The issues

The most commonly cited frustration of modern teaching is the distractions imposed by ‘initiatives’
in legislation, inspection and processes on the ‘real job’ of real-world outcomes.

Recruiting, retaining and motivating good teams dictates offering them answers to this challenge
– it’s all about the support they receive to free them to practice what they got into education for in
the first place.

On a practical day-to-day level too the right support is crucial to a smooth running school. With a
third of all absences in the workplace cited as work-life imbalance, the cost – personally, professionally and operationally – is quantifiable.

Less quantifiable, but equally obvious, is the ‘opportunity cost’ that results in terms of outcomes
for students.

So, how do you deliver a sense that the system is for, rather than against, your people?

The challenge and opportunities

If you can’t make time, you have to save it…

A measure of great technology is how it allows you to free the time involved in unproductive, repetitive tasks towards those who deliver added value.

In secondary schools that means improving teaching and learning through reduced stress and workloads, better targeting and better delivery of leadership priorities.

If it’s not doing all those in your school it’s for one of only three reasons;

• You have the wrong technology.
• You have the right technology but it’s not used to its full capabilities.
• You have the right technology, but need more of it.

The starting point is to understand exactly how the most advanced technology is answering the issue of staff workloads in the real world.

The second step is to analyse and understand how the technology you already own compares.
You might already possess all or part of the right answer.

Any gaps between the opportunity and your current reality will help form the action plan.

The SIMS answer

Chances are you already have part or all of the answer. No management information system (MIS) technology is more advanced in depth and breadth than SIMS, and none has already been so
widely adopted by UK schools.

Fully deployed, SIMS wins your teams more time by reducing demands on people and resources
and making it easier to plan and target resources.

• Making sure student data only needs to be entered once, however many different reports and people need to see and use it.
• Reducing the time involved in planning the curriculum and recording performance, behaviour and attendance.
• Eliminating the need to manually search for data on individual students, year groups, department or whole school performance.
• Speeding the compilation and generation of reports and analysis.
• Taking the complications out of arranging cover.
• Reducing unnecessary ‘routine’ interruptions from parents whilst dramatically
  enhancing engagement.
• Enhancing prevention rather than resource intensive ‘cure’.
• Simplifying financial and administrative processes.
• Less time searching and more time finding – in the office, the classroom and at home.

Facilitating flexible working, away from the school, at home or on the train…

Reducing staff workload? SIMS is with you every step of the way. Smarter ways of working delivered by the very best technology available.

Why believe? With more authorities, more schools and simply more real-world experience of the challenges you face, no one is closer to the issues of staff workload.