Ecclesbury Posted February 7, 2017 Posted February 7, 2017 I've got a job interview coming up as SIMS manager at an all-through independent school. I've worked as a data/SIMS manager at a state secondary for the last 8 years so am pretty solid with the SIMS side of things but wondered whether there are any significant differences for data managers in the independent sector that I should be aware of. Is there anyone out there who works in the independent sector, or better still anyone that has worked in both that could give some advice?
vikpaw Posted February 8, 2017 Posted February 8, 2017 The biggest part might be the type of reporting that they need to do, but you can adapt to that. Plus if they are charging fees they'll need the advanced Admissions Module, they may not have it, so look into the benefits for them. Also if finance is done through Sims, they will use the Fees Module and possibly link it to FMS. All pretty basic stuff that you can teach yourself but an awarenesss is useful. The worst thing about Fees is trying to get complex reporting out and editing the template for invoices. Sometimes I'd export pupil and contact data from SIMS and finance would export their data and we'd have to do a vlookup in Excel. Often Sims is only used by admin, and not used very well. Your staff training skills will be important. I've heard of some old school places that are well behind the times. Others are very advanced, use all modules, have links to foreign schools etc. So it can depend on the specific school.
vikpaw Posted February 8, 2017 Posted February 8, 2017 Also, you'll be dealing with primary and their reporting needs. It could be messy if there's no consistency across the school. Additional timetabling issues, resources could be shared. Admin teams could be split so you've got two sets of people with edit rights... Some pitfalls. Hope that's what you want, maybe gives you some good questions to ask them.
CAM Posted February 8, 2017 Posted February 8, 2017 All the independent schools I have had interviews at wanted SQL and data warehousing skills, so you might want to focus on that area (one school ripped the SIMS back-end apart because they hated the UI before moving on to another MIS with SQL access). I don't think they report back to the DfE so you won't have to fill in that dreaded Autumn census and the Post-16 return! And OFSTED is replaced by something else. And if you get the job, please please please for the love of god record student UPNs when they move from a state school! You won't use it but when a student leaves independent education and moves so a state secondary, they never have their UPN with them and a forensic hunt has to start to find the number from their state primary.
Ecclesbury Posted February 9, 2017 Author Posted February 9, 2017 Big thanks both, really useful stuff.
edmokeski Posted February 9, 2017 Posted February 9, 2017 I'm in an independent, but we don't run SIMS. We use iSAMS, which runs on top of a MS SQL database, so SQL reporting skills are key in order to generate custom reports, etc.. I'm guessing iSAMS was chosen because they originally didn't really compete in the state sector, so were much more tailored to our needs (whereas anything used by both sectors is inevitably very dominated by state requirements, what with independents educating all of 7% of pupils). I think that may change as iSAMS starts to try and compete in the academy and free school space a bit more (notably at BETT this year, their marketing tagline changed from "web based MIS for the independent schools community" to "web based MIS for the entire school community" -- but not in time to get it changed in the BETT program), but hard to say how that will pan out in the long run. I'm guessing SIMS is a bit more of a black box? We have to generate some standard reports on attendance and suchnot, plus some requirements to report to the council on enrollment, etc., but I suspect overall our reporting requirements are somewhat less onerous than in the state sector (no basis for comparison, I'm afraid - this is the only school I've worked in in this country). We have ISI instead of OFSTED, but inspections still mean being able to prove you can pull out data six ways to Sunday at the drop of a hat, so perhaps not so different in that department. Terminology can be quite different (I never hear the words "key stage"), so that may affect reporting as well.
Ecclesbury Posted February 9, 2017 Author Posted February 9, 2017 Thanks edmokeski, Funnily enough I heard through my spies that the school that I'm applying to might be thinking of switching from SIMS to iSAMS. If I'm lucky it might be opportunity for me to develop my own SQL skills (which are patchy at best since I have no opportunity to use them in my current job.) Thankfully the job advert made no mention of SQL querying skills so fingers crossed that won't be an issue! I see that Capita advertise 'SIMS Independent' as if it is a separate thing. Am I right in thinking it is exactly the same product as the state sector? I assume they just push a different combination of modules as @vikpaw describes?
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