Looking for MIS for our New School

[alkhalil]

Hello, everyone , I hope anyone here can help us , we have been doing a lot research regard a system that we can use which reasonable in price but we having no luck , can you guys please suggest any system for us please. anyone can show us the direction.

 

Thanks in advance.

[elsiegee40]

Tell us about your school. Primary/secondary? LA, Academy, part of a MAT, Independent, Free School? In the UK?

[alkhalil]

we are an Independent school and we have classes for Secondary this year and we will be having Primary next year as well

[elsiegee40]

So fees are an issue!

 

Double First Engage comes to mind - and @vikpaw will hopefully appear to give his opinion on that. His school switched from SIMS.

 

The independent I was last at had Schoolbase, but the staff really struggled with it and it wasn't everything we'd hoped when it came to billing. It was the extras that were the problem and also the PreSchool billing was a nightmare. On discussing it with other SchoolBase schools, the answer always seemed to be "Well we've got this Excel spreadsheet..."

 

WCBS Pass and iSams are the other two more commonly used by independents.

[bashy]

Isams here, Schoolbase at the previous school

[alkhalil]

thanks elsiegee40 and bashy can any advise what is cost for Isams and WCBS . thanks again for your input

[DalekSec]

We moved from Schoolbase to iSams 2 years ago and haven't looked back, 10x better in most aspects!

 

Sorry can't help with cost etc as i had no input on those matters

[vikpaw]

Hello, everyone , I hope anyone here can help us , we have been doing a lot research regard a system that we can use which reasonable in price but we having no luck , can you guys please suggest any system for us please. anyone can show us the direction.

 

Thanks in advance.

 

Hi, sorry for the delay - been busy setting up Engage Accounts!

 

I can definitely say Engage by Double First should be one of your considerations. As @elsiegee40 said I moved my last school to it from SIMS, and I'm currently bedding it in at a few other schools.

 

When are you looking to transfer? Also what is your current system? The timeframe may have an impact on what you do as well as the ease with which you can pull existing data out.

For secondary you'll need a timetable in place, and that can take time to input even if it's already prepared.

 

We found Engage very flexible and able to deal with our little complexities (based in the middle east, arabic days of the week, different timetable structure for each year group, etc.) It has a robust Fees module and it's own Accounts package as well as built-in portals for staff, parents and students.

 

I self-hosted at my last school, but now we have a hosted setup with Double First via Amazon and it's really handy for remote working so long as the internet holds up.

 

Feel free to drop me a private message and I can give you a demo if you like.

Edited September 24, 2016 by vikpaw

[Kateeb]

About to move from Schoolbase to ISams. Staff struggle with the schoolbase interface and support can be hit and miss

[CAM]

Do you have a support unit as an independent school? What system do they use?