Bromcom Computers

IN CONVERSATION WITH THE DAVID ROSS EDUCATION TRUST 

HOW ONE OF THE LARGEST MATS IN THE COUNTRY MAXIMISES THE IMPACT OF THEIR MIS 

OVERVIEW 

The David Ross Education Trust (DRET) is a network of unique and diverse academies, committed to becoming one of the top-performing multi-academy trusts in the country. Recognised as one of 11 system leaders nationwide, the Trust works with 34 primary and secondary schools across the country. 

We spoke to their Data Manager David Sands about how DRET has utilised Bromcom to make a positive impact across the Trust. He explains in his own words how they use Bromcom Cloud-MIS for a wide range of applications but most importantly, how critical it is to have an MIS supplier work with you as a strategic partner. 

INTRODUCTION 

My role is Data Manager for the trust, but as anyone who works within data management knows, it can become a bit of a catchall. In essence it is not just data management but the information systems that use it as well. As a result, Bromcom is the biggest system in terms of harbouring student level data that we use. The main points of my role are to do with data management, its efficiency, accuracy and then quality analysis to improve educational outcomes. 

Everything about what we do should revert back to helping and aiding teaching and learning, and the experience and safety of our students. All the data I compile has a student’s name under it as a result our data is multi-levelled, never just a table of numbers. I think that’s really, really important and the driving force of my job as I see it.  

ASSESSMENT - PRIMARY 

We rolled out Primary Tracker last September and it has been very straightforward. Very little training was required and really, staff ‘just got on with it’. The associated analytics don’t require a training guide due to its intuitive layout and design. It’s out of the box. It does what it says on the tin. 

The driving factor for me was to ensure we had a way of harvesting assessment data in such a way that it could be easily collated centrally. The power to bring it centrally and then also deconstruct it from a single database is immensely powerful.  

The Primary Tracker, has allowed us to collate that data and information, even in these difficult times, the first year has gone well. It is allowing me to move on to phase two, which I’m working with Richard and Steve on (Bromcom Product Owners). This is about how we best bring in the other, important information, the scaled scores, standardised test scores, attendance, behaviour, etc. That will then allow us to have that complete dashboard for attainment and progress, the last piece in the primary jigsaw for Key Stages One and Two. EYFS, well we are waiting on the DfE to a degree to be fair, so there is only so much any of us can say.  

Importantly, it is really good to have those conversations with product leads regularly, something I feel very privileged to be able to do. I tend to touch base with someone like Richard once a term, and that’s great, it keeps that roadmap ticking along. It keeps our aspirations on track, and it helps me prioritise mine and my team’s workload. That then in turn rolls out to all 34 schools.  

It is one guy talking to product leads, which doesn’t seem like much of a conversation but actually that ends up filtering down to an organisation with over 2,000 employees and 14,000 students. If you don’t have a roadmap, all of your planning is pie in the sky. 

“I want to spend as much of my time as possible on improving outcomes, supporting schools, supporting them with their SIPs and their SEFs and their Ofsted readiness. That’s the top-level strategic intervention for someone like me to perform in. I can only be afforded that opportunity to engage with that if the systems are doing everything they should be automatically, in essence. Everything must work as it should.”

DAVID SANDS 

DRET DATA MANAGER 

ASSESSMENT - SECONDARY 

In Secondary we have done something similar, all schools use the same assessment entry methodology. That’s where the Key Stage Four dashboard has been a great success. It has allowed us to get rid of SISRA, thus making important financial savings. 

The biggest complement I can give is that we have staff who absolutely loved SISRA, I said, “Have a look at your KS4 dashboard [In Bromcom]. Now I want you to really look through it and tell me anything that it doesn’t do, that you get from elsewhere.” They went, “No. Great. Does everything.” 

All of our Secondary schools now use the student portal for homework. That has allowed us to end our Show My Homework contracts. We have managed to get the schools to engage in it, the take up even in this difficult year is good. Again, through all those little product meetings that we have, which at the time seem innocuous, make real labour and physical savings as well. They are really important, and that’s why those relationships are absolutely critical, far more important than anything else. 

ATTENDANCE & BEHAVIOUR 

Behaviour for me is the party piece of Bromcom. Pathways is a very powerful little bit of software that sits in the background and the schools that are using it, love it. Those that aren’t using it are only not using it because they either aren’t sure how or simply don’t know about it. This is a long term project for us to tackle, which will realistically, take some time. The schools where Bromcom behaviour workflows have been set up love it. Absolutely love it. It allows them to spend more time on what they should be, because the system is doing that work for them, as it should.  

