Established in 1845, Glasgow Academy is an Independent day school for students aged 3-18 years, aiming to provide rich learning experiences for Scotland-based students.
The school’s ethos focuses on aiming high for all students, enabling them to achieve the very best for themselves and find innovative ways to overcome challenges.
Why did you begin your search for a new MIS?
We used a previous MIS and it wasn’t quite doing what we needed. It got really buggy, It wasn’t allowing us to do the reporting that we wanted to do, It wasn’t allowing us to track well-being as well as we wanted, and therefore we’re lots of bolt on systems, different bits and pieces that were using from different providers to do lots of different things.
“We wanted to incorporate the 3 to 18 aspects and have an all through system that worked for us. That was really easy to use for staff. So, we started looking around the marketplace to find something that fitted our needs and was also in the cloud as opposed to hosted on site for us. ”
Why did you choose to work with iSAMS?
We wanted something that was going to evolve with us and we picked iSAMS for those reasons. Everything is in one place, and it looked like it was going to evolve and also fit with the Scottish system which is very different to a lot of the rest of the world, where these systems are based.
While iSAMS is a worldwide product, there are bits of it that are specific to Scotland, both in terms of the individual components, and that we can tailor it to suit as a Scottish Independent school. So, the exams manager, for example, we have tailored to work with the Scottish exam system. Well-being manager is the same – and some of the census data that’s collected is specific to a Scottish school.
Watch the full video with Ian Mackie at Glasgow Academy
Watch the full video with Ian Mackie at Glasgow Academy
We met with Ian Mackie, Deputy Head of Operations at Glasgow Academy, to talk about their full experience with iSAMS – from implementation to daily operations. Watch the full video below.
Book a DemoWhat has your experience been like with iSAMS support?
In terms of iSAMS support, we’ve had support both in the transition to iSAMS and ongoing support with lots of different things – whether that’s things that we want to do as a school, their online support tends to be pretty helpful.
When it gets to the right person in the development team, they’re very much on board with supporting us, listening to ideas, and seeing if they can help – sometimes in our unique situation in Scotland.
Our initial training was all delivered online (due to COVID), which was an interesting experience, but a very smooth experience. We’ve also had trainers in school for various things as we’ve evolved and added different modules, so we found the training provided was actually very good and that’s backed up by the support system that’s behind it.
How has the iFinance integration supported your school budgets?
One of the main drivers for moving was the fact that our previous system was end of life, and that allowed us to put everything into the cloud and also to integrate our systems. To have iSAMS talking to iFinance and to be sharing the data, as opposed to having two different sets of data, has really helped to clean up our data. The communication side of iFinance and being able to communicate with parents more effectively was one of the drivers. Of course, it’s important that we get this right because the implications of having a finance system that doesn’t work are catastrophic for a school that relies on that income to do all that we do. So, it’s very important that they integrate together and really work for us on a daily basis.
The overall impact I guess is transformational, particularly in terms of staff time. The time that they spend engaging with the MIS is reduced. The ease of doing simple tasks, even from the point of tracking and reporting, it is much faster. They can do it from anywhere because it’s online, so they don’t need to be in school, it’s very accessible. So, I think from that point of view in terms of efficiency savings, it’s absolutely brilliant.