We are an LA school which works in a consortium with 2 other schools at Post 16 only (our KS3/4 are totally separate). The other 2 schools are each in different MATs. It is a very soft federation, but it works well.
We've been using SIMS Partnership Exchange since we started; yes, it has its issues, but we have very helpful LA IMS support team who usually manage to keep us going.
But one of the other schools has suddenly moved to Bromcom because their SIMS licence was up for renewal.
At the moment, they have an administrator manually inputting their registers from Bromcom into the one remaining SIMS station at the school - so we can continue to have the data flowing.
Obviously this is a very short term solution, and the other 2 of us are up for SIMS renewal in the next 18 months or so. I have colleagues in both Bromcom and Arbor schools - all of whom are pulling their hair out even more than they did with SIMS.
I am bemused by SIMS next gen - I asked ESS if it would support PX, but the person answering my query clearly didn't understand a word of it and passed it onto to another department who clearly hadn't read the original email and thought we were all in the same MAT.
So questions:
1. Will SIMS continue to support PX in its next regeneration (whenever that might be)? If so, the 2 remaining schools might be able to stagger on.
2. Does anyone do a product like PX which would enable the 3 of us to stay connected at Post 16 level?
Really looking forward to responses which don't require a magic wand!!