Becoming an Academy

[Mr.Ben]

Found out on Friday that we are going to become an Academy.

 

Whilst i fully expect us to continue with the SWGfL on the Internet Connectivity side of things I was wondering If there was anything else that I would have to think about apart from the following:

 

 

SIMS Support (From LEA or Capita)

FMS Equivalents (The bursar would like to use something different) & Support

Internet Connection

Firewalls

Filtering

External IP's/domain name changes for our external services

Domain Name Changes

SLA's that go with the services above that require them.

 

Anything else? I have a vanilla network that I maintain.

 

Regards, Ben

Edited December 6, 2010 by Mr.Ben

[kevbaz]

Redundencies, ours were announced on friday and its not a good place to be right now

[K.C.Leblanc]

SIMS Support (From LEA or Capita)

 

Do you even have SIMs licensing? We're looking at this, it seams weather or not we held a SIMs licence during the 90s when the school was Grant Maintained could have a major baring on our SIMs licensing cost.

[Theblacksheep]

Sims contract, all contracts are cancelled and a new SIMS agreeement setup. About 25k for our school to convert.

 

FMS, you'll need a new database and staff might need access to both because you'll be doing an end of year. If changing, sort this asap.

 

Our www/email address didnt change because we stayed LEA supplied internet. LEA still own the address.

[Mr.Ben]

We use Live@Edu and Easymail here for Email, Website is hosted by another company as well.

 

There are 5 members of SMT with gov.uk accounts provided by the council, but I see it as a good thing that I will have to move them to live@edu.

[altecsole]

FMS Equivalents (The bursar would like to use something different) & Support

 

We just converted to an Academy and chose a product called PS Financials to replace FMS. We also took on payroll using SAGE Payroll.

[rad]

We are going to be an Achedemy by the looks of it, a high end one not a "recovering school" one.

 

Not sure what it means for us, but I am sure of one thing, the council will sting us when we want to renew everything, they have already upped charges on the coming year.

[SpuffMonkey]

We just converted to an Academy and chose a product called PS Financials to replace FMS. We also took on payroll using SAGE Payroll.

 

We've just converted and gone with Resource 32000 from Corero - its a nice product

[mwnci]

We converted on 1st November.

SWGFL have been very accommodating - I think that they realise that this is the way that things are going. As a result, we have stuck with our existing connection. Email and website hosted elsewhere.

 

With regard to SIMS, yes we have had to relicence at great expense. Seems like a cash bonanza/licence to print money for Capita - best part of £10000 (primary school) of money which could have been spent on books and other resources - not exactly sure what we get for this princely sum - other than a bloated MIS.

 

We have stopped using FMS and started using SAGE. Not only was this a good opportunity to start using a decent financial package, but also FMS currently struggles to provide some of the reporting necessary for academies. It is possible, but messy.

 

We have kept our SLA with our local authority SIMS support team. Our approach to becoming an academy is "If it ain't broke don't fix it". The team in question are both helpful and effective, so why replace them?

[elsiegee40]

The school where I'm governor converted on 1st December.

 

While someone earlier mentioned redundancies, we chose not to change and staff employment terms and conditions. The conversion is quite difficult enough without upsetting the staff as well.

 

The school was a foundation school, so the staff were already employed directly and not by the LA

Edited December 6, 2010 by elsiegee40

[Theblacksheep]

We all got our p45s and reemployed by the school under the same conditions.

 

3 were not reemployed (school decided they were not needed regardless of academy status) and 1 not replaced (trying to save money).

[Mr.Ben]

The school where I'm governor converted on 1st December.

 

While someone earlier mentioned redundancies, we chose not to change and staff employment terms and conditions. The conversion is quite difficult enough without upsetting the staff as well.

 

The school was a foundation school, so the staff were already employed directly and not by the LA

 

That is very much the same situation here, so hopefully the process won't be too painful

[ozydave]

Hi

You will need a new installation of sims. Capita will need to be paid. Think we had to pay around 18000

I would start planning it now it's a good time to clean up your data. Lots of things to think about regards who has access to old sims data. The old data no longer belongs to you it's the property of you LA. PM me if you like went throuh it in setp 2009

Cheers

[timzim]

We all got our p45s and reemployed by the school under the same conditions.

