About
Schudio

Having been approached by 2 separate Sixth Form Colleges to solve the problems encountered through WordPress and poor hosting provision, Ian Richardson built the first version of the Schudio CMS and stumbled into a niche.

The first version of the Schudio CMS was launched in 2012 to every school in Blackpool, Lancashire at the annual schools gathering. We immediately started serving a number of Blackpool primary schools and the journey began in full.

We rapidly expanded across Lancashire, securing swathes of schools as word spread about our bespoke CMS and the level of service we provided. Our goal through our growth has been to retain a family feel, a boutique agency approach and an exceptional level of support to our clients. We seek to be considered as an extension of your team.

As school website compliance became a more critical issue facing schools, we built one of a series of completely unique features. The school website compliance software enabled schools to visually compare their website live against the latest requirements, immediately saving endless hours of manual auditing.

Since founding Schudio in 2011, one of our biggest drivers has been how we can serve “the least of these”; those who are in desperate need. And so, Ian visited Uganda, a lifelong dream, to partner with a range of esstablished, in-country organisations to provide support. To date, we have been part of building schools and infrastructure for children and young people with additional needs and providing long-term support.

One of our most mission-critical goals has always been saving time and making life easier for anyone working in school and looking after the school website. Document Groups, centralised and shareable content and media and centralised management of vital information were all released to add huge power to clients.

As more and more Trusts are formed, we continue to develop new features that support the expansion of Trusts and the need to centralise services; RAG reports, documents and groups that can be embedded on each school’s website and a growing range of related features.

We have always sought to be partnership-driven, stemming from our background in partnership development in a range of sectors. Our partnership with parental engagement providers ensures that we retain the cutting edge and only work with those at the very sharp end of engagement.

Once again we led the way in support and learning by launching SchudioTV, our online education platform providing unlimited access to a wide-range of resource and online courses to support continual upskilling of all our clients.

As part of our expansion of support for all sizes of schools and colleges, we released a range of options and features to help encourage greater levels of enrollment and staff recruitment.

Broadening our offer to provide a range of supplemental services has been important to us from inception; we now offer a full-service of photography, videography, marketing and content-managed services, plus social media functions and high-end strategic services.

As Trusts expand nationwide, we continue to reinvest to meet the specific needs of our sector. The Trust-specific features provided by Schudio are unique and powerful, saving time and empowering Trust-teams to support their schools like never before.

In a significant milestone of our journey, we fully updated our school website software, enhancing its capabilities and user experience. Alongside this, we launched an open API, empowering schools with greater flexibility and the ability to seamlessly integrate with other essential tools and platforms. This development underscores our commitment to providing cutting-edge solutions that evolve with the needs of modern education.

We introduced our free Canva Asset Library to help schools strengthen their visual communication without extra cost or complexity. The library includes ready-to-use templates for website banners, social graphics, leaflets, and a growing collection of creative assets. Schools can access free resources with optional paid templates such as brochures and prospectuses for those wanting a more polished finish.

In response to increasing demand from Trusts, we released centralised content deployment across school websites. This feature allows MAT teams to create content once and publish it across many sites, keeping everything aligned with minimal admin time. It quickly became one of the most valued additions for Trusts managing large groups of schools.

After thorough pilots with several Trusts, the Schudio MAT Portal officially launched. Combining compliance monitoring, policy lifecycle tools, GDPR-friendly analytics, and centralised content deployment, the Portal gives Trust teams a clear, reliable way to support their schools. It has rapidly become a central part of how MATs manage oversight and day-to-day website needs.

These are confirmed developments scheduled for release across 2026.

A new suite of AI-supported tools will be released across the Schudio CMS and MAT Portal. These features are shaped by years of conversations with schools and Trusts and are designed to help complete website tasks more accurately and more quickly while keeping full control in the hands of admin teams.

The next phase of MAT Portal development brings deeper policy workflow options, improved dashboards, and new content curation features. These updates are based on how Trust staff use the system in practice and will give central teams an even clearer picture of what’s happening across every school.

Falling birth rates continue to affect pupil numbers, so we’re preparing a set of practical tools and templates to help schools present a clear, confident admissions message online. The Admissions Module will include creative assets, website components, and step-by-step guidance designed to support schools throughout the admissions cycle.