Schools shortlisting a whole-school platform are usually trying to get teaching, administration and the staff-student-parent relationship into one system rather than several. Here is what we would evaluate, and how skodle answers each question.
Written for: IB coordinators and heads of school evaluating a whole-school platform against one built specifically around the IB's own programmes.
We do not publish feature claims about other companies' products. We have not audited them, and a comparison table we wrote about someone else's roadmap would be out of date within a term. Everything below describes skodle, and every question is one you should ask us and them.
Questions to ask every platform on your shortlist
Including us. If a vendor cannot answer one of these plainly, that is itself the answer.
Evaluation questions, what skodle answers, and how to judge the answer you get from any vendor including SEQTA
What to ask every vendor
skodle's answer
How to check any answer
Does it model your curriculum, or just store documents about it?
Linked records, so coverage is counted
Ask them to run a coverage report live, not show a planning screen
Does assessment reach the report card without anyone retyping it?
Marks flow to reports; no second entry
Watch someone enter one mark, then open the report it lands in
Does grading run through the IB's own criteria and strands, or a general markbook adapted to look like one?
Criteria and strands modelled, not adapted
Ask why a criterion level and the reported grade might differ, and see if there is an actual answer
Does the AI act, or does it draft for a person to approve?
Drafts only; a named human approves
Ask who is recorded as the approver, and where that record lives
Can you prove what happened, months later?
Append-only audit on 150+ actions
Ask to see one real audit entry and the fields it carries
What happens to your data if you leave?
Full export or erasure, one admin action
Ask for a sample export file during the trial, not a promise
Who can see a given child's record?
Scoped by role and by what you teach
Ask them to sign in as a parent and try to reach another family
Can you evidence an authorisation or inspection visit without a scramble?
Evidence mapped all year; run a report
Ask to see last year's evidence, not a blank template
What does it cost as the school grows?
Per seat, three tiers, all features included
Ask for a written quote at double your current roll
Will it work with the systems you already run?
Modelled; needs your credentials to go live
Ask for a demo against your own SIS, with your data
We do not fill in a column for SEQTA — we have not audited their software. The last column is the next best thing we can honestly give you: how to test the answer, whoever it comes from. Use it on us too.
Why each question mattersThe questions in full
1.Does it model your curriculum, or just store documents about it?
A folder of unit planners cannot tell you which concepts a year group has actually met. If the structure only exists inside the documents, every coverage question becomes a manual audit.
In skodle: skodle links a programme of inquiry to concepts, to units, to the learning experiences that carry them. Because the links are real records rather than text in a template, coverage is counted rather than asserted, and a gap detector can show you which parts of the framework nothing currently touches.
How to check any answer: Ask them to run a coverage report live, not show a planning screen
2.Does assessment reach the report card without anyone retyping it?
Re-entry is where marking time goes and where errors enter. If the gradebook and the reporting tool are separate systems, someone rebuilds the same data twice a term.
In skodle: Marks entered against a rubric or MYP criterion flow into portfolios, progress reports and transcripts without a second entry. Report comments can be AI-drafted from the same records, and a teacher edits and approves them before anyone else sees a word.
How to check any answer: Watch someone enter one mark, then open the report it lands in
3.Does grading run through the IB's own criteria and strands, or a general markbook adapted to look like one?
A markbook built for percentages and letter grades can be configured to display MYP levels or DP points, but that is a display setting rather than a model, and it shows up the first time someone asks why a criterion level and a subject grade disagree.
In skodle: skodle holds MYP criteria and strands as a versioned definition layer per subject, derives the subject grade from recorded criterion levels rather than a typed-in number, and runs the DP and CP core — IA, EE, TOK, CAS — through their own components rather than a generic assignment type.
How to check any answer: Ask why a criterion level and the reported grade might differ, and see if there is an actual answer
4.Does the AI act, or does it draft for a person to approve?
AI that sends messages, marks work or writes to a child's record without review moves professional judgement out of a teacher's hands and leaves nobody accountable for the outcome.
In skodle: Every AI output in skodle is a draft with a named human approver. The grading assistant writes to a suggestion record and has no path to the awarded mark. The student tutor guides towards the next step instead of supplying answers, and a message that reads as distress gets a fixed reply and a flag for staff rather than a model-generated one.
How to check any answer: Ask who is recorded as the approver, and where that record lives
5.Can you prove what happened, months later?