WHAT IS PATHWAYS? 

Pathways is a behaviour automation tool within Bromcom. Schools can define their behaviour policy to ensure that follow ups to behavioural events are automatically processed. It can carry out a wide range of tasks based on various triggers. For example, it could automatically notify the head of year that a pupil has reached 10 achievement points this week, or assign a pupil a detention and notify staff if they have had a specific behaviour type logged against them. 

Obviously the biggest one over the last 12 months and it will continue to be so for some time is that of Attendance. Whilst there are no performance measures (this year), it is critical for safeguarding the children. It’s absolutely critical, so using the single system has allowed us to manage that centrally.  

The majority of employees within education are teachers. They use Bromcom for Attendance, Behaviour and Assessment, the big three. They have all of that at their fingertips through the dashboard approach. We don’t really need to do anything with them. We can leave 80% of the organisation alone quite frankly.  

MAT-LEVEL ANALYSIS 

A big issue in schools is to try and join the link between pastoral and academic factors. If you have poorly behaved, poorly attended students we obviously know that they don’t usually attain that well. It’s about trying to capture that earlier. A big piece that I do is to pull all that information out and create additional, bespoke documents, such as a ‘School on a Page’, which then gives colleagues access to trends, snapshots, attendance, behaviour, exclusions, all in one place.  

It allows us to create tertiary, really bespoke data captures to build into it. We can have a one-page pupil profile with behaviour, attendance, timetable, academic performance over time, exclusions, plus whatever else the school wants. Some schools may want provision mapping, they may want intervention, they may want safeguarding areas. They may just want general comments and feedback, and so it just helps to join all that together. 

I have 34 schools all running the same system that I can sit there at home and actually do full MAT analysis on anything for Attendance, Exclusions, Key Stage One, Two, Four, even Five assessments. It means ironically that I don’t spend that much time in Bromcom systems because much of the work that I’m doing uses the single flat database in Excel or equivalent software, but it’s still all Bromcom under it.  

It doesn’t mean it is going to stay that way. But I like to always do things myself because it is that internal check and balance within the organisation. That isn’t a criticism of Bromcom. It is quite the opposite actually. It’s about me having the tools to have that check and balance to do something bespoke. 

As a large organisation our data protection officer gets lots of Freedom of Information requests, be it from the press, parents, etc. They can be about anything to do with anything, and so far, we’ve been able to meet those needs, comfortably. Ultimately, we’ve got access and resource to the information to compile it however we want. 

“Ultimately, we’ve got access and resource to the information to compile it however we want.”

DAVID SANDS 

DRET DATA MANAGER 

We have our central MIS, test sites and a virtual school as well. That’s a longer-term project for us, which went really smoothly to begin with, but unfortunately the pandemic has put a halt to some of that progress. All of those facilities are now knitted together nice and neatly, no complex data warehousing required. 

If you have accuracy and consistency then you can have faith in the information that you are sharing with the community, whether it is school leaders, governors, trustees, parents, students, etc. 

It’s about using technology to be innovative, and education for too long has been a bit slow with it. People like me coming in are hopefully able to keep banging that drum and driving forwards, improving efficiencies and allowing teachers and support staff to spend more time on student level issues not complex reporting and printing. 

THE ONE-STOP-SHOP APPROACH 

It is not until people sit down and actually go through all of the systems an educational institution uses that they see financially how much can be saved, I think they’d be staggered,. But it’s a lot more than that. It’s the labour savings. It’s the ease of use, not just for teachers but for parents. Parents are accessing a single app that they can update their own details or their student’s details. They are able to pay for their school dinners. They can get their student’s reports, see their Attendance, see it all.  

I think with the developments of the dashboard approach, that has a knock-on effect to inform your full governing board, trustees, etc. Whether you are viewing it within the MIS or MAT Vision or whether you are taking the data dynamically and creating these smart sheets, Bromcom’s role is to provide the functionality to make it possible, and it is. It’s the facility for efficiency both in human resources and in fiscal savings. It’s that 365 approach of data going from one place to the next.  

“The biggest thing for us, it’s allowed us to bring students back to the forefront of data rather than the other way around.”

