JDMcDsblog

Spent the day at Stewarts’ Melville College attending a presentation for independent schools by WCBS on their management information system, PASS. WBCS have largely served the English market but are now looking at opportunities to work here in Scotland. Until now the main issue has been achieving compatability with the SQA, but they believe that if a critical mass of independents buy into their system, it could be cost effective to offer a Scottish version of their product. A significant number of Scottish schools do use WBCS’ financial package , but for all other admin and academic purposes, Seemis (Click and Go) and Phoenix Gold seem the most common. Others are moving to Phoenix e1 I listened with interest and was impressed by the presentation and the potential of their system. They offer various elements:

Academic
Administration
School Development

Among the interesting features which I noted and want to follow up included:

Able to customise the package to suit the school

Flexibility in creating fields
Attendance and medical data
Use of alerts to flag up missing data
Ability to create a dynamic timetable that could be readly updated, eg to incorporate extra curricular activities
Tracking of uptake from initial inquiry through to formal application (gives Development Office hard data on conversion rates for pupil registations)
Tracking of pupil performance (”cradle to grave” analogy; ie from initial registration to university acceptance)
Ability to interrogate data to get overview on individual pupil performance (eg for a guidance teacher who needs a quick update ahead of a parental interview)
Logging of House Points, detentions, internet access restrictions
Variety of reporting options in terms of frequency and format-ranging from termly summaries to online marks books.
possible option of On Line reporting (using password protected access)
Generate Log to show staff progress in report completion
Text for reports can be entered via Word; spellcheck is built into PASS
Teachers can have remote access to system
Variable access to data-permissions depend on position/responsibility.
Easy migration of data to Excel

I’d be interested to know how WCBS, Phoenix and Seemis compare-what are their relative strengths and weaknesses?
How can parents access reports-and other key data about their child-online?