Schools are under a lot of pressure to achieve more with fewer resources and less support. With a shortage of teachers, rising operational costs and a larger proportion of students with recognised special education needs and disabilities (SEND), it’s more important than ever that school technology pulls its weight.
In particular, your Management Information System (MIS) has a bigger impact than some might realise, not only on operational efficiency, but on the ability of school staff to provide the required support for pupils with SEND.
To explain how our technology is having a positive impact on this, we need to consider the real challenges schools are facing in more depth.
Understanding the challenges teachers face
For many teachers, to describe their average working day as “busy” would be an understatement. The UK faces an ongoing problem with recruiting and retaining teachers, leaving most of the profession feeling overstretched.
With long days (and evenings) spent teaching pupils and managing their own workloads, teachers shouldn’t have to deal with an MIS that creates even more work. Of course, all MIS platforms are intended to serve as a central hub for pupil data, but the reality is not all data can be recorded or reported in the average MIS.
For example, if a behavioural incident occurs in the classroom, this often means teachers have to record the details with paper-based forms or a separate system outside of their MIS, then notify parents or other staff members manually, and try to find time to ensure the pupils involved are properly supported. This creates two problems:
1. Additional processes have to exist outside of your MIS, which reduces the benefit of having everything centralised.
2. Teachers spend more time on admin work, which will inevitably take away from quality time spent interacting with pupils and their families.
Our belief is that your MIS should make the administrative side of teaching as quick and easy as possible. This principle has informed the way we’ve designed SchoolPod, particularly when it comes to behaviour management and other SEND-related capabilities.
Improving support for teachers and pupils
When teachers and other school staff are already feeling overwhelmed by their workloads, inefficient systems can be a nightmare. Teachers are usually very aware that their time would be better spent helping students in the classroom rather than managing admin, but they simply have no other choice, which is frustrating to say the least.
That’s why we’ve incorporated so many time-saving features into SchoolPod, with the intention of seamlessly optimising processes so that school staff don’t even have to think about them. The data you need is simply where it should be, right when you need it.
Easily capture information
A key feature in SchoolPod that differs to most MIS platforms is the ability to capture the full details of any incident, whether it’s positive, negative or neutral. Slips (essentially digital forms) can be configured to match your school’s exact processes, so staff can quickly enter all the required information without over-complicating the task.
Automated communication
Instead of relying on staff to keep each other in the loop, notifications can easily be triggered in SchoolPod based on events logged in the system. Most importantly, you can also keep parents and carers informed with automated messages, including positive updates about their child’s achievements and behaviour. This can really help drive parental engagement, and it’s particularly impactful for SEND management.
Powerful, not overcomplicated
There’s a whole lot you can do in SchoolPod to support both students and staff, especially around SEND requirements. That being said, most of this complexity is handled by our team in the onboarding stage. The same is true when it comes to reporting, so you have a user-friendly shortcut to the insights you need, without being overwhelmed by a complicated interface.
To find out more about how SchoolPod can improve the support your school is able to offer pupils, families, teachers and staff, get in touch with our team today.