DAVID SANDS 

DRET DATA MANAGER 

That is the challenge as we head into this next decade, bringing data from multiple sources or ideally all from those same systems to allow that instant approach to information and data management. If we want to have a deep dive on attendance we can, and we know it is going to be very accurate and to the point, thus allowing us to highlight what is required, where and when.  

It is the opportunity for that One-Stop-Shop, to axe those irritating third party systems. Maybe it’s your data system, SISRA, 4Matrix, GO 4 Schools or whatever. Maybe it’s your Show My Homework or Homework Club or whatever countless other opportunities there are out there as well. Maybe it is your ParentPay, your WisePay, your whatever it is that you are going with. They are simply not required. 

COST & EFFICIENCY SAVINGS 

No schools want to be spending all of their budget on information systems. Whilst I can’t give you numbers at all, if I am able to turn round to you and say, “Well, we’ve got rid of SISRA. We’ve got rid of Show My Homework, etc.” You start adding up all these pieces of software over 34 schools that’s a lot of money. 

We’ve managed to cull our IT systems massively, massively down. We had lots of schools using ClassDojo that was technically free financially, but used a lot of time in setup, in populating, transferring, in parents using it, and so as we phased people away from things like ClassDojo over to using MCAS again people are happy. They certainly realised, “Yes, all our reports are electronic.” How many hours does that save their staff?  

That’s why I don’t think you can put a financial figure on the saving because it is vast. Scheduling all your attendance reports rather than someone making them. It is too vast to be able to quantify. Yes, lots of MIS’ have areas of this, but in my experience, it didn’t tick all of them. 

What I’m not even beginning to include is if you are still operating a client-based system, such as SIMS, all of the onsite servers and the support for it, and then the support for the servers in the IT infrastructure as well. The drain on the infrastructure, your access points throughout the schools just to make that work, the categories defined, the need to have Windows PCs, whereas now we really only buy Chromebooks. 

Every one of our machines is half the price than it would have been. The teachers use Chromebooks and the student machines are now nearly all Chromebooks. Over the last 12 months with all the device rollouts that has all been Chromebook, every single one of them. 

OPERATING DURING A PANDEMIC 

From a central perspective for myself it’s allowed me to really concentrate, prepare, and actually start to highlight certain issues within the organisation. Listen and say, “How can we use the system or offshoots of the system to benefit our students?” It has been critical for us to accurately monitor attendance throughout the period, actual v statutory, accurately monitoring ‘bums on seats’ during both lockdowns and now we are back out of it.  

I think one thing that DRET should be phenomenally proud of, is that within two weeks we had a full home engagement learning provision going for every student from every school. I don’t think many organisations in the country had that. What it allowed me then to do was to make sure straightaway I was able to monitor engagement in other ways.  

We could bring in the data dumps from, say, Google Classrooms or Microsoft through the DRET logins, but also then combine that with the data coming out of Bromcom, such as key worker data, social worker data, etc. We were able to bring actual attendance data, marry that up with the other services and within a month we had a full dashboard approach to remote and home engagement. That saw us really well through everything because it allowed us to monitor everything, down to individual students.  

We also then used Bromcom to capture student welfare and phone calls home, so rather than using communication logs we used assessment sheets because they were easier to pull out centrally. We had that as a fairly formulaic approach. It was a massive effort from all staff within the organisation to make those calls. But again, it allowed us to pull together that dashboard, with student welfare and safety right at the heart. 

“In that random time of unforeseen crisis, we were able to actually manipulate the system still to our benefit to get all the information we wanted.”

DAVID SANDS 

DRET DATA MANAGER 

The driving factor behind that is, “Well, this is what the system can do, so we are going to make sure the process works in that way for this example.” 

You don’t always want that. You want processes to drive systems and vice versa, it has to work both ways. But we definitely had that approach. Again, if we were in an organisation with lots of different MIS systems that would have been impossible. I think you’ll find that from any MATs if they are operating multiple systems, they weren’t able to warehouse that data accurately and cross it over. I think that was a really, really big one for us.  

As mentioned, attendance is a massive one for everyone, all educational organisations, but a big one for us especially. DRET is known for their schools, often located in more deprived areas. As such, attendance can be a battle. It’s about us now talking with people like Ben (Bromcom Product Owner) from that MAT Vision angle and seeing, “How can we use the system to benefit students?” Not produce tables of numbers. We want it to benefit the students. 

STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP 

Bromcom have some very nice folks working for them, who are very, very patient and unbelievably answer emails directly, I’m not sure that the equivalent of the product leads would be providing those answers at other companies. 

It’s nice to see that Bromcom are looking forwards. You have Scott (Bromcom Education Consultant), looking at his CEO angle if you will, that higher strategic element which I understand is a longer-term job. This is really securing the future and driving our information and data management forward. I was lucky enough to have a conversation with him a while ago and be part of that early doors as well.  

You have Dan Sears (Bromcom Education Consultant) driving online communities as well, which is really positive. Communication is king of everything, be it communication to roadmaps about what can we do, how do we manage the MAT, what is going to be possible? What are our data priorities? DRET’s priorities are going to be different to that of Harris, Ark, Oasis, take your pick. But it’s important that we have the tools to really drive on that going forwards. 

FOOTNOTE 

Thank you to David Sands and the DRET team for providing their valuable time to being part of this discussion. We value all of our partnerships and the successes at DRET are a great example of where MIS Supplier and Education provider can work together to improve outcomes. If you would like to know more about how we can help your school or MAT, please get in touch.

How Bromcom has developed within the Dixons Academies Trust

Dixons Academy Trust is a well-established multi-academy trust of 12 schools serving the communities of Bradford and Leeds. These consist of 6 secondary academies, 3 primaries, 2 all-through academies and a sixth form academy. The Trust’s mission is to challenge social and educational disadvantage in the North, through establishing high performing establishments which maximise student achievement, value diversity, develop character and build cultural capital. The Trust ensures that Dixon's students have high aspirations and a collective ambition that brings about success. We spoke to Neil Miley, Executive Principal for the Trust to provide us an insight into the need to change their MIS (Management Information System) system 

The Problem

There comes a time when one system needs to be analysed to see if it is still performing and enhancing the provision it had once set out to do. Capita SIMS had provided a service to the schools for many years. However, with the changing face and demands of education; the Trust needed to move to another superior MIS system to meet their needs. 
 

“The opinion across the Trust was that their MIS system lacked the functionality they desired.” 
 

Neil went on to explain that functionality and development to ensure the very best education is taught within the schools, requires an up-to-date system that can work efficiently and effectively to enable staff to deliver the curriculum at the highest level. Neil recalled that the previous legacy system could not keep up with the demands from the sector.  
 

“...When upgrades were made to the system to provide additional functionality, we would often find the system could not cope and would cause several faults.”  
 

This lack of reliability would mean there were fewer updates. Previously efficient processes had become out of date and no longer useful within a modern-day school. To not have the system available for vital information and data was unacceptable. The locally hosted servers that had in the past provided a secure backup for their data, were now weakening the system performance. With the advances in cloud technology, it makes sense that more and more schools are moving to a cloud-based solution.  

It was not only the lack of innovation that caused Dixons to source their MIS from elsewhere, but also a lack of interaction between different schools within the Trust. To be a successful MAT there is a need to develop strong communication and analysis. A Trust is a community, and the MIS legacy provider was creating isolated silos.  

“The previous MIS system was unable to interact with other schools within the Trust. The system was not designed for interoperability of cleansing, collaboration and aggregation of data.” 
 

The amalgamation of data is an important task to ensure the right resources have been distributed across the Trust. As a centralised team, there is a need for the oversight and transparency of each school. Unfortunately, the legacy MIS could not provide this, creating a heavy administrative burden for the staff. 
 

Due to this manual workaround, these steps could cause the integrity of the data to be compromised. Neil had expressed how the lack of flexibility when trying to view data and performance from a Trust level was a huge frustration and therefore caused unnecessary workload to staff who could spend their time focusing on the other priorities.  
 

Not only was there a lack of interoperability with assessment and other demographic data, but the Trust could also not centralise functionality easily. To identify strengths and weaknesses within a Trust, there needs to be a ‘backbone’ of standards and alignment to key principles. For a Trust, this key message needed to exist within the MIS system. Once again, the previous legacy MIS could not fulfil their ambitions.  

“The previous MIS system could not share the functions with another school. Centralisation of routines, codes, timetables, reports, assessment marksheets, gradesets and many more key standardisation tools were not possible. We required a central system to distribute common fields and templates to ensure consistency.”

Neil felt it was extremely important to move towards a new solution that would meet the needs of the Trust as it develops and expands across the country. They wanted a strategic partner that would support them through the next phase of their growth. 

