Is signing into a multi-year contract for your MIS a good thing?

If it’s something you’ve actively chosen to do as a school, academy or trust then, yes, it’s a great idea. It means you’ve had the chance to look at the options out there, and you’ve asked your suppliers for three-, four- or five-year pricing to guarantee a bit of budget certainty for the future.

If a multi-year contract is something you’ve had sprung on you in the small print – leaving you a very short window to either agree or cancel – well, it’s unlikely to be very popular. No one appreciates feeling like they’re being backed into a corner ☹

An unforeseen change in contract terms like this poses all sorts of questions for everyone involved in MIS:

❓ How does this affect the relationships schools have with the local support teams out there whom they’ve worked with and accessed their MIS licence through for years? It leaves Support Teams having to manage a difficult message from the MIS provider.

❓ How does this affect how Support Teams work with suppliers? More and more Support Teams have moved to be a multi-MIS support team, choosing to support their schools irrespective of the systems they use as opposed to only offering one option. All of the ‘big 5’ MIS have established Support Partner programmes (some useful links are below), as well as many of the newer entrants to the sector.

❓ How does this affect everyone (both schools and LAs) in terms of meeting procurement rules? Does everyone now need to get quotes and go through a tender process to even just stay with the MIS they already use?

❓ As academisation continues, what happens when a Local Authority maintained school is tied into a multi-year contract that converts to an academy?

Lots to think about which will hopefully become clearer soon.

If you’re a school, academy or trust and you’re affected by this and are wondering what to do, I’ve seen lots of posts on this already but it seems like the best advice is:

• Remember, YOU are the customer, so don’t be afraid of looking at alternatives and moving as it can all happen a lot quicker and easier than you think. Everyone is well-versed in migrating data from your system and it’s possible to be up and running very quickly.

• If there’s too much time pressure to look into things right now, don’t feel you have to lock in for a further three years, but do definitely contact your supplier to negotiate an alternative term length. They may be open to shorter contracts in the face of schools cancelling altogether, and this will give you time to plan for 2022.

• Talk to people! Get in touch with your local MIS support team if you use one, or with any of the MIS companies directly. They are all friendly and knowledgeable and will walk you through everything you need to know (or send a message to me or Nick as we’re more than happy to introduce you).

‘Big 5’ Support Partner programme links:

RM Integris https://www.rm.com/products/rm-integris/partner

Bromcom https://www.bromcom.com/LA-partners

Arbor https://arbor-education.com/become-a-partner/

Scholarpack https://scholarpack.com/who-we-help/support-partners/

ESS SIMS https://www.ess-sims.co.uk/products-and-services/sims-support-units

Our next fireside chat is with Schools ICT Service Manager and all-round MIS expert, Keren Wild.

Schools ICT is a fully traded service of NYCC working through North Yorkshire Education Services (NYES), which means they work with all types of organisations and education settings across the UK, not just in North Yorkshire.

We’ve known Keren for many years, and it’s great to speak with colleagues from MIS support teams as it gives such a unique and insightful view of the landscape. In this Q&A, we chat about a wide range of topics including:

• The North Yorks framework and how this has given choice to the schools
• The value that Support Teams offer to Edtech companies; how support teams protect their schools and take away the pain of IT
• How technology has encouraged primary schools to make different choices, especially with the added pressure of Covid closures
• How Support Teams will evolve in the future to include wider services, multi-MIS, more competition, and becoming being a partner to MATs
• Academisation and its role in moving Primary schools to cloud-based solutions
• The role of Senior leaders in the decision change MIS, and how this can be a challenge
• How well schools’ understand data and what an MIS can do for them
• Anytime, anywhere access to MIS and how this has become even more important since Covid
• How secondary schools feel about cloud MIS options
• Usability and change, and what challenger MIS could do to make their solutions slicker
• The difference between ‘one-stop shop’ and ‘best of breed’ solutions
• The opportunities for Edtech to partner with support providers as they have insights and connections which will give Edtech companies insights to the customer

We’re almost the end of term in what has been another weird year. We spent the first 3 months in lockdown so lost all face-to-face contact again (the fact we didn’t start the year by attending the Bett show was a novelty in itself!) so we’ve been continuing to catch up with people by video and share the recordings with you all – I really appreciate your positive responses!

