I am looking to build a really simple (info only) website for a primary school. Some of the example websites I've seen for primary schools are often bright, colorful and contain almost a cartoony feel to it. Could you please tell me what is used to create these designs is it just photoshop built from scratch or are these graphics brought from somewhere. Thanks

Have a look on a free image sites such as sxc.hu - there's plenty you can use to add colour and texture to your site. Don't forget backgrounds, borders and text can all be coloured to suit your site. You could use photoshop or illustrator (or GIMP and Inkscape if you don't want to spend hundreds of £s) to mock up your website. There are loads of graphics editors out there; find one that suits you.

 

My advice if you're new to web design would be to keep it simple and as easy for the users as possible.