Safeguarding questions, data-protection requests and inspection findings all arrive after the fact. Without a trail you are relying on memory.
In skodle: skodle writes an append-only audit record for over 150 distinct actions, including who read a child's tutor transcript, who exported a record and who was refused access to something above their role. Each entry carries the actor, the role, the time and the address it came from.
How to check any answer: Ask to see one real audit entry and the fields it carries
6.What happens to your data if you leave?
The answer determines whether this decision is reversible. A platform that makes export painful has made your next evaluation for you.
In skodle: A full export of an individual student's record is a single admin action, and erasure is a separate one with its own confirmation and audit entry. Both exist because data-rights requests are a legal obligation, not a feature we would like to sell you later.
How to check any answer: Ask for a sample export file during the trial, not a promise
7.Who can see a given child's record?
In a school this is a safeguarding question before it is a technical one, and vague answers usually mean 'more people than you think'.
In skodle: Access is scoped by role and by what a member of staff actually teaches, and every school's data is isolated from every other school's at the query level. A parent portal shows one family their own child and nothing belonging to another.
How to check any answer: Ask them to sign in as a parent and try to reach another family
8.Can you evidence an authorisation or inspection visit without a scramble?
Evidence assembled in the fortnight before a visit is evidence about the fortnight before the visit.
In skodle: Artefacts are mapped to standards as they are created through the year, so the evidence for an IB authorisation, a Cambridge review or a CBSE inspection is a report you run rather than a folder you build.
How to check any answer: Ask to see last year's evidence, not a blank template
9.What does it cost as the school grows?
Per-student pricing and per-module pricing behave very differently at 400 pupils versus 1,400, and the difference usually surfaces at renewal.
In skodle: skodle is priced per seat across three tiers, with the cap set per account. The modules are not sold separately, so adding reporting or portfolios later is not a new line on the invoice.
How to check any answer: Ask for a written quote at double your current roll
10.Will it work with the systems you already run?
A platform that cannot read your student information system becomes a second place to type the same names.
In skodle: skodle models connections to student information systems, Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, payment providers and messaging tools, and the connection management is built. Moving live data requires your provider credentials, so treat this as a setup conversation during evaluation rather than something that works the moment you sign in — ask us to demonstrate it against your own stack.
How to check any answer: Ask for a demo against your own SIS, with your data
Where SEQTA may suit you better
SEQTA's real strength is being a whole-school platform first — timetabling, whole-staff communication and pastoral care sit in the same system as teaching, which is more than a curriculum-first tool sets out to do. A school that wants one login for everything the school runs, and treats IB modelling as one requirement among several, may reasonably prefer that breadth.
We would rather you read that here than discover it three months in. If it describes your school, say so on the call and we will tell you honestly whether it is worth continuing.
Before you move anything
This list is useful whoever you choose, and we would rather you had a clean migration to someone else than a bad one to us.
Ask for a full export of your existing unit plans and gradebook data before you sign anything new — in a format you can open without the old vendor.
Decide which academic year you are cutting over on. Mid-year moves cost a term of double entry.
Check whether whole-school functions you rely on today — timetabling, pastoral notes, whole-staff communication — have an equivalent here or need a separate tool.
Confirm who owns the parent-facing history: messages, reports and portfolio entries families have already seen.
Run one real unit through the new system end to end — plan, assess, report — before migrating the rest.
Common questions
Is skodle a full school-management system or just a curriculum tool?
Both. Curriculum planning, assessment and reporting are IB-native, and whole-school operations — admissions, attendance, fees, homework, behaviour records — run on the same student record, so a school is not stitching two systems together to get both.
Does skodle replace whole-school administration, or only teaching and learning?
Admissions, attendance, fees, homework and behaviour records all run in skodle on the same student record as curriculum and assessment. If a specific whole-school function you rely on today isn't listed here, ask us directly rather than assuming from this page.
Is skodle only for IB schools?
No. skodle is built for IB PYP, MYP, DP and CP, Cambridge pathways and CBSE, including schools in the IB candidate phase, and it supports Understanding by Design as a planning approach.
What does skodle do that a general school platform does not?
It models the IB's own structures — criteria and strands, the programme of inquiry, the DP and CP core — as real, versioned records rather than categories inside a general markbook, so a coordinator's question about coverage or derivation has a system to check rather than a memory to trust.
See it against your own curriculum
Bring a unit you already teach and an export from whatever you use now. Thirty minutes, run by someone who has taught the programme.
