Bridging the Home-School Gap: Bredon Hill Academy’s Journey with Bromcom MIS
Background
Bredon Hill Academy, situated in the picturesque rural setting of South Worcestershire, is a welcoming school that provides a wealth of opportunities. Assistant Headteacher Mike Horton takes pride in being part of the Senior Leadership Team at this vibrant middle school, catering to pupils from Years 6-8 and boasting a PAN of 486.
The challenge
Upon joining Bredon Hill Academy as an Assistant Headteacher, Mike Horton was entrusted with the responsibility of updating the school’s assessment and reporting systems and processes. The previous system, which involved exporting data for analysis to Excel, proved convoluted and prone to errors, resulting in inaccurate data analysis and an overall lack of precision.
After exploring alternative MIS providers, the school chose Bromcom due to its clear understanding of their needs and the bespoke, flexible nature of its assessment package, which catered to both KS2 and KS3 data input and analysis requirements.
"I found the training and support in setting up what we needed incredibly helpful."
The curriculum assessment sheets can be directly shared with families via the MCAS app and Student Portal, significantly streamlining the school’s reporting processes. The same information is now used for internal tracking, curriculum validation, and most family reporting.
This development has had a positive impact on staff wellbeing, as teachers previously had to write 486 individual reports since they taught every child in the school. Now, upon completing the curriculum assessment sheets, the staff can send out termly reports, providing precise strengths and areas for development for each pupil.
"The new Bromcom assessment systems had a positive impact on our reporting processes, leading to improved staff wellbeing."
Results
Bredon Hill Academy has found Bromcom’s intuitive ‘Analysis’ software to be incredibly useful for assessing the impact of their curriculum and evaluation at individual pupil, sub-group, and cohort levels. This comprehensive data analysis allows for meaningful conversations with relevant stakeholders to enhance pupil progress.
The MCAS app has been instrumental in addressing one of the school’s targets, identified in their Parent Survey, to improve home-school communication. Since Bromcom is also used for the school’s behaviour systems, families can be promptly informed of rewards and sanctions, along with their reasons. In the past, this communication relied on planners, making it cumbersome to examine patterns of behavioural data beyond individual pupil levels. Bromcom has resolved this issue by providing a more efficient method for recording and reporting behaviour.
Following the introduction of MCAS at the school, the annual parent survey has shown a 7% improvement in the number of families who ‘strongly agree’ or ‘agree’ that ‘the school lets me know how my child is doing.’ Bredon Hill Academy plans to continue working with MCAS and aims to utilise it more frequently and to its full potential, encouraging families to engage with the system more often.
"It’s great to be part of the Bromcom Community and to see how so many suggestions for improvement are picked up from its users and implemented or are planned for future development by Bromcom."
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