Software Development for UK Schools, Colleges and Training Providers

Education data lives in the MIS, and that is the starting point

Every school runs a management information system (MIS). The most common in England are SIMS, Arbor and Bromcom, with Scholarpack and others in primary. The MIS holds pupils, staff, timetables, attendance and assessment. Almost every useful education tool needs that data, so the integration route decides a lot.

Many third-party tools read MIS data through an integration platform such as Wonde or Groupcall Xporter, which handle school-by-school authorisation and provide a consistent API across MIS vendors. Arbor and Bromcom also have their own APIs. dijitul developments picks the route that suits your schools and their data sharing agreements, and builds read-only where possible so the MIS stays the single source of truth.

What we build for schools, trusts and colleges

• Trust-wide reporting. Multi-academy trusts often have schools on different MIS platforms. We pull attendance, behaviour, SEND and assessment data into one dashboard for central teams, with access limited by role.
• Portals. Parent, learner and employer portals for progress, forms, consent and payments.
• Booking systems for wraparound care, clubs, trips, rooms and equipment. See booking system development.
• FE and apprenticeships. Learner tracking, off-the-job hours logging, evidence portfolios and ILR validation tools.
• Legacy replacement. Moving an old Access database or spreadsheet system into a supported web app. See legacy software modernisation.

Rules that apply to education software

• UK GDPR and the ICO Children's Code (Age Appropriate Design Code): online services likely to be used by children must default to high privacy, minimise data and avoid nudging. Schools also need a DPIA for new systems processing pupil data.
• Keeping Children Safe in Education (KCSIE) 2025: in force from September 2025. It strengthens filtering and monitoring expectations, including generative AI content, according to the UK Safer Internet Centre. Any AI feature in a pupil-facing tool needs logging and safeguards.
• DfE data returns: the school census and, for FE, the Individualised Learner Record (ILR). The Education and Skills Funding Agency closed on 31 March 2025 and its functions moved into the Department for Education, according to GOV.UK, so specifications and submission services now sit with DfE.
• Accessibility: state schools, academies and colleges are covered by the Public Sector Bodies Accessibility Regulations 2018, which point to WCAG. We build to WCAG 2.2 AA.
• Ofsted: not a software rule, but reporting that answers inspection questions quickly is often the most valued feature.

Sign-in, security and integrations

Staff and pupils should not need another password. We use single sign-on with Microsoft Entra ID through Microsoft Graph or Google Workspace for Education, with roles mapped from MIS data. Payments for trips and clubs can go through Stripe or your existing parent payment provider. Data is hosted in the UK, encrypted, and logged so you can answer a subject access request quickly.

Apprenticeship and FE data in more detail

Colleges and independent training providers carry a heavy data load. Each learner has a funding stream, a standard, a start date, planned and actual off-the-job training hours, progress reviews with employers, end-point assessment gateway dates and, eventually, achievement. All of that feeds the monthly Individualised Learner Record (ILR) return to the Department for Education, and errors there affect funding.

Training providers often use an e-portfolio or learner management system for most of this. We build around those systems where they leave gaps: an employer portal for progress reviews and sign-offs, an off-the-job hours log that learners can fill in on their phones, or a validation tool that checks your ILR data against the current specification and funding rules before you submit, so issues are caught days before the deadline rather than after it.

For schools and trusts the equivalent is the termly census. Most of the work happens in the MIS, but trust-wide checks on data quality, such as missing SEND codes or attendance marks, are easy to automate once the data is in one place.

Getting started

Tell us what you need and which MIS your schools use. After a free chat we check the integration route and data sharing position, then give a fixed-price quote. Trusts often start with one reporting dashboard, then extend. See also software for charities for education charities and trusts with fundraising arms.

What we deliver

• Trust-wide reporting and dashboards fed from every school's MIS
• Parent, learner or employer portals
• ILR validation and apprenticeship tracking tools
• Booking systems for clubs, trips, rooms and equipment
• SSO with Microsoft Entra ID or Google Workspace
• Data migration from legacy databases and spreadsheets

How it works and what it costs

Every project gets a fixed-price quote after a free initial chat and a short scoping stage. You own the code and the data.

1. Free chat

   Tell us the problem in plain English: what you do now, what goes wrong and what "better" looks like. No charge, no obligation.

2. Scoping

   We map the processes, systems and data involved, agree what is in and out, and write it down so there are no surprises.

3. Fixed-price quote

   You get a fixed price for the agreed scope, or a phased plan for bigger builds, so you can start small and prove it works.

4. Build and test

   We build in short stages you can see and try, test against real data, then go live carefully with a rollback plan.

5. Hand over and look after

   You own the code and the data. We can host it, support it and keep improving it, or hand it to your own team.

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