Whether you’re a school, an existing academy or multi-academy trust (MAT), or you’re looking at converting into one, there are several things you’ll want to ensure. As a teacher, you want your students to achieve academically whilst also ensuring their health and wellbeing. As a Headteacher or Deputy Head, you want to ensure your teachers are fully supported. As a bursar, you want your finances managed efficiently. And as the Head of IT, you need a system that supports future growth.
Achieving each of these takes major steps towards improving the performance of your school, academy or MAT. Easier said than done, right? But it might surprise you to learn that these can be addressed if your management information system (MIS) focuses on each of your needs.
1. Improving student wellbeing
Teachers face huge amounts of pressure to ensure each child receives the best possible care. It is therefore fundamental they have the tools they need to record, monitor and track the wellbeing of every student in as manageable a way as possible.
Designed to support teachers and pastoral managers, iSAMS’ ‘Wellbeing Manager’ allows you to log safeguarding concerns and set appropriate actions to manage them. The Raised Flag feature then helps to identify moments that significantly impact a student and should be shared with other staff, parents and caregivers as needed.
An efficient way of tracking wellbeing to provide proactive, preventative pastoral care is essential, and integrating this into your MIS will help make this process easier in the long run.
2. Supporting frontline teaching
Teachers are at the heart of every school, academy and MAT; they work with students throughout the day and communicate regularly with parents. This makes it vital to provide the tools and support needed for them to fulfil their roles as effectively as possible.
In recognition of this, iSAMS developed the iTeacher App, giving your teachers instant access to school information and the power to complete 70% of their daily tasks via their smartphone or tablet. Taking a register, timetabling, awarding commendations, and other key jobs can now be done at the touch of a button on their handheld device. You can also able to use push notifications to send alerts about relevant updates directly to your teachers, as soon as they happen.
Not only this, but the iSAMS Timetable Manager is fully integrated within the MIS platform to seamlessly and easily create timetables by student, form, teacher, room or subject – and even categorised by department or academic year.
Teachers have a huge amount of responsibility, juggling multiple lesson plans, ensuring student wellbeing, and other essential duties, so anything you can do to make their lives easier is a big bonus – even more so when your MIS can do it for you.
3. Efficient financial management
Among the many challenges MATs, academies and schools face, funding is high on the list. With mounting pressure to cut costs and retain performance, being able to trace and account for expenditure is vital.
This is also something your MIS should support. The iSAMS iFinance solution is a comprehensive and flexible online accounting system that brings together academic, wellbeing, HR and administrative elements, with fully-interactive reporting that can drill down to transaction level and produce customised analysis. Furthermore, it assists academies in supplying pupil and teacher figures to DfE School Censuses and School Workforce Censuses to assist with identifying finding requirements.
Combining all your finances in a single accounting system helps eliminate unnecessary duplication of work and reduce costly mistakes, maximising the efficiency of your financial management.
4. Automated statutory returns
Your MIS should reduce the time administrative staff spend collecting and submitting statutory data for the DfE School Censuses and School Workforce Censuses.
Developed specifically with this in mind the iSAMS MIS features a range of fields added to the HR Manager, Census Manager, Cover Manager, Teaching Manager and School Manager modules, enabling academies to automate these censuses reports.
Not only this but iSAMS provides 24/7 support prior to submitting census reports, with the option to test them first to help identify any errors before submission.
5. Futureproofing your IT infrastructure
Today’s IT strategies speak of standardisation and collaboration becoming key factors, particularly for MATs. It is imperative to invest in a lasting MIS that will support your future growth. You must also ensure that your budget is spent on the right system, supporting users in multiple locations.
The iSAMS MIS is a 100% web-based solution, hosted in the cloud or on-premise, with weekly updates and backups. Its versatile design consists of a single database around which you can build up your bespoke system through iSAMS’ suite of portals and apps, bringing together the whole school community. This personalised approach ensures academies get 1-to-1 attention in reacting quickly to necessary system feedback.
Based on the above, it is evident that whichever MIS you decide to use, it is an integral aspect of academy, MAT and school life – and when it is built around your key challenges and goals, it can improve the whole school community.
If you would like a demo of the iSAMS MIS Platform, , iTeacher App or iFinance, please email or visit www.isams.com. You can also see iSAMS at the Schools and Academies Show on 21 November in Birmingham.