The Solution

Bromcom was the chosen provider to enable the Dixons Academies Trust to develop their own bespoke systems to meet the needs of their children. Bromcom is an experienced MIS provider and has developed substantial support for MATs. Neil explained that Bromcom had embraced MATs and provided a solution that their legacy MIS was unable to deliver. The greatest impact was the ability to use the system anywhere and at any time. Enabling staff to contribute to the planning and assessment of lessons. 
 

“The best feature of the Bromcom system is that it is cloud-based. We can gain access to the data anytime, anywhere through any device with a standard browser.”  

MAT Vision provided Neil with a solution that enabled interaction of data across the Trust. The centralisation of functionality created a path for standardisation of roles, permissions, and routines across the trust. This is something the Trust relies upon to ensure that each individual academy operates with alignment and autonomy. With this approach, effective support can be provided from the centralised team.  

Bromcom’s system is highly resilient. By utilising cloud technology and multiple failsafe mechanisms, their data is safe and always online. Too often in the past, the previous MIS would have provided downtime during updates and in turn a lack of productivity. Neil explained that there’s no more downtime thanks to Bromcom, so schools don’t have to work around issues and can simply focus on supporting the different academies. 

“The cloud-based system also allows the user to easily share, analyse and aggregate data across schools through better integration and standardisation.” 

As well as the increase in functionality and a better user experience, the pricing of the Bromcom MIS system appealed to the Trust leaders. One major benefit was the huge reduction in manual administration, freeing up staff time to spend on developing the teaching and learning.  

Additional costs from third-party add-ons have significantly reduced thanks to the use of integrated functionality. There’s no need to procure and maintain MIS servers, saving time and money associated with managing complex systems. Cloud-based software also provides peace of mind and security. The data is moved around and manipulated within one secure platform, which is far more efficient than being manually extracted and inserted into multiple third-party systems. 

“It is also a cost-effective solution as you do not have to invest money into purchasing physical servers in-house and it eliminates the need to maintain the on-site servers, saving time and money associated with managing complex systems.” 

The relationship between Dixons Academies Trust and Bromcom has only just begun. More and more schools from the Trust are migrating their way over to Bromcom, strengthening the facilities and opportunities available to the central team.  

Even though there have been ‘big changes’ within the trust, Neil noted he was pleased with the progress and development of the technology they are beginning to use. Bromcom are supporting Dixons to create a variety of bespoke systems that meet the needs of the students, staff, and leaders. Neil is looking forward to the next adventure using the Power Bi integration within Bromcom.  

ST RALPH SHERWIN CATHOLIC MULTI-ACADEMY TRUST (CMAT)  

UTILISING VISION-X TO INFORM SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT & ENSURE COMPLIANCE 

OVERVIEW 

The St Ralph Sherwin Catholic Multi-Academy Trust consists of 25 schools, mainly based in the East Midlands, offering education from nursery all the way through to sixth form. The Trust is in its third year of operation and is well established in its community. It has a strong and well-respected school improvement team that works hard to support schools across the Trust, and beyond. Partnerships and collaboration are key to their success, ensuring that each school receives the benefit of shared knowledge, resources and the required expertise to deliver cutting-edge practice. 

We spoke to the Trust’s Data Manager Becky Hill about how they have utilised Bromcom Vision-X to collate data from a mixed economy of SIMS and RM Integris schools, creating a central platform for analysis and school improvement. 

THE PROBLEM 

Having a well-resourced central school improvement team is a vital part of what makes St Ralph Sherwin so successful. This team needs to be fed with data and insights to ensure that resource is focused on the right areas. It helps to pinpoint challenges, identify areas of strength, and inform intervention. 

Prior to Vision-X, the MAT largely relied on termly reports sent from the schools. These were produced manually at each site, then collated and analysed by Becky. This information was then presented to the school improvement team, the CEO and the Trust Board. This process was particularly labour intensive, and Becky identified that it was challenging to quality assure the data to ensure it was always accurate. 

“We had to take much of the information at face value, because we did not always have the means to quality assure the data before it was presented to stakeholders. Particularly during the pandemic.”

BECKY HILL

TRUST DATA MANAGER

She began cross referencing data against census returns and it highlighted some issues.  In some schools Becky could log in to a Hosted SIMS platform or RM Integris to quality assure the data, but in others, the MIS was onsite and not available to access remotely. Even with access, it was a slow process and sometimes drew her time away from supporting the school improvement team in other ways.  Added to this, was the limitation of how regularly the data could be gathered and analysed. In effect, the Trust was more often than not working with historical information. 