As humans we all want to deal with other humans; it’s so important to have a real face and a real person behind your solutions. It’s been great to have so many people involved in our ‘fireside chats’ to talk education, management and innovation.

So thank you Martin Hall and Stephen Bilboe for giving us an insight into the MIS market which has continued to see big changes in 2021.

Thanks to Will Jordan and Luke Pargeter for talking to us about the things you do alongside the MIS solutions and the ways in which you help schools.

The insight Rowena Hackwood and Jeff Marshall provided into how MATs and academies work has been invaluable, both for edtech suppliers and education professionals alike, so thank you for this.

And finally thank you Phil Neal, Mark House, Andre Skepple and Priya Lakhani for your views and ideas on what might happen next and the big trends in edtech.

Sarah and I have thoroughly enjoyed making the series, and already have some great sessions ready to go in the new term with industry thought leaders Duncan Baldwin, Keren Wild and Tony Lockwood – watch this space!

In case you missed it, here’s a round-up of all our thought leader Q&A sessions from 2020.

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The extent to which an MIS is used by a school is usually dependent on quite a few different factors:

• How well they understand what the MIS can actually do for them over and above standard pupil census type stuff
• How easy it is to use, but also how intuitive it is to learn for new users (which we’ll explore more in a future blog)
• The training the users received at the outset; did it inspire the implementation of new ways of doing things and leave the users enthused?
• How easy MIS companies and support teams make it for users to gain the value they are after? E.g., completing a process or gaining the insight they require.
• How easy it is to get help in the event of coming across a problem (or, looking at it from the opposite side, how soon will users abandon it if it feels too much like hard work)?

For all MIS suppliers, providing an innovative but intuitive product is only half of the story. It’s the support that goes around it which makes it a solution that will really satisfy your customers and embed the solution throughout the school with staff, parents, governors and students alike. Every supplier offers direct user and tech support to their customers – either included as standard as part of their cloud MIS or, for some, via the purchase of an additional support contract.

However, there is another very important group of stakeholders here who play an important role in supporting the use of MIS, and that’s local support teams. It’s a relationship that has evolved over the years, so this blog aims to look at the role of support teams, the MIS suppliers, and schools’ views on the support they receive.

Historically, the concept of who provided MIS support to a school was closely tied to how the MIS licences were procured to begin with. Back when all schools were LA-controlled maintained schools, the majority of Local Authorities in England and Wales, plus Northern Ireland, procured MIS on behalf of their schools on the basis that it would be them who provided the support those schools needed in the use of the system. The LA support teams would only then contact their MIS supplier (the majority were SIMS users) for 2^nd and 3^rd line support.

As the way in which authorities and schools are funded has gradually changed, and especially with the introduction of academisation over a decade ago, the dynamic between schools and support teams has changed (check out this blog post for more on this subject). Independent teams have formed out of the old authority-schools-only teams; commercially-focused, multi-MIS support teams are building great support partnerships with schools and MATs alike.

Everyone is happy to work with schools and academies outside of the traditional LA boundaries, and schools are no longer beholden to their LA choice of MIS offering when they are able to procure any MIS direct from any supplier they wish at a competitive price. The dynamic has changed, and more choice will undoubtedly benefit schools and users.

What impact has this had on where schools get their MIS support?

A recent survey¹ of 2,146 schools asked, amongst other things, who they contacted most often for support with their MIS. The chart below shows the survey results for the ‘Big 5’ who, between them, make up 96% of school market share² ( Arbor, Bromcom, RM Integris, ScholarPack and SIMS):

Chart: Response to the survey question “Who do you contact most often for support?”

The first thing that stands out here is the big chunk of respondents who said a colleague was who they contact most often for support, ranging from around 28% to 52% across the suppliers). It most likely accurately reflects the people it was sent to, who were Headteachers, Deputy and Assistant Heads, and School Business Managers/Leaders. Many of these would ask a colleague for support with their MIS instead of calling/emailing a support team – it tends to be only one or two main MIS users who log cases and place calls. You can draw a couple of conclusions from this:

• Having an MIS expert or superuser in-school is SO important as it is likely they will be relied upon by other staff; working closely with your customers to ensure there is a champion is a good thing!
• A lot of questions/issues with MIS are being dealt with in-school and never reach MIS suppliers or even their support partners. This is a good thing in terms of metrics such as case volumes, but it would be interesting to understand exactly what people ask other colleagues for help with, as it may be that an opportunity is being missed to develop or improve.

