We`d need another five staff without SIMS!

INTERNATIONAL CASE STUDY
Jumeirah English Speaking School
We’d need another five staff without SIMS!
Jumeirah English Speaking School in Dubai chose SIMS International to help manage its
expansion and has also made massive savings on its administrative costs.
About the school
Jumeirah English Speaking School (JESS) opened 35 years ago
as a small primary school but as the city has grown, so too has
demand for a British-style education. So in 2005, JESS opened
another primary school and a secondary school in one of the new
suburbs, Arabian Ranches. Over the past five years the school roll
has slowly grown from 500 to more than 2,000 pupils aged 3 to
18, over two locations.
JESS was also looking for an MIS that would manage the waiting
list more effectively. “It’s a massively oversubscribed school with
up to 2,000 prospective pupils on the waiting list. Controlling the
list and keeping it up-to-date is a major task for the admin team,”
she says.
In addition, school leaders were keen to streamline the
reporting system which before SIMS was introduced was hugely
cumbersome and involved large amounts of paper.
What were the issues?
The school has expanded steadily from 500 to 2,000 pupils.
“Initially it was all manageable using our old information
system,” says Catherine Convery, IT Director. “But we knew it
wouldn’t always be so and that the software we were using could
not really cope with multiple sites.”
There were some very specific management issues such as
timetabling. “We opened Arabian Ranches with half our
pupil numbers. This meant half the building was vacant and
timetabling was relatively simple,” says Catherine. “Now we are
up to capacity this is not so and we have to manage people’s
time and resources tightly and carefully.”
“We are much more efficient as a school now.
If it wasn’t for SIMS, we’d need another four
or five admin staff to cope with our expansion
into a through school.”
Catherine Convery, IT Director
INTERNATIONAL CASE STUDY
Jumeirah English Speaking School
“We recently had an inspection and needed to
show our value added. Thanks to SIMS, we now
have first-class tracking data. We were also able
to use the system to find out how many pupils
have left over the past three years and why.”
Catherine Convery, IT Director
How has SIMS helped?
Capita provided training which Catherine says was crucial to the
success of SIMS in their school. “We had a fabulous trainer who
provided us with tremendous support right from the beginning.
She understands SIMS but also how we operate and can adjust
to that.”
As a result, JESS now boasts a highly enthusiastic administration
team keen to use SIMS to solve problems and find simpler ways
of doing things, whether it’s tracking children as they move
through the school, or simply knowing which rooms are free.
Teachers record attendance, pupil grades and behaviour on SIMS.
“Logging on at least twice a day has helped teachers become
more familiar with SIMS,” says Catherine.
Perhaps most important of all, SIMS has enabled the school
to cap the number of admin staff it employs and while pupil
numbers have trebled, the admin team has remained the same
size. Catherine says: “We are much more efficient as a school
now. If it wasn’t for SIMS we’d need another four or five admin
staff to cope with our expansion into a through school.”
Next steps
JESS plans to further develop its use of SIMS by introducing
Lesson Monitor. “Senior managers are happy to invest further in
the system because they can see the benefits. SIMS has given us
better communications, centralised data, improved interaction
with parents and far greater efficiency,” Catherine says. “We
would struggle to run a school this size without SIMS.”
For more information on how SIMS International can support
your school call +44 (0) 1285 647470.
What’s the impact?
As a result of using SIMS, timetabling has become more
streamlined with all three schools successfully sharing resources.
Reports are now produced electronically, drawing on a range
of data that teachers record in SIMS and eliminating the timeconsuming, manual process. The school is also able to quickly
review the waiting list every month.
© Capita January 2012
But SIMS has also offered much more. Catherine explains:
“We recently had an inspection and needed to show our value
added. Thanks to SIMS, we now have first-class tracking data.
We were also able to use the system to find out how many
pupils have left over the past three years and why.”
SIMS International, 5 Mercian Close, Cirencester, Gloucestershire, UK, GL7 1LT
Tel: +44 (0) 1285 647470 Fax: +44 (0) 1285 647 599 Email: [email protected]
www.capita-independent.co.uk