The ‘white paper’ style report, produced by RM School Management Solutions (RM SMS), shows that the architecture of school Management Information Systems (MIS) must change if Government is to fully achieve its objectives outlined in the ‘Every Child Matters’ agenda and schools are to meet the increasingly complex demands on their data.
Entitled ‘Realising the potential of Management Information Systems in Primary schools’, the document is the result of the most comprehensive research project, of over 500 primary schools, into the use of the systems by schools.
The research was targeted at school administrators and bursars and focused on four key areas of school MIS; access, security, cost and functionality with participants identifying some surprising issues.
Among the key findings, and one of the most concerning from the report, was that over half (55%) of schools are not keeping their MIS data back-ups secure. In part this is due to the way that the majority of the current systems work, however only a third (34%) of schools secured their data back-ups in a safe over night, another third (38%) took a copy of their data home, the remainder left the back-ups unsecured in a draw, or open in the school office.
In response to the research, Ian Watson, education data consultant and former advisor to the DfES, expressed his concern about the findings. “The safety and storage of data and personal information on children is hugely important and we need to make moves to ensure safety is paramount.
“This is a concerning piece of research. We have to start looking at alternative ways of managing information within the education system, instead of relying on traditional methods if we are to achieve a truly integrated way of working.”
Another bug-bear for many MIS users highlighted in the research is the amount of time that that administrators have to spend, every month, fulfilling Local Authority requests. Findings showed that MIS key users are, on average, spending two hours per month in collating and providing routine and ad-hoc reports for their Local Authority.
Although at first, two hours per month may sound unremarkable, however, when you consider that these tasks are repeated in every school with local data on every school day, the overall cost of working with, maintaining and running current management systems to our schools is significant. Applying the arithmetic mean nationally represents an annual cost to UK primary schools in administration time alone of £13m.
However, the report suggests that this burden, and cost, can be removed from the school by implementing a web-based MIS and enabling live data sharing where appropriate. This could eliminate the need for reports to be generated and sent to the LA, because the LA can access selected information themselves.
Paul Grubb managing director of RM SMS explains the MIS function, “The live nature of data means the sharing of crucial information across other areas of Children’s Services can be achieved in real time. And the data can be hosted, secured and protected by data professionals, not isolated on hundreds of school local area networks.”
“Following the Children’s Act 2004 and the Every Child Matters Initiative, increasing importance has been placed on the sharing of data between the school and other agencies. The modern MIS now holds a greater breadth and depth of data than ever before, and is increasingly viewed as the authoritative source of data for children and young people across the UK.”
Looking further into the actual accessibility of MIS for primary schools, the research revealed that the software was not used as widely as many thought. When asked ‘which people in the school use the MIS system’ the participants responded, maybe unsurprisingly, that that 90% of users are based in the school office, almost half of schools said that headteachers used the MIS, but only 10% indicated that classroom teachers use the MIS.
The majority of MIS systems offer provision that is of use to teachers. For example attendance can be taken in the classroom and, by linking this function with truancy contact and management functionality, schools can monitor and manage pupil attendance.
Paul Grubb comments, “If, as BECTA’s stated in their 2005 School Management Information Systems and Value for Money report, the key to the future of school MIS is the effective integration of the system into day-to-day school activity, then the fact that teachers only use the system in 10% of schools is a serious concern.
“Many businesses are taking advantage of the capabilities of web-based data transfer systems – internet banking and real time news are all common place today. Isn’t it time that school took a leaf out of their book and began to see the benefits of secure, accessible, real time, transferable data?”
As government pushes for an increase in the uptake of Learning Platforms operating in classrooms, the movement of the MIS from the office, into the classroom needs to begin. Currently the school-based MIS prevents this happening easily, however, with the next generation, web-based systems (offered by RM’s IntegrisG2 and Pearson’s e1) the MIS can be accessed on any internet-connected PC or laptop. Users (administrators, bursars, headteachers, governors and classroom teachers) can access data about each pupil and the schools from wherever they choose, enabling the learning platforms to develop further, and quicker.
The white paper discussion document sets these research findings into a wider context, a copy of the document is available to download from www.rm.com
