News

Essa Academy: Empowering students with iPod touch

“A big breakthrough was discovering that the iPod even helps teachers do basic administrative work more easily”, says Abdul. “Teachers now take the register on their iPod using Teacher’s WebFolder, which allows access to a student database with individual contact information, learning needs, target grades and so on. Notices are now sent via email, and children respond to them much more than they did to the old notice boards...

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80% of school IT systems are bought illegally

Eight out of ten local authorities have bought educational IT systems illegally, leaving schools open to a wave of legal action, according to a survey released last week.

 The study, by IT quango Becta, looked at how local authorities buy school management information systems (MIS), which track pupil attainment. It found that the overwhelming majority of local authorities have not followed UK and EU procurement law when renewing schools' MIS contracts…

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Bromcom wins contract to provide Middlesbrough Council with browser access to SIMS.net

Middlesbrough Council have announced that Bromcom Computers Plc have been awarded the contract to supply its ground breaking teacher access software local authority-wide to all primary schools with browser based access to SIMS.net.

Bromcom’s software to assist teachers, called Teacher's WebFolder-SD will allow teachers in Middlesbrough schools to capture pupil data quickly and easily from home or school and write it directly to the SIMS database, so providing school administrators and management access to much more up to date information on demand. The solution provides staff the capability to enter data for all of the tracked areas of the pupils learning, i.e. Assessment, Conduct, Profiles and Attendance. The Bromcom solution avoids the expense of rolling out SIMS.net into the classroom and this saves a great deal of cost to the school, especially of the infrastructure upgrade and the ongoing maintenance to keep SIMS.net updated. In the Bromcom solution any PC or Apple Mac running a browser can be used irrespective of the age of the hardware or operating system, thus saving school a great deal of cost.

Graham Slimmings from Middlesbrough Council said, "Bromcom Teacher's WebFolder is a fantastic asset to schools in Middlesbrough. With both classroom and off-site access to key pupil information, teachers can now use data on attendance, assessment and behaviour, anytime and anywhere to improve resource and curriculum planning.

Working seamlessly with the Middlesbrough Pupil Tracker in SIMS, timely and accurate data is now collected at source. Impact analysis of an array of school based and local authority initiatives, such as one-to-one tuition, is now easier and less time consuming and the impact of having first-day absences has made a tangible difference on attendance in the town.

The Bromcom 'SIMS in the classroom' solution is also a key tool in making the Virtual School(s) a reality here in Middlesbrough.

Middlesbrough Children, Families and Learning are looking forward to engaging in a long-term partnership with Bromcom, sharing skills and experience that will further improve the opportunities of pupils in all schools in the country."

The council went through a rigorous tender process to ensure that it got the best possible software and value for its schools. Bromcom Computers Plc was selected out of the 3 companies who put a bid forward.

Bob Bartlett, Head of Business Development at Bromcom Computers Plc, said: "Middlesbrough Council have chosen the Bromcom solution because it is the best browser based system that allows simple and direct data recording to the SIMS.net system. Middlesbrough is looking to use the information that, as a result, is made available within SIMS, to drive the performance of Middlesbrough schools forward and we will support them in doing this. We look forward to having a long and fruitful partnership with the authority."

A number of other local authorities are keenly considering Bromcom Teacher's WebFolder for authority-wide solution for their primary schools. For more information and an on-line demonstration please ring Bob Bartlett on 020 8695 8080

SIF

Bromcom supports the UK government's e-GIF and the DCSF / Becta's SIF as an interoperability standard. Bromcom SIF interoperability will be available in September 2010.

What people are saying about
Teacher's WebFolder

Teacher's WebFolder has certainly got people talking, with one prominent school in Kent reporting that "... we have a growing number of staff with iPhones and iPod touches, many are now saying ’get me SIMS on an iPod touch and you can have my laptop back’".

Bromcom at BETT 2010

Thanks to everybody who came to see us at BETT 2010. Our browser-based Teacher's WebFolder received an overwhelmingly positive response, and generated a lot of feedback and discussion. WebFolder Mobile's facility to allow teachers to be able to access and register student data using a mobile device such as the iPod touch appeared to really catch people's attention.

Alan Day was impressed by what Teacher’s WebFolder had to offer:

"BROMCOM ... with an excellent front-end to SIMS, Teacher's WebFolder brings SIMS, including registration, assessment etc. to a wide choice of devices! They have created a user-friendly and intuitive interface for SIMS, that can be used on iPod touch, iPhone, and other devices (e.g. smartphones) with a browser. It's SIMS how it should be, and excellent value. It's also secure, and is integrated with SIMS.

This approach of abstracting SIMS data to a new presentation layer is a good one! Imagine being able to give your staff an iPod touch each as their main register ... and because it's consumer technology it's comparatively cheap!"

Top technology ... BETT 2010 - from Next Generation Learning in Kent