Summer often brings a change of pace for us here at Schudio HQ. We suddenly stop hearing from most of our clients as they all take some much needed time to rest and relax. People often ask “Do you close over summer?” but summer is a key time for us! With less incoming calls and emails, it gives us the chance to take a look at the bigger picture and get everything lined up ready for the next year.

Here is what we have been up to this summer:

DSA Charity Walk

We kicked summer off with our first annual charity walk. As a team, we love to support and bring awareness to people with Downs’ Syndrome! So it was great to get our odd socks on and complete our charity walk in the Lake District. We raised £700 for the Downs Syndrome Association with the help of our clients, friends and family. We also hope we encouraged people to take a look at the material on the Downs Syndrome Association website and learn something new. A massive THANK YOU to everyone who sponsored us and sent over kind words. We would love for you to join us next year.

SchudioTV

You will have seen us mention this throughout our recent blog and social media posts. We are very excited to be launching our on-demand learning platform built specifically for educators. The courses have been designed to offer expert training on specific, and often complex needs within education. There are, of course, also website specific courses to show you how to make the most of your Schudio website.

The courses will allow you to complete training in school and at your own pace. Getting to launch has taken a lot of time. We have spent summer filming, re-filming, editing and putting these courses together along with our partner companies. We cant wait to show you the end result – why don’t you take a look and register your interest for any courses that may benefit you?

Development Progress

Summer often gives the development team the opportunity to work through some of the requests that have been made. There have been some great ones over the summer months:

• Photo Gallery folders – When you create a photo gallery the folder is now named after the gallery! This means the photos are a lot easier to find within file manager if you would like to use them somewhere else in the site.
• Event Booking – you can now add a booking form to your events! This will hopefully make your events much more useful and it will allow you to take and manage bookings through the website rather than relying on phones or slips.
• Bespoke designs – we have had three bespoke projects on the go over the summer months! The designs are beautiful and set the schools apart from other local schools. If you are looking for something very specific for your next website then a bespoke design may be the option for you!

Summer Giveaway

Those of you who were online over summer will have seen that we held a Summer Giveaway. We had 2670 number of entries for the chance to win a Booths Hamper, 2 SchudioTV tickets and a promotional video of the school. We are excited to announce that the winner is Alison Cottell from Hawthorns School, Huddersfield. Enjoy your hamper and SchudioTv course and we can’t wait to see the results of your video day.

Training preparations

We are really excited to be running two special training events in the immediate future. It was helpful to have some time over summer to sort out the logistics and make sure the course material is prepared.

Our Annual Ofsted Ready Website Course will be jam-packed with helpful content and practical advice that will help you to achieve a compliant website. It is suitable for clients and non-clients. It would be great to see you there!

We are also holding a training session in partnership with the Down’s Syndrome Association for the third time now. “Early Years and Primary Education, for Learners age 4 to 11” is guaranteed to be a special event and not to be missed by teachers and TA’s supporting young people with Down’s Syndrome.

We will also be getting straight back into our regular training come September. Our monthly Essential School Website Training and free Twilight Webinars are all scheduled. If you are in need of some refresher training it would be great to see you at Schudio HQ for some training!

Annual Leave

Our team have managed to take some time off too! There has been a heavy Schudio presence in Cornwall this year. Ian, Nicole and three of their children went down to Cornwall and enjoyed time on the beach and sampling the local delicacies (pasties and cider). Stephen has also been down to Cornwall with his wife and two daughters. He proudly paid £1 to get them all into the Eden Project thanks to his club card points!

Esther, along with her husband and three children, have been to Wales where they had some fun in the sun. I spent a week in Northumberland helping on a children’s camp. So I guess I swapped places with lots of our clients for a week. 1 week is enough, hats off to you all!! And Roman and Anna have enjoyed time with their family. No doubt Roman will be off on a climbing trip soon while Anna might enjoy a city break with their daughters.

No holidays for Steph this summer though. She is off on a missions trip to Kenya in September doing vital work with orphans and others in need. If you are interested in taking a look at what she will be doing then check out her fundraising page.

What about you?

I would love to hear from you. What did you get up to over summer? Are you refreshed and ready for the new year or could you do with another week? What do you anticipate will be the biggest challenge you will face this term? Let me know – china@schudio.com.