How Wyre Forest School is using Bromcom to empower Staff
Located in Kidderminster, Worcestershire, Wyre Forest School is a broad-spectrum special needs School, catering to students from ages 3 to 19 and including a residential unit. With over 300 students on roll and 200 staff. Chris White who is the Technical Support Manager has been undertaking a full modernisation of their IT systems and devices to enhance the experience of all employees and reduce classroom workload.
Formed by merging two Schools, Wyre Forest inherited “small School” systems that became overwhelmed with the volume of data needed to be stored. Although upgrading the Management Information System (MIS) was not initially part of the project, the limitations of the legacy system necessitated switching to a new MIS in tandem with several key system upgrades.
Challenge
Our School had a large staff body utilising ageing iPads that would be expensive to replace. Mobile phones were the preferred replacement, but they needed a cloud-based MIS that staff could utilise effectively on such devices. They needed instant access to information on the go, allowing them to focus on the needs of their students.
Ultimately, we opted to deploy Android mobile phones to all staff, many of whom would use it as their sole device. In a special needs classroom, our staff valued the flexibility of mobile phones and wanted to avoid using bulky devices such as laptops.
"Bromcom’s One-Stop-Shop was no more expensive than our previous package."
The solution
The Teacher app was a strong driver for our decision to choose Bromcom, allowing staff to take registers, log behaviour and access records quickly and effectively. Our previous MIS was primary-focused and lacked a mobile app or more advanced feature like dashboards and advanced reporting.
Bromcom provided us with a fully featured MIS that allowed us to fully leverage our new mobile devices with staff in the classroom. Alongside this it gave our Senior Leadership Team easy access to dashboards, our Backoffice staff the ability to quickly organise and file relevant documents, and our HR staff could keep track of contracts and Continuing Professional Development (CPD).
Results
Having Bromcom MIS in Wyre Forest School has had a measurable impact. Our 200 staff now have quick and easy access to registers, alongside behaviour systems that enable them to record activities effectively and efficiently in the classroom.
The SLT can gain insight through simple dashboards connected to live data. The built-in benchmarking facilities enable us to compare our data with other Bromcom Schools without having to wait for the national figures to be published. Office staff now have processes and systems that support the correct storage of documents and data, assisting with our GDPR compliance and record-keeping.
What’s next..
At Wyre Forest School we’re planning to bring our pupil records fully onto Bromcom. We’re also exploring assessment marksheets and report features that were previously done by using third party software.
The more we use it and learn to rely on Bromcom, the more sense it makes to have it replace our other systems. While it is relatively early days for us, we are well on the way to our goal to making Bromcom the “Single screen” that gives us access to all the data relating to staff and students.
Interested in a new MIS?
