The national benchmark for school websites. We analysed the live websites of 577 schools, scored them across the things that matter to families, and matched them to the DfE's official pupil data - so any school or trust can see where the good stuff, the gaps and the opportunities are, and how to improve.
Who is behind this: Schudio builds and hosts websites for schools and trusts across the UK, so this benchmark is drawn from real, live school sites on our platform - fully anonymised, with no individual school named, and refreshed every month.
The benchmark
The Schudio Website Score
One transparent score out of 100, built from what families actually rely on: how findable the key pages are and how well the school communicates. Switch the segment to benchmark primary, secondary, academies, maintained schools and trusts.
Findability Mostly strong
The pages parents look for
How often each key parent journey can be reached from the homepage. The essentials are almost universal; SEND, vacancies and newsletters are the most commonly missed.
Admissions and pupil numbers Big opportunity
Four in ten schools have places to fill
Using the DfE's official capacity and pupil numbers for the schools we could match, here is how full they are. Pupil numbers drive budgets, so the website's job differs depending on where a school sits. Primary schools are markedly more likely to have places to fill (43%) than secondaries (29%).
SEND and inclusion Room to improve
Nearly one in four sites has no easy-to-find SEND page
The SEND (or SEN information report) page is both a legal requirement and, for many families, the single most important page on the site. It is also one of the hardest to write well, which is why so many are thin or buried.
Compliance and inspection readiness Solid, keep it current
The statutory basics are mostly in place
Most schools have the statutory pages, but "having a page" is not the same as it being current and complete. The gaps that catch schools out are usually stale documents and a handful of missing items, not a missing section.
Communication and engagement Room to grow
News and newsletters are the biggest missed opportunity
A living website - regular news, a current newsletter, active social links - keeps current families engaged and reassures prospective ones. More than a third are not making the most of it.
Regional benchmark
How the regions compare
Average Schudio Website Score by region, for regions with enough schools in the sample to compare. A taste of the regional reports this dataset makes possible.
The programme
A family of benchmarks, from one dataset
Because the score is computed the same way for every school, the same engine produces the whole family of reports - national, regional, by phase, and for individual trusts.
Method. The Schudio Website Score is 70% findability + 30% communication, built only from publicly visible signals on each school's homepage (the pages linked for families and how actively the school publishes news and updates). It deliberately excludes any school's private compliance audit. Pupil numbers and capacity come from the Department for Education's Get Information about Schools open data, matched to schools by name where we could do so confidently. Based on 577 live UK school websites analysed in July 2026; the sample is drawn from schools we work with and is indicative of the wider sector. No individual school is identified - only sector and segment averages are shown. Updates monthly. Schudio builds websites and tools for schools and trusts.
