DanRowley

Many thanks for all of your replies. It has given me a lot of ideas and insights.

Thanks for your reply. I agree, the more I research the more I am thinking of staying with a bespoke database. However I have found one provider which seems to meet our demands, ISams. But like you said the training and setting up of the courses is the problem here.

Yes; SIMS would be far too complicated for what the teachers need to do. The in-house system currently only lets teachers input the end of course reports so it is extremely user friendly. As you probably know it is a far more complicated process in SIMS and needs setting up with teaching groups etc. The teachers in the summer course are only with us a day before the course starts and usually have never worked with SIMS. The summer course directors are the only users of the 'main' data. For example student records, parents contact details etc. These users could be trained in using any system as their knowledge of computer systems is usually greater and we have more time with them. SIMS would be perfect if it had a separate easy to use module for academic reports.

Thanks for the reply. I am thinking the same but I am interested to see what other schools do. The bursar at the school would like to see a completely separate system. So a second SIMS database would be a non-starter. Plus the training involved for the teachers (different set of teachers to main term) would be too much for them to use day to day.

Does anybody use or know of any dedicated MIS software for Summer schools? Which can be easily separated from their main term data. We would like it to do the following: • Except admissions data in the following way: application, pending, approval then live in database • Store previous years data • Pupil data to be shown per individual • Notes based on student, for example allergies • Timetabling for class groups • Allocation of teaching rooms • Allocation of boarding rooms • Staff data • Trips to be created and pupils assigned • Allow creation of reports based on student, course, age, class, trip • Behavioural reports and end of term reports (progress reports) • Preferably separate way for staff to write end of term reports • Preferably web based • Logins dependant on security level • Easy to use with minimal training We currently use SIMS in the main term and a in-house made database for summer school. This has worked so far but the in-house made software is getting a little old and unstable so needs an upgrade soon. Also we do not want to use SIMS for summer school because of the staff training required for such a short period (we run two summer schools which are only 4 weeks) and the complicated way SIMS creates reports (not a dig at Capita). Any feedback will be greatly received

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