The modern school MIS now holds a greater breadth and depth of data than ever before and it is increasingly viewed as the authoritative source of information for children and young people across the UK today. It is easy to see why. With daily term-time contact with the pupil, the school data is the most up-to-date, contextual and reliable source of information for meeting government statute, local authority initiatives or supporting educational improvements within the school.
As a result, the way schools use their MIS will also have to change. Greater numbers of stakeholders will have to learn to interact with the MIS in order for the greatest advantage to be gained from it. Research has shown that security will have to be stepped up in many schools, given the sensitive nature of the data collected on young people. And MIS systems on offer will have to prove themselves flexible enough to encompass emerging legislation and user-friendly enough to be a truly valuable tool in a frenetic workplace.
Education Today spoke to a number of MIS suppliers who are pushing the envelope and making school information systems not only up-to-date but – one could argue – future-proof. No mean feat when one considers that both the Education and the IT industries are in a state of constant flux.
Capita Education Services is the leading supplier of information systems to the Education sector; more than 22,000 educational establishments in the UK use its SIMS system. “The time has come for the MIS to come out of the school office and into the hands of school managers and teachers,” says Phil Neal, director of SIMS Capita Education Services. “The information locked inside a school’s MIS is one of the most powerful resources available and is crucial in helping schools meet their improvement targets. There is a growing need to school leaders to understand how the effective use of this data can help address even the most challenging issues schools face.
“Some of the biggest improvements schools have reported in MIS use have been when they have given access to teachers,” continues Neal. “Teachers can enter assessment marks into the system and compare these against national or individual targets to see if students are falling behind. This helps raise achievement as support can be offered to pupils as soon as a dip in performance is identified, rather than many months later.”
This methodology was used at South Dartmoor Community College when it became clear there was a marked difference in GCSE results between students’ Optional and Core compulsory subjects of English, Maths and Science. The school began to use data analysis to accurately predict performance and target pupils they felt were underachieving.
Principal Ray Tarleton explains, “Our first task when we began the programme was to get an accurate picture of where our strengths and weaknesses lay. We also needed systems in place that could record and analyse the results of any changes made to teaching practices, to see if they were having the desired results or not. Data would also prove essential for getting accurate exam predictions for students.
“Back in 2003, only 47 per cent of teachers’ exam predictions were accurate. Using the schools SIMS management information system, they developed an accurate grade prediction system which brings in a variety of date into the MIS to get a pupil’s likely GCSE results. Pulling in results from a student’s Key Stage 2 and 3 tests, Cognitive Abilities Tests and Yellis data, the resulting prediction is now incredibly accurate, to within 0.4 per cent.
“With this information, we can target those pupils that are borderline passes and those whose predicted result is below the centrally generated examination indicator grade, as this suggests the pupil is falling behind and perhaps needs more support. In only two years, the gap between Core and Optional subject performance has halved from 22 per cent to just 11 per cent difference and this has been achieved whilst still maintaining the school’s strong results in Option subjects.”
SIMS Capital launched a free tool at the recent BETT show which helps schools evaluate their use of pupil data and understand how it can be used to effectively target achievement and drive school improvement in the same way as South Dartmoor Community College. Called “improve” -– the tool is a self-evaluation framework consisting of a series of multiple-choice questions which judge a school’s progress against a possible 19 key criteria, such as behaviour, leadership and pupil progress. At the end of the process, the school is presented with an evaluation report, which identifies where their MIS can add value. The report can be used to inform the school’s wider process of self-evaluation under the new Ofsted inspection framework and benchmark their ongoing progress over time. Schools can access “improve” free of charge at www.dataforimprovement.co.uk.
But while demands on the data collected by the MIS have grown ever more complex, the architecture has changed little in recent years. In the vast majority of schools, the model has remained the same; the physical location of the data and software is in the school with complex mechanisms required to transfer the data from the school and collate it on a regional level.
