Hi dnight001,
I think I need to clear some of these things up for clarity to all. East Sussex is not ‘forcing’ schools to use SIMS Gateway to offer online reporting. A few years ago there was a procurement process taken place to enable East Sussex schools to offer on-line parental reporting to parents. This requirement was in place from the DfE (or DCSF as it was then) and had target dates of 2010 (for Secondary) and 2012 (for Primary). So in 2007, this was taken to the Schools Forums (this is a group made up of schools SLT who make decisions of projects, work or anything that impacts schools) and SLG was the preferred product due to its complete package for SIMS schools, this is an important fact, no harnessing tech funding can be spent by the LA unless it is signed off by the schools forum (as above, is made up of East Sussex schools).
East Sussex then went through a pilot phase where 8 schools (a mix of Primary, Secondary & Special) piloted a Capita hosted SLG solution. The outcome and feedback from this pilot was the decision to go ahead with the product, if the feedback from these schools users (this was staff, pupils & parents) was negative we would not have run with this product.
Following this, a project was in place to build an infrastructure centrally to host the SLG product.
This decision to host ourselves was taken from costings; Capita charge at that time was in exceess of £4000 just to host per school (not including licences etc). Another decision was made to procure the licences through the LA; this is due to the huge discounts an LA can achieve rather than a single school who go to Capita. I believe the licence cost per school direct to Capita (at that time) was around £7000 per school, though the LA the discount is much much less that £7000. Local Authorities do gain large discount through aggregated procurement in most area’s (hardware/software etc)
Once the infrastructure was built, the LA hit another snag, Becta/Government guidance on data security on sensitive data, so we looked at 2 factor authentication for our schools staff to be able to access this sensitive data (IL Level 3 data – accessing multiple accounts), this delayed the project quite a bit. After months of researching different companies and prices we were above to procure 2FA tokens at £10 per user (we were quoted anything from £40 - £150), this was through the Becta framework.
The LA then ran another pilot for the central hosted system, this was to test connections, iron out issues, test 2FA, gain feedback from schools (there was 8 different schools in this pilot), feedback on documentation created from the LA and training delivered before rolling out to all schools.
Now we are in the situation of rolling out to schools to be able to install and run SIMS Gateway to meet the requirements on online reporting to parents. SIMS Gateway it also offers staff to be able to enter assessment & attendance & profile reports direct from a web browser, this was to add value to their PPA time and be able to do their tasks from home or somewhere with an internet connection. It also offers (from autumn release) the ability of publish reports online therefore saving money for the school, and doing a bit to save the planet!
I also would like to make a point of SIMS Gateway is not just another ‘techie’ product we have ‘pushed out’ to schools to make more work for you, there is large amounts of research taken to prove (this is the important part!) that effective parental engagement and communication between parent & school, can increase attainment, attendance for students because of this. The key things I want to say here is it directly effects students in your school, brings parents/schools closer, and I feel that can only be a good thing for your school and students.
....And yes Banjo £500 a year for this is very cheap (compared with £7000+) and why we have worked so hard to get this for our schools
Yes of course a school can choose what they wish to run, I understand the goal posts have changed but the impact of parental engagement is still applicable. If the Head from the school chooses to spend schools money on another solution then that is the choice of the head, East Sussex can then allocate the licence to another school who wish to run the system. We would need to meet with the head so they understand the total cost of ownership of running another system, also so the head understands the pros & cons of moving (or not as the case may be) to another system of their choice. The project was set up to give all schools in East Sussex the ability to offer online reporting, parental engagement and visibility to stakeholders (inc Governors) how students are performing within the school, and staff the freedom of working on marksheets/attendance/reports as they wish from where they wish. I feel parents should also have a voice in how your schools spend money, so it would also be good to hear what they say about the cost of SIMS Gateway compared to outcomes. If you feel you can gain this and more by spending £500 on something else, submit it to your SLT for them to decide if it is more beneficial to the school/pupils/parents/staff etc. As I have mentioned, East Sussex CC do not want schools thinking we are forcing products on the schools, the school decide on application, and the most cost effective way of delivering applications and ultimately results for your school