Established in 1976, British School Manila is the oldest and only non-profit International School in Manila.
Offering a British education for students from Nursery (age 3) up to Year 13 (age 18), each year the school welcomes more than 900 students, of more than 40 nationalities.
Looking for a user-friendly system with better support
We were in a position where there was a crisis of confidence in our community about the ability of our MIS to deliver, so we went through a very extensive tendering process and based on the relationship we built with Alastair Price (Co-Founder and Product Director), we settled on iSAMS. I think it’s fair to say we haven’t regretted that decision for one moment.
Watch: Q&A with British School Manila
Watch: Q&A with British School Manila
In this Q&A you will hear from Chris Jones, Deputy Head of Senior School at the British School of Manila about their experiences of moving to and using iSAMS.
Getting to grips with our previous MIS, when you looked at the interface it was tough to know where to go and how to perform basic functions – it wasn’t intuitive at all. iSAMS helped us regain the confidence of our colleagues, being able to go onto the system and see the wizard bar and see exactly what they wanted to do – tick off a register or select a class list – it was very user-friendly, and it gained the confidence of staff very early.
How did you find the integration and training?
The integration and training were excellent. Helen (Head of Training) came over for five days of training, which was incredibly intensive. Looking back at the programme we went through in 2015, the list was exhaustive. We went through all the modules and all the functionality hour by hour. It was clear that iSAMS wanted to show us everything the system could do before we started.
Which feature do we use most often?
The features I use most often fit in with my role of Registration, Assessment and Reporting – Registration on a daily basis, reports, Reward & Conduct, and Student Manager to collect pastoral information about students.
What do we like most about iSAMS? It’s intuitive, it’s user-friendly. It does the core things extremely well.
How has your experience been with support?
Our experience with iSAMS support has always been excellent, I remember early on iSAMS made a commitment as iSAMS grew, to the quality of support and to have it available at various timezones for different countries. Sometimes when you need support immediately, you can’t wait for the next day, so to have that 24/7 support has been fantastic and very expert.
We haven’t often faced the situation where somebody has to go away and come back to us the following day – we’re generally able to get the answer very quickly. Even with some of the more complex work we do, we have in-house capacity for working with SQL reporting, but the support there has been absolutely first class.