iSAMS supports strategic decisions for top independent school

In 2007 Sevenoaks School in Kent recognised that data, and the use of it, was critical to the smooth running of the school. Their existing MIS solution did not reflect the needs and future aspirations of a leading-edge school, and the database often required a lot of manual intervention.

iSAMS gives you a great sense of how individual students are progressing, including information about attendance, learning support needs, academic progress and family connections.

Sarah Williamson, Director of Information Systems

In addition, the independent school was spending thousands on printing, copying and postage to communicate with contacts. Director of Information Systems Sarah Williamson was aware that a change was needed; to find a solution that would meet the future needs of an innovative school and to facilitate its smooth running.

The iSAMS team was invited to spend a day at the school, demonstrating iSAMS to a range of staff members, showing them modules that would be relevant to them.

A small project team at the school defined their specific requirements for academic reporting and evaluated solutions from three MIS providers in 2009.

iSAMS was the clear winner when the school compared the three providers. “iSAMS was tailored to our type of school,” says Sarah. “We also received very positive recommendations from iSAMS reference sites.”

Change management critical to successful implementation

Sarah and the MIS project team worked hard to get all 150 teaching staff on board. “Expectations are high here,” says Sarah, “so we had to get it right.” During the run up to the iSAMS launch at the school in 2010 the project team created ‘top tips’ hand-outs for teaching staff and clear user guides that outlined all the benefits of the new MIS system. “I give utter credit to the staff here and also the team at iSAMS,” says Sarah. “The implementation went really well.”

The iSAMS team moved the data over from the previous MIS and helped the school clean and remove duplicate or incorrect data before launch. By 2011 iSAMS was fully embedded at the school, building its investment module by module.

iSAMS team members also trained the staff at Sevenoaks School. Sarah believes iSAMS were ‘exceptional’ during that time.

Sevenoaks School now has over two years’ worth of academic report data in the new iSAMS system and can build trends by student, subject, class, and by year group. This supports strategic decisions that the school makes, including around pastoral care; even by being able to track academic progress at a glance by tutor or boarding house level. “iSAMS gives you a great sense of how individual students are progressing,” enthuses Sarah, “including information about attendance, learning support needs, academic progress and family connections.”

Why iSAMS?

Ease of use

Clear user guides provided which outlined the system

Data Processing

Provides data seamlessly for the school’s learning platform

Timetable Management

Immediate access to timetables and timetable changes for student

Scalable Solution

Secure and scalable system

Accurate

Less margin for error

Customer Support

The iSAMS team and their friendly approach to the school

Web-based MIS

Online access

Multi-Browser

Multi browser interface and multi device access in the pipeline

Futureproof

Stable system

The most popular modules

The iSAMS modules most favoured by Audrey and Sarah include:

School Reporting

Staff complete reports and grades online. Also enables a ‘360 degree, year on year, one pupil view’.

Registration Manager

The school used to send prefects around to collect the registers from each classroom but no longer need to do this. Registration and sends immediate notifications back to the office.

Parent Portal

Great for simple communication with parents, no matter where they are in the world. “A parent in the African bush was able to read his daughter’s first online school report,” says Sarah.

Student Portal

Ideal for distributing exam results. “We can publish the results at 8.30am and spend the time after that helping those who didn’t achieve the results they needed, instead of manually handing out envelopes or taking calls from students throughout the entire morning,” says Audrey.

Freedom from admin tasks enables proactive staff

“iSAMS is an intelligent system designed and managed by an intelligent team” says Audrey, who believes that the school staff are now able to work more proactively due to the time savings the system provides. She has also noticed that the office staff receive fewer enquiries and telephone calls from teaching staff looking for support when trying to extract or manipulate data within the MIS system. “The office staff can now focus on different, more proactive tasks,” she says, “and teachers can work independently of the office, even from home.”

The right decision

Audrey and Sarah are genuinely pleased with the move to iSAMS and proud of the way the staff at Sevenoaks School have embraced and adapted to the change. They are also 100% convinced they made the right decision by choosing iSAMS. “This is the right MIS for an independent school,” says Audrey. “We save many hours in admin time each week, not to mention the significant cost savings we achieved in the first six months alone.”

iSAMS is an intelligent system designed and managed by an intelligent team.

Audrey Franks, Director of Administration