“We were sometimes being more reactive rather than proactive. None of our data was live. We were working with information that was weeks, maybe even months old. We aim to be a cutting edge Trust in all that we do. We felt that we were at risk of falling short of our expectations in gathering the most meaningful school data.”.

BECKY HILL

TRUST DATA MANAGER

At the time, there wasn’t really an alternative available. The Trust needed something that would not only collate key information, but also work with both SIMS and RM Integris, creating a unified dataset for in-depth analysis. 

THE SOLUTION 

During the height of the pandemic in 2020, Bromcom wanted to provide something to schools to help them cope with the huge logistical task that laid ahead of them. We adapted our existing MAT-Wide reporting system to work with any MIS and offered it to schools free for three years. St Ralph Sherwin CMAT was one of the first to take up the offer. 

“I needed to collate and report data from 20 primary schools and five  secondary schools that used different MIS systems.  I needed to report on demographics, attendance, exclusions and performance.  It was so exciting when Mark came along and said, ‘We have a dashboard that will pull all your information together into one central place’ “

BECKY HILL

TRUST DATA MANAGER

It was a straightforward process to get everything set up and the data began to flow. Becky began cross-checking data against census returns and termly reports to ensure all the data was correct. At this stage, it was all about building confidence in the tool and ensuring it could be something they could rely upon. Becky touched upon how much she appreciated the support from both Bromcom and the company providing the third-party connector for RM Integris. They helped to rectify any teething issues with the data feeds and ensure the dataset was a perfect match to the data held in the school’s MIS. 

During this initial process, Becky was able to use Vision-X to quickly identify issues in the termly school reports that the Trust’s central teams were relying upon. She could correct this information for the Trust and ensure the schools knew how to generate the correct figures for their own purposes. 

From here, she began using tools within Vision-X to support her role. Part of her remit is to ensure that Schools are data compliant. With COVID rules and regulations coming thick and fast, many Trust schools found it increasingly difficult to keep on top of all the information and guidance. Becky could not only provide appropriate guidance, she could now ensure that schools were compliant through consulting Vision-X.  

‘Vision has given me the ability to identify where I think potentially there may be an issue or something that I want to pick-up with a school. I have been able to do that background work before I contact the schools, so I can be quite confident that I am not wasting their time.’

BECKY HILL

TRUST DATA MANAGER

Becky emphasised how important it is that school data is accurate and how vital it is for the Trust to have oversight of the data held in their schools. 

Vision-X provided Becky and her colleagues with Trust-wide data that could be used to highlight areas of concern, celebrate success, offer support and inform future priorities. Data analysis is no longer limited to termly reports. The Trust now has an up-to-date picture of their schools that can be monitored daily at the click of a button. 

“Vision enables me to have oversight of data across the whole Trust.  This has saved me a huge amount of time and allows me to respond quickly to questions.”

BECKY HILL

TRUST DATA MANAGER

Another area that the Trust is exploring is the use of Power BI. At present, Becky is predominantly using the pre-built templates, but she has already attended a Power BI training session and is looking forward to the next. Becky raised the fact that sometimes she likes to use the built in Analytics in Vision and other times she prefers the more detailed analysis in the Power BI reports. 

IMPACT 

Part of Becky’s role is to provide intelligence to her colleagues within the Trust’s school improvement team. She identifies areas that warrant further investigation and monitors the data against national comparators. Despite only using Vision-X for a comparatively short time, she has already had great success when using the platform for this purpose.  

In one instance, a small spike in behaviour incidents following the return to school after lockdown enabled the school improvement team to cast a lens quickly across this area and take swift action to address it. Becky can now monitor the impact of this intervention in real time rather than waiting for the termly report.  

“How often are you offered a product that doesn’t cost you anything except the time it takes you to get it set up?”

BECKY HILL

TRUST DATA MANAGER

St Ralph Sherwin Catholic Multi-Academy Trust recognises the importance of reducing unnecessary burdens for school leaders and is dedicated to reducing staff workload.  Becky aims to use the data in Vision for the termly reports rather than ask the schools to manually provide her with it. The automation of this process is eagerly anticipated by all. 

