Becoming an academy

The opportunities are exciting, the challenges often daunting. SIMS can help your school every step of the way to achieving academy status.

Same pupils, same parents, same catchment, same site, same staff - but a higher expectation to achieve more. Whatever your challenges, you need to have the right management systems in place to demonstrate how you are improving outcomes.

From our work with over 2,000 academies, SIMS has a deep understanding of the demands and opportunities that academies face. We can use this experience to help and support you every step of the way to greater freedom and success.

If you’re just starting to think about the conversion process, then download our Academy Finance Conversion Service brochure for assistance on how we can help you manage your new financial responsibilities. Our Capita Academy Matters site also provides practical guidance on everything you need to think about from consultation and staffing to funding or legal changes.

The information below is a brief overview on how SIMS can help you during and after your conversion to an academy. For more information contact us and ask to speak to a member of our Academy Conversion team.

The most popular academy finance system

Our ICAEW accredited accounting package has been developed over 20 years. Specifically written for the business needs of the education sector, our solution is backed by extensive software development, training and support. More academies have chosen our finance solution than any other accounting application.

Our comprehensive finance solution includes:
• Financial Management System (FMS)
• Financial Reporting Suite (FRS)
• Financial Planning Suite (FPS.Academy.net) provided by our partner HCSS
• Partner payroll system, Earnie
• A wide range of services and support to help you get the most out of SIMS and the finance solution.
 

Our financial management solution is integrated with SIMS and has an interface for payroll systems. Academies are able to select the finance modules that best suit their requirements.

Maintaining excellence

SIMS can help you go the extra mile by delivering educational excellence and giving you for example, powerful tools to enhance parental engagement. With SIMS you can reduce administration and free staff to help pupils achieve even more.

• Automate routine admin with SIMS Core Suite
• Drive parental engagement with SIMS Learning Gateway
• Keep parents in the loop with SIMS InTouch

Need to target improvement?

SIMS can help you address the fundamental issues that have prevented success. It enables you to tackle attendance and poor behaviour in a timely manner, recognise and reward achievement and track progress to engage pupils and help them attain better results.

• Assess and track pupil progress with SIMS Assessment & Reporting Suite
• Uncover trends and patterns in pupil performance data with SIMS Discover
• Tackle attendance and poor behaviour with SIMS Lesson Monitor

Flexible support

Becoming an academy means you have greater freedom to choose the support you need. You may wish to continue to use your local authority SIMS support team. If, however, you are unable to do so, we are happy to work directly with you – giving you the flexibility you need.

• Get the most out of SIMS with our wide range of services and support

Downloads

• Academy Finance Conversion Service
• Financial Management for Academies
• Autonomy & Accountability: New Horizons for New Academies White Paper
• Perspectives for School Leaders in 2012