 

3 were not reemployed (school decided they were not needed regardless of academy status) and 1 not replaced (trying to save money).

 

Surely TUPE should have been applied? And, since you have to be Outstanding to become an Academy, they can't use the Organisational part of an ETO reason to make you redundant. Not allowed to make you redundant under TUPE simply to save money. Do you not have unions in your school? Good case for unfair dismissal there.

[GrumbleDook]

Just a quick point about domain names ... the LA do *not* own them, the school does. You get your domain name based on the specified region you are in (eg school.northants.sch.uk) and these are generally applied for on your behalf by the LA.

 

To make use of it as an academy you need to find a registrar you are going to use, find a DNS supplier (can be the same, can be the new ISP, etc) and ask them to request the tags are moved from the incumbent holder to the new holder. If you are doing a complete name change you can even approach Nominet about changing your domain name (but still keep the old one to aid/support transition to the academy).

[teejay]

Software:

All software in school will need to be checked with the software company about transferring. Most suppliers it's just a case of completing a transfer form eg Microsoft, some the licence cannot be transfered and will have to be re-purchased.

Hardware:

These also need checking as you may need to transfer ownership of the equipment, some it may invalidate the warranty.

Domains:

They will need transfering to the Academy.

Equipment Leases/Rentals:

These will either need transfering or buying out.

 

Oh the joy...

[reggiep]

We've just converted and gone with Resource 32000 from Corero - its a nice product

 

We are looking at Resource 32000 from Corero too. Did you install it on a new server or on an existing one? We were told it was probably better to stick it on its own.

[SpuffMonkey]

We are looking at Resource 32000 from Corero too. Did you install it on a new server or on an existing one? We were told it was probably better to stick it on its own.

 

We had a standalone server for the old FMS product - so we reused that.

[AnnDroyd]

Is there a need to change your domain name if converting to an academy? My thinking was that whilst becoming a limited company woudl make the use of a .com, .co.uk or .ltd.uk an acceptable option, it wouldn't make retaining your county.sch.uk name incorrect.

 

What are other people's views on this?

[elsiegee40]

There is no need whatsoever to change your domain name. The schools round here that have converted have continued with their existing .county.sch.uk domains.

 

Private schools seem locally seem to use .com, .co.uk or .sch.uk as it suits them!

[howartp]

Is there a need to change your domain name if converting to an academy?

 

What are other people's views on this?

We are looking at changing ours primarily because it's too long (south-craven.n-yorks.sch.uk) but I've heard somewhere that we still have to keep our current one as well (as an alias or whatever) because authorities/councils/government will always use your official nominet-allocated school.lea.sch.uk address?

 

Peter

[timzim]

We are looking at changing ours primarily because it's too long (south-craven.n-yorks.sch.uk) but I've heard somewhere that we still have to keep our current one as well (as an alias or whatever) because authorities/councils/government will always use your official nominet-allocated school.lea.sch.uk address?

 

Don't know who told you that. We got rid of our school one because it was far too long and difficult to spell, and replaced it with a .co.uk. We've never had any problems with authorities/councils/government wanting to get in touch with us (or maybe they tried and failed ha ha).

[alan-d]

We have stopped using FMS and started using SAGE. Not only was this a good opportunity to start using a decent financial package, but also FMS currently struggles to provide some of the reporting necessary for academies. It is possible, but messy.

 

Just come out of a meeting with Capita Rep and the news is that there is now a patch available to enable FMS to give all the correct reports required as well as a few other bells and whistles. It should be part of the Spring Release (If I heard correctly) but schools needing it before then can get it early.

 

I can't give more detail as my SIMS\FMS expert is away this week but your usual FMS contact should have the details.

[EvLPhenom]

I can't give more detail as my SIMS\FMS expert is away this week but your usual FMS contact should have the details.

 

You know he won't let you live it down if he reads that...

[alan-d]

You know he won't let you live it down if he reads that...

No problem that can't be sorted by muttering a single word

 

'Documentation'