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Thorpe St Andrew School & Sixth Form and Holy Trinity Catholic School

Thorpe St Andrew School & Sixth Form and Holy Trinity Catholic School

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Thorpe St Andrew School & Sixth Form

At Bromcom, it is our mission to ensure schools remain engaged with our product and maximise its repertoire of functionality throughout the partnership.

We love to check in and see how schools are getting on with Bromcom. This helps us to develop a community of active, happy users. Part of the Bromcommunity is Thorpe St Andrew School and Sixth Form who we sat down with this week.

Thorpe St Andrew School and Sixth Form is a large comprehensive school of nearly 2000 students. Part of The Yare Education Trust, the school serves the eastern side of Norwich and the adjacent rural communities.

Christina Campos, Data Manager at Thorpe St Andrew, discussed her lengthy relationship with Bromcom and how the MIS helps her to fulfil the role:

Previously, I worked at Taverham High School in Norwich. I used Bromcom there, and to be honest, I wouldn’t have moved to Thorpe St Andrew had they not been operating with Bromcom.

SIMS is too old-fashioned for me, I have used Bromcom for 6 years. My new role involves the management of the MIS. There are many facets to managing an MIS which include:

  • Initial setup with the help of the IT team including the creation of users and permissions
  • Development of the Key Stage 4 performance widget
  • Importing of timetables for the academic year
  • Uploading of all relevant student groups

In my previous position, I had also harnessed Bromcom to create a behaviour model for teachers to use. In time, I plan to roll this out here, so everything is located in one system.

A couple of weeks ago we had a local school, Reepham High School, on site. They have been entertaining the idea of a new MIS and wanted to see what Bromcom was like. For me it’s a very easy discussion to have –

I love what your team have done with the student’s page. You can pull everything and download easily with filters to create the exact data set you require. It makes the job of a Data Manager, that bit easier. I don’t need to spend ages manually editing data, I just click and there it is.

Holy Trinity Catholic School

Our second chat of the week was with Holy Trinity Catholic School, a co-educational Secondary School located in the Small Heath area of Birmingham.

Again, we booked in some time with the Data Manager, in this instance David Lowry, who discussed his relationship with Bromcom and how they make use of the product on a day-to-day basis.

I oversee the whole Bromcom operation in the school. It’s my responsibility to ensure its working for everyone who uses it.

I use Bromcom for numerous different functions. Although I do census and timetabling on E-time, I move all the data over to Bromcom afterwards. If its room changes, assessments, targets or reporting to parents, this is all done with your software. My exams manager even commented recently that every time she logs into Bromcom, they are making the platform easier to use.

From my perspective, one of the best things about Bromcom is the ad-hoc reports. They’re so easy to use and I can build a system report accurately and in no time.

Additionally, some of the end of year functionality is good, particularly the checklists. Previously, I had to do this on a notepad, so its lovely to see Bromcom have incorporated this as part of their offering.

Another standout feature is the way I can navigate around so easily. I can use quick filters to get the statistical information that I need or even provide relevant details for colleagues.

We know there is more we can get from Bromcom but we are really comfortable with the way we use it, at present. For example, we know it can facilitate payments