(N.B. It’s worth noting here that the schools the respondents are from will have a support arrangement of some kind, either with a local support team or the MIS supplier themselves. However, it’s not possible to tell which it is from this data).

The second thing that stands out is the fact that a much larger number of RM Integris and SIMS respondents (around 41%-42%) contact their local support unit for support compared to Arbor, Bromcom and ScholarPack. This is probably due to the fact that these suppliers have very long-established relationships with LA support teams which combines their MIS with other solutions including infrastructure, hardware, security, and other services³. The other MIS are catching up though, with each developing their own Partner Programmes and working with local support teams to help them become accredited support providers.

We can also gain insight into how happy schools are with the level of support they are getting – irrespective of the route they choose to take it.  The chart below outlines the survey results for the Big 5 when the respondents were asked how they rated the quality of support they receive:

Chart: Response to survey question “How do you rate the quality of MIS support you receive?”

Towards the top end of the scale with the highest proportion of respondents stating that they were ‘Extremely satisfied’ were Arbor (43.14%), Scholarpack (38.31%) and RM Integris (34.57%).  RM Integris and ScholarPack also recorded the smallest proportion of respondents stating they were ‘Extremely dissatisfied’ – both were below 1% (0.62% for RM Integris and 0.65% for ScholarPack).

The Evolution of Support

If we were to compare how and where schools take MIS support from to say, even 10 years ago, the landscape has changed dramatically. Depending on the supplier, anything from 19% to 64% of their customer base are taking support from the MIS supplier directly; this would have been more like 5% to 15% in the early 2000s.

So where does this leave the concept of local MIS support contracts? Is this something schools no longer feel they need if they can go straight to their MIS supplier?

Not at all! Good support teams help schools with so much more than simple button-pressing when it comes to their MIS. The progressive, dynamic teams are also more than happy to support their schools irrespective of which MIS they use. As they will tell you, they ‘support the process, not the product’ which means their schools and academies have choice. On top of that, many local support teams have longstanding relationships with schools going back 20 or 30 years; they support them in everything from creating and implementing assessment policy, preparing for last-minute Ofsted visits, developing overall school/academy/MAT strategy, delivering budget savings, creating the right reports for SLT, governors and trustees, rolling out new tech and devices so everyone can access, the list is endless.

It’s true, not all support teams are created equal, and there will be differences in service levels across the country, but many work in genuine partnership with their schools in everything they can. Where the MIS suppliers provide excellent direct school support, but then also build great partnerships with support teams to help them work with their schools, is where you’ll likely see the most customer satisfaction and loyalty.

¹The data was collected by The Key from a survey that went out to all primary, secondary, special schools and pupil referral units in England, by email. It was not sent to independent schools. The survey was completed by Headteachers, Deputy and Assistant Heads, and School Business Managers / Leaders between 29 March and 27 April 2021.

As part of the survey, respondents were asked which MIS they use. The results are outlined below:

²Market share statistics are sourced from two excellent blogs: Graham Reed’s Omega Pegasus https://www.omegapegasus.com/mischallenge and Josh Perry’s Bring More Data https://bringmoredata.blogspot.com/

³This may not necessarily be the case for ESS SIMS following acquisition but, for the period 1994 to 2021, SIMS was owned by Capita who provided a large portfolio of services and solutions to Local Authorities.

Schools are choosing to move MIS more than they ever have before. There are plenty of options out there ranging from client-based to cloud, multi-phase to age-specific, and outcome-focused to all-in-one solutions.

The reasons schools choose to move in the first place are varied. Many convert to academies and sometimes they join a trust where a different MIS is in use so they switch as part of the joining process. Other times, they’ll use their change of status to academy as an opportunity to look at the MIS options available to them now that they are no longer under LA control.

Maintained schools are switching MIS too. For many, the traditional model of them being able to buy into an LA-purchased and supported MIS is disappearing as councils no longer retain budget or mandate solutions. For some, they never participated in the LA arrangement, choosing to do their own thing and looking at the market on a regular basis anyway.

But what it is that schools look for in a new MIS? What’s most important to them?

A recent survey¹ of 2,146 schools across England asked them to prioritise what they felt was the most important factor in terms of price, support, functionality, integration, partnership and reputation when looking for a new supplier. The results are outlined below:

Functionality was identified as the most important factor at just over 57%, with price coming second and integration a close third, within a couple of percentage of each other.