School Management Solutions, part of the RM Group, believes that evolving government requirements are calling into question the viability of locally hosted school data. “From a practical perspective, the requirements of data reporting to the centre have increased dramatically,” the company stated in its report ‘Realising the Potential for Management Information Systems in Primary Schools’. “Only recently a school census was an annual paper-based submission, the old ‘Form 7’. From this academic year, all schools will be required to submit termly reports with information reported against each pupil, including information on behaviour. This is an increasing pressure on both the suppliers of the school MIS software and the teachers and school administrators charged with delivering it.”
The government is taking greater integration of school data to the next level with its integrated Learning Platform. Specialist educational tools accessed via a web page, intended to improve education both inside and outside the classroom. While immediate focus is often on the curriculum content of the learning platform, to move towards the full application of this technology relies on the pupil data held on the school MIS.
And school-based initiatives should not be taken in isolation. They are part of a wider push to improve the standards of schooling. For example, core to the delivery of the ‘Every Child Matters’ agenda is the need to share data across different agencies. A professional in a Children’s Trust could access information containing the names of children with unauthorised absences from school. This may be matched to information from the police that identify individuals involved in local vandalism cases, or a list of children at risk. It has been clear or some time that data sharing within local authorities will become necessary to an unprecedented level.
Becta has also highlighted the need for parents to share in the data held on the school MIS, In its report, ‘Strategic Context – Why MIS Systems Matter’ Becta identified that parents need to be able to monitor and support children’s learning online and to do so the information shared by the school system needs to be “relevant, timely and accurate” and “effectively integrated into the day-to-day administration and management of both the institution and the learning it delivers.”
RM argues that the existing MIS model is faced with challenges in sharing this data. Firstly, is the system actually integrated into the management of the school and its learning activities? Secondly, if the data is held physically in the school, can this be effectively integrated into a live environment such as a learning platform, or other online resource to allow parental and pupil access?
RM believes the solution is an ‘Enterprise’ MIS system, constructed via a multiple schema, single database. In simple terms, this means access to information by all stakeholders in education using only a secure log-in via an Internet browser. The live nature of the 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.
Because this structure is centrally hosted, RM has estimated the costly IT footprint at the school is dramatically reduced, offering potential savings of around £4,500 per Primary school over the next three years.
Toshiba TEC Europe, the electronics giant, has joined forces with a Kent-based company M H Systems to develop an innovative solution for schools, which can combine an existing MIS, access security systems and cashless catering schemes. Called Chips, the product has been developed over a four-year period and combines the most advanced cashless technology to be found in the private commercial sector with the experience of some of the UK’s most technologically advanced schools.
The system has been introduced into Djanogly City Academy in Nottingham, which had been buying laptops, notebooks and tablets from Toshiba for over 10 years. The first phase was to install the flexible M H Systems Chips cashless catering system on the stable Toshiba POS hardware. M H Systems created a link between the Chips software and the school’s MIS database to record all record changes and new pupil data, which were automatically transferred to the cashless catering database, removing time-wasting dual entry.
Phase two, involved the introduction of a door-access control system linked with the Chips catering system, achieving the final goal of complete integration between the school’s MIS, cashless catering and access control systems. The whole process was quick, painless and cost the school nothing in development fees. Students and staff now use a single interface smart card to gain entry and purchase items. The system also has the functionality for parents to limit their child’s lunch spend per day, which can be child-specific. Free school allowances can be automatically timed ensuring children only use their meal allowance at lunch and not during break. A staff duty meal facility also ensures the correct number of meals are allocated to duty staff and all issues regarding the VAT charged on adult meals are handled automatically.
The latest development of the system is the provision of a reward programme for healthy eating, attendance, learning and sports achievements. The system will allow the school to link with local municipal or private sports clubs to encourage pupils to attend coaching classes and participate in training programmes as part of school activities or extra-curricular interests. This combination of a healthy eating reward programme with a sports incentive scheme addresses the problems of both poor diet and low activity levels in one go.
What you eat is what you are. And what you put into your school MIS will determine what you get out of it. No longer should the school management system consist of a computer in the head teacher’s office, understood by only one or two key members of staff. For a minimal investment, it is now possible to let the MIS take on a key role in helping schools achieve any number of closely held objectives, whether they be tackling truancy or bad behaviour, helping students gain better exam results or even encouraging them to eat more healthily.
