, then clear Elementor CSS cache.

Is this theme okay for multiple school sites?

Yes. The GNU GPL setup allows Unlimited Website Usage, and Skole works fine across domains if you handle updates manually