# Content modeling in practice: a school site its own staff keep current

> Content modeling names the things an organisation publishes again and again, so its own staff can add them. One school's website, built that way.

Source: https://lastdoorsolutions.com/blog/content-modeling

**Content modeling means naming the things an organisation publishes again and again, and giving each its own fields, so the site is built from them.** Staff can then publish new entries through the agreed fields and templates.

The Capstone Debate website went live in April 2025. **By October 2026, its staff had added 90 achievements and 32 debate team profiles themselves.** Nobody had to design a page for any of them.

## What a content model is

- **Content types:** the things you publish more than once, such as results, people, events or products.
- **Fields:** what every item of a type carries, so each is entered the same way.
- **Relationships:** how types point to each other, such as a team to its coaches.
- **Templates:** pages that show the entries, so a redesign changes the look and keeps the content.

**Structured content like this is what lets the people who know the news publish it.** The content management system holds the entries; the design decides how they look.

## A school is judged by what changes

Capstone Debate teaches debating and public speaking to students from primary to secondary school, in Hong Kong and online. **In late 2024 it had a name and no website.**

A debate school wins families with its results, its coaches and its programmes. Results and teams change through the year, and the school's own staff had to be able to add them as they happened. **Individually coded result pages would have needed a developer for each addition.**

![Two sides. Individually coded pages: a developer adds each result and must preserve its content through a redesign. A content model: four types the staff fill in, achievements, debate teams, staff and testimonials. In October 2026, staff entries included 90 achievements and 32 debate team profiles. No developer for a new entry; the 2025 page updates kept every entry.](/images/blog/pages-or-content-model.png)

*The same school, built from pages or from a content model. Entry counts recorded in October 2026.*

## Four content types

So the site is built around four types of content, the things the school publishes over and over: **achievements, debate teams, staff and testimonials.** Each type has its own fields, so an achievement is entered the same way every time. The achievements page lists them as cards, with a button to load more.

![The achievements page design: three figures for finals, speaker awards and national representatives, then a grid of achievement cards with blurred photographs and a button to load more.](/images/blog/capstone-achievements.webp)

*The achievements page design: each card is one entry.*

## Pages designed around the model

We designed the home page through six versions, then every page, the mobile menu and a brand sheet. **The design was agreed on 29 January 2025.** Work had begun on 19 December 2024, and the site went live in April, after a round of feedback from the school.

The pages are built from 22 blocks and 16 template parts. We trained the school’s team to manage the site and provided a video recording for later reference.

## Updates that keep the content

In August 2025 the school asked for changes to the website. We updated the home and programme pages and built reusable components for new pages. The updates went live in October 2025.

**The achievements and team profiles were entries, not pages.** The updates changed how they are shown, not what the school had entered.

## Three questions before your site is designed

1. **What do you publish every month or term?** Results, people, events: each is a candidate content type.
2. **Who adds it?** Name the person on your staff, and design the form for them.
3. **What should a redesign keep?** Anything entered as content should survive a new look.

[The Capstone Debate case study](/work/capstone-debate) shows the designs, the achievements page and the 2025 variations. We build sites like it on [WordPress](/services/wordpress); this one uses a content type and Advanced Custom Fields for each kind of entry.

A content model is a decision about what the site holds. Every update the staff make afterwards is the return on it.

## Does every update to your site need a developer?

Tell us what your team publishes every month. We will say which content types it needs, and who on your side should fill them in.

[Talk to us about your website](https://lastdoorsolutions.com/contact?service=wordpress)