Management Information Systems (MIS) are the key to running the modern educational establishment. Platforms such as SIMS from Capita are long standing solutions which have been employed in schools throughout the UK for many years.
School MIS Systems are typically provided by the Local Education Authority and solutions such as SIMS have offered schools a platform to record pupil data, achievement, attendance and timetabling (with solutions such as Nova T). Until now very few alternatives in the market, which have presented an attractive alternative to schools.
With the rise of Cloud based applications and the need for more flexibility within the MIS space, alternative solutions have begun to rise to the fore. SIMS has typically always been a “fat” desktop application (although there are cloud based modules available), relying on a SQL back end and a desktop application. SIMS is typically deployed as an on premises solution or as a hosted solution, hosted by the Local Education Authority. In both scenarios one party (either the school or LEA), is responsible for the deployment of updates and the maintenance of the platform, both of which cost time and money. Desktop applications (especially in an on premises deployment) also represent challenges for external access.
With the rise of the Multi Academy Trust, schools have been given far more autonomy over the solutions and systems which they chose and over the last few years have begun to look more closely at alternatives to LEA offerings for MIS platforms.
Arbor is a UK based company who have been working hard over the last few years to develop a truly credible alternative to LEA offerings such as SIMS. Being developed as a cloud application from the ground up, Arbor leverages all of the benefits which the cloud offers (such as fast easy access from anywhere) as well as delivering in depth reporting and analysis across an entire school or academy trust.
Being cloud based means that there is no costly onsite server to maintain or update and many of the typical LEA related hosting costs are offset, reducing the overall cost to the school, whilst maintaining and exceeding expectations about the level of functionality.
As an ICT Solutions Provider, SchoolCare pride themselves in working with best of breed vendors for all our products and services and undertake an intensive evaluation and due diligence process when selecting our partners, so you can be sure that SchoolCare will deliver an MIS solution to meet you needs.