It makes sense that functionality would come out as the most important factor amongst schools. Ultimately there are certain functions an MIS has to perform to be fit for purpose, such as census which they all do, but there are a huge amount of processes and insights provided by your MIS which schools rely on every day.

The fact that the amount of respondents who said that price was the most important factor to them is fairly similar to the number of respondents who said that integration with other products was the most important factor to them tells an interesting story.

Without a doubt, schools are looking for best value when it comes to MIS, but this doesn’t necessarily mean cheapest. Equally, there is a drive to consolidate systems for sure, but schools don’t want this to at the expense of losing something else they might be using which is incredibly valuable to them; they want to be able to use the best of what’s available to them on the market so integration across solutions is important to them.

(It’s interesting as a similar survey was conducted amongst MAT leaders and, in that survey, functionality scored a much higher percentage; they seemed to be even less sensitive to price and gave more weight to how the product worked – presumably as there are specific MIS needs in trusts. We’ll cover this in another blog).

So, given that the majority of schools cite functionality as the main thing they’re looking for in a new MIS, the next question is: how happy are they with their existing MIS and how likely are they to move?

The survey asked respondents to rate how satisfied they were with their MIS, on a scale of 1-10 with 1 being extremely dissatisfied and 10 being extremely satisfied. The results are below, and the vast majority of suppliers got an average score of 6 or above:

It also asked how likely respondents are to move in the next 12 months, as outlined in the pie chart below:

Around 64% in total said they were either ‘unlikely’ or ‘very unlikely’ to move MIS in the next 12 months, so it seems almost two-thirds of schools are either happy with what they’ve got, or don’t see moving MIS as a priority in the next 12 months.

That said, 311 respondents, which is just over 14%, said they were either ‘likely’ or ‘very likely’ to move in the next 12 months – if this is a reflection across the whole market then we can expect lots of movement from one MIS to another in the next year or so.

Ultimately, if schools are citing functionality as the main thing they look for in a new MIS, how confident are MIS suppliers that their functionality is truly meeting the needs of schools? Aside from the basics, what makes one stand apart from the other?  We’ll be exploring this, amongst other things, in more detail in subsequent posts and would love to hear your views; what do you think users are you looking for in their MIS?

¹The data was collected by The Key from a survey that went out to all primary, secondary, special schools and pupil referral units in England, by email. It was not sent to independent schools. The survey was completed by Headteachers, Deputy and Assistant Heads, and School Business Managers / Leaders between 29 March and 27 April 2021.

As part of the survey, respondents were asked which MIS they use. The results are outlined below:

2020 was a busy year in the world of MIS!

Juniper Education Group acquired Pupil Asset and SISRA amongst others.  The Key Support Services has bolstered its position in the school MIS sector by adding Arbor Education to their portfolio alongside ScholarPack.  IRIS Software Group has acquired iSAMS Ltd which is a great addition to the solutions they already offer the education sector. And finally, Montagu announced they intend to acquire SIMS from Capita, and also invest in ParentPay with the goal of bringing SIMS into the ParentPay Group.

Following on from our initial chat in the Spring, Phil Neal and I caught up towards the end of the year to discuss the various changes that had happened across the sector, and get his views on what might happen next.

We’ve broken the interview down into parts to make it easier to digest. Enjoy!

With so much change going on in the UK MIS sector, I thought it was time to have a conversation with one of the big MIS support teams to understand how their business is changing too.

Last week I had a virtual get together with Director of School Business Services Ltd, Mark Tadman, to talk about how his company supports schools in their use of MIS, amongst other things. Mark and Tina started the business back in 2008 and have always been clear that the goal is to provide schools with the freedom to teach; with their managed services and budget planning software, they aim to save taxpayers money and allow schools to focus on teaching on learning.

Some of the questions we discuss include:

• In what ways has the business changed recently (especially around MIS)?
• Do you think that commercial school service teams are going to have to expand on the types of solutions supported?
• With the change in the MIS and tracker market, how does this affect your vision and strategy?
• Who do you think will be the winners in the MIS space?
• Do you feel the Capita SIMS FM agreement with Local Authorities will stay in place even if someone does buy SIMS?
• How would you make it a more competitive and innovative market?

We’ve split it into three parts to make it easier to digest. Hope you like it, and we’d welcome your comments.