Lots of local authorities and multi-academy trusts struggle to get access to high-quality data and insights from across all their schools. They usually can only get static reports which are pulled from expensive, custom-built systems that don’t provide the real-time information they need to effectively manage their schools. That’s why we built Bromcom Vision.
Bromcom Vision is a central data hub that provides users with the ability to analyse and collate live data from multiple schools, as well as easily manage all their schools and standardise their MIS.
In this blog, I’m going to explain how LAs and MATs across the country use Vision, explore its most important features, and share the benefits it unlocks for users.
How does Vision work?
Vision pulls together data from all the schools in a MAT or LA from the individual schools’ MIS. It allows you to view and analyse the entire dataset with the help of Power BI, analytics, and custom dashboards, as well as drill down into individual schools’ data.
Not only does our ‘eye in the sky’ tool give the central team the data and insights they need to improve their decision-making, it provides them with a range of central management tools so they can action those decisions and standardise their schools’ MIS from one place. These tools are especially beneficial for growing trusts as they can set protocols from the top instead of having to create them for a new school. Here’s some examples of what you can do with these tools:
- Build a report in Vision and have all your schools run it to collect the data you want
- Ensure data is consistent across a trust or LA by setting things like staff absence codes and user defined fields for all schools
- Standardise roles and permissions for all schools
- Set school objectives at a trust or LA level – but also allow individual schools to set their own individual targets alongside them
- Create assessment templates to be used by all schools
As Vision is cloud-based – just like our MIS – it can be accessed anywhere, anytime, too. That means you can monitor your trust or LA so long as you have an internet connection!
Your schools don’t all have to be using Bromcom MIS to use Vision, either; unlike other analytics tools for MATs and LAs, it can connect with any system which is particularly useful for LAs. So, whether your schools currently use a mixture of systems or are moving to Bromcom in phases, you can reap the full benefits of Vision right now.
“Setting up MAT Vision has been very simple and quick and it instantly provides, through a simple dashboard, the type of headline data a multi-academy trust regularly requires. Rather than having to contact each school for updated student numbers, or a breakdown of free school meal numbers, key data is always available centrally and no more than 24 hours old. Trends in behaviour, attendance, exclusions or staff absence are easy to identify and track and a more detailed analysis is available if required.” – Robert Isaac, Operations Director, Bourne Education Trust
The key features
1. Benchmark data
Thanks to its built-in analytics, it’s easy to assess KPIs related to key issues like attendance, behaviour, and exclusions. You can then compare individual schools’ metrics to the rest of the group and the entire cohort to national averages. So, instead of letting underperforming schools slip through the net, you can instantly spot them and provide the support they need.
2. Implement change from the centre
With Vision’s central management tools, introducing new policies, distributing communications, and updating software for the entire trust or LA only takes a couple clicks. The total visibility it provides for users of all their schools also enables the central team to pinpoint good practice at individual establishments and promote it among the rest.
3. Unlock better insights with the Power BI Viewer
Query your MAT’s or LA’s entire database via a secure, automated feed and create custom dashboards that display the visualisations and KPIs you want to monitor.
4. Drill down into individual schools and issues
As well as giving users an overview of their schools’ performance, they can deep dive individual schools and analyse their data, and even explore specific areas, like attendance among their cohort. Vision gives central teams the power to easily identify areas for improvement and pinpoint the most impactful changes to implement.
5. Manage data access
Assign permissions to data to ensure only the right users have access to the relevant data.
The benefits
1. It reduces admin burden
Your schools won’t need to worry about manually providing you with their data, anymore; Vision collates it all automatically from their MIS, saving your schools and your central team considerable time preparing, transferring, and analysing the data.
Downloading and transferring information to the relevant people within your trust or LA is much quicker, too, and the data won’t need to be manually processed, either.
2. It’s a scalable solution
Because Vision can connect with any school MIS, as your MAT or LA expands you can easily incorporate your new establishment’s data into Vision, as well as quickly set up a new MIS which follows all your protocols.
3. It lowers costs
No need to have several systems to collate and analyse data and implement your MAT’s or LA’s new policies. Vision provides you with all the functionality you need to monitor and manage your schools in one convenient place.
4. It’s hosted on Microsoft Azure
Like our other products, Vision is securely hosted on Microsoft Azure, giving users peace of mind that their data is always protected.
“The attendance team loves the Multi Academy Vision portal. They can see the whole trust from a single portal, rather than having to dip into individual instances to extract and collate data in spreadsheets. It has saved so much time.” – Glenn Perinn, IT Strategic Lead, Eko Trust
Want to learn more about Vision?
We’ve worked with MATs and LAs across the country for decades, using our rich experience to create an unrivalled product that helps them get the most out of their schools’ MIS and manage their schools in the most effective way. To discover how Vision could benefit your trust or LA, book a discovery call with our team.
You can find out more about how our customers use Vision in our case studies, such as this case study about Leigh Academies Trust and this one about Corinium Education Trust.