Becky has engaged regularly with the Bromcom team since the beginning of this project and has spearheaded several tweaks and changes that have enhanced Vision-X. We value all our partnerships and St Ralph Sherwin CMAT is another great example of where MIS Supplier and Education provider can work together to improve outcomes. 

FOOTNOTE 

Thank you to Becky Hill and the St Ralph Sherwin CMAT team for providing their valuable time to be part of this discussion. If you would like to know more about how we can help your school or MAT, please get in touch. 

A School Cluster reflects on their first year with Bromcom MIS & Finance

“People should be more questioning of the processes they follow and the systems they use and whether they make financial sense – if they were then they would see that a move to Bromcom makes so much sense.”

Wendy Whistler

Business Manager, Swavesey Primary School

Overview

A number of schools in the Fenland area of East Anglia joined forces to form a Bromcom cluster group, having all gone live with our One-Stop-Shop Cloud-MIS and Finance products early in 2019.

As they approach their first anniversary with Bromcom, we caught up with them to discuss their experiences and reflections. 

How did you manage to bring staff on board?

The key to success was the intuitive nature of the software which from the outset felt more accessible than our previous solution. It no longer required lengthy step by step process guides to support its use.

We were surprised at the reaction from the teachers. We did of course drip feed them a little bit in the beginning as they don’t always have time to focus on new things like this, but they got straight into it with no problems at all which is a testimony in itself. They’ve taken to it with dinners, registers and logging behaviour events really well.

When introducing a new MIS, you’re relying on it being used by a wide range of people within the school. Especially when you consider the fact that Bromcom can be used by parents, students, governors and so on. Due to this, it’s important to get buy-in from all of the stakeholders and engage with them from the beginning.

Were there any teething problems?

There were some, but surprisingly few considering that a change of MIS and the introduction of a new finance package is such a big change, especially if you do what we all did and go live at the start of a new financial year. I think we’d perhaps all underestimated the scale of change – but that’s not specific to a move to Bromcom, that would have been true of us moving to any new system.

We were also aware that the finance package was a pretty new offering at the time and we would be amongst the first users so inevitably we knew there would be tweaks and changes. Bromcom have really listened and we’ve already seen a number of our suggestions make it into the product. It’s interesting to see how much the software has already moved on from what we first used.

Would you go back to your old system?

Definitely not! Of course, when we first changed, a few people moaned in the beginning that it wasn’t exactly the same as the old system – but that’s just a fact of life and people don’t always embrace change! It’s amazing how quickly people forget though. Recently we’ve had to go back into the old system to check something from the last financial year and then it hits you how clunky the old software was. The process was so slow with a series of unnecessary clicks to drill down to what you needed. On Bromcom finance the same process was really easy.

Of course, ditching our old system, server costs and expensive support means that from the smallest school of 90 pupils in our group to 400 pupil primaries and the secondaries, we’re all financially better off too. No, we would definitely not go back – not even the people who moaned in the beginning!

What would you say to a school who had not yet made the move to Bromcom?

Well, through a move to Bromcom we’ve been able to ditch separate logins to a range of individual systems – for example Communications, Online Payments and Behaviour management. Having a single sign on means ease of use and fully integrated systems, but most importantly considering our current budgets it means substantial financial savings as these separate systems are all part of the Bromcom One-Stop-Shop solution.

There’s always a group of people who don’t ever question their own processes or the systems they’ve inherited or whether a contract they currently have makes financial sense. Instead they just continue along with what they have or with what’s always been done. For them, the thoughts of doing something different doesn’t cross their mind and of course ‘change’ is a scary thing. To those people I’d say “Be brave – you can live without your old systems and you can save money”.

“Be brave – you can live without your old systems and you can save money.”

Wendy Whistler

Business Manager, Swavesey Primary School

How Bromcom made a positive impact at The Reading School

The Reading School is a selective state day and boarding academy for boys aged 11-18. The vision for the Reading School is to create a flourishing world-leading institution that develops academic excellence and builds good men through a powerhouse of sustained high performance, advancing knowledge and championing character. We spoke to Gareth Sellwood, Network Manager at the Reading School for feedback on his working practice. 

The Problem

For over 15 years the Reading school had its network and Management Information System(MIS) locally hosted. Capita SIMS was the MIS provider and the school faced the burden of maintaining both the software and hardware infrastructure. Gareth explained that the local server and database solution worked well 10 years ago, but now it felt outdated when compared to its modern cloud-based rivals. 

Gareth recalled the need for constant updates and patches which would need to be manually applied by the school. Whilst the school appreciated that any MIS needs continual development, the updates became a hinderance to the productivity of Gareth and his team.  

“It was not a reliable MIS. The system would constantly fail and break when rolling out the updates. We had to look for an alternative provider”

Not only was the MIS ‘breaking’ from the regular updates and changes within the system, but simple teacher tasks were also failing. Teachers became dependent on support and would become disengaged with the technology. Furthermore, the lack of foresight shown for teachers that were not classroom based was raised.  

“PE staff could not take a register. It is impossible for a locally hosted server to be done outside. The system was static and was not flexible enough to meet our needs”

The school needed to secure an MIS system that would meet their evolving needs. Something that would re-engage staff in technology that could make their role more effective and efficient. They wanted a reliable, cloud-based solution that would enhance not only the school but the community it serves.  

Gareth went on to explain that the school also wanted to reduce the use of third-party software. For the Reading School they had found that many of the different companies they were using would rarely take responsibility for the data they were provided by the school. Often when the MIS system and a third party would interact there would be a lack of accountability when issues arose and ultimately the school lost out. A substantial amount of time was wasted while the companies pointed fingers at one another. 

The Solution

After a review of the market, the school identified Bromcom as the chosen MIS provider. As significant draw was that the system was cloud-based. Being able to access the system anywhere and anytime enabled all of the staff to complete the tasks they were set and they were no longer forced to complete them at a specific desk. The MIS still receives regular updates but now they are carried out centrally by Bromcom. They are applied out of hours, so there’s no impact on the user experience. Users are alerted to the changes, and the Reading School has no fear of the system failing.  

The school followed a similar pattern to national trends by moving away from a system that has many third parties and a move towards a more integrated solution. An MIS system that offers more than just data capture, and assists in the management of daily tasks and routines. Bromcom prides itself as a company that will meet your schools needs and not just one particular facet. Gareth found that Bromcom was able to provide a comprehensive solution for the Reading School, something the school were keen to highlight.  

“We were able to lower the amount of third-party products within the organisation. School Comms, Task Insight, Parent Portal and Sco-Pay were all removed from the school costs as Bromcom offered an alternative solution within their One-Stop-Shop package”

Impact

Due to the changes made and the implementation of the system, Gareth explained that the school has managed to reach out and engage with the school community more. In particular, communications and payments from parents have increased thanks to the ability to keep them informed digitally via the MyChildAtSchool app.  

“The MyChildAtSchool parent portal has increased parental engagement at the school. We have become a cashless school and all payments are now completed online. We are very proud of this achievement”

Additionally, teachers have now become more confident with the system. They are able to efficiently input attendance, behaviour and assessment information, enabling them to focus on the more important teaching and learning tasks. Staff are also using the Teacher App to perform tasks and access the registers outside of the classroom. Gareth had explained that the software is much more accessible for teachers as they do not get lost in the system whilst completing their tasks. It is reliable and does not impact the teaching and learning by diverting too much of their attention. 

The assessment team has really engaged with the Bromcom product. Assessment accessibility and the use of Power BI has allowed them to capture and analyse data within an MIS like they have never done before. Feedback of assessments and challenges to parents has been very valuable in gaining a united community.  

“Reporting all in one place, from a single data set, using the powerful analysis tools such as Power BI; has helped with the School Improvement and performance targets”

Administrators within the school have also noticed a difference. Tasks are now completed quicker without the dialogue between third parties. Bespoke reports can be created and scheduled by users, which is ideal for saving time on regular tasks. Being able to work from home has been really important during the recent pandemic and this has ensured administrators can keep on top of their workload and enable the school to run efficiently from afar. 

“A huge benefit has been that we are able to leave remote desktop behind and access the system from a web-based browser. The accessibility and flexibility has been fantastic”

Communication around the school has also enhanced the daily routines. Bromcom can be accessed from any device within the school and therefore the office can spread information and news quickly to staff members, ensuring that prompt and swift actions can be taken. This is also mirrored with the parents. A single database of contacts that can all be contacted simultaneously with information that is within the system (such as attendance) has also provided a great strength of Bromcom.  

Gareth is excited by the journey they have just embarked on with Bromcom. He highly recommends the Bromcom software and confidently speaks about the positive impact it has made within the school. He and his team are now looking forward to seeing where the product can assist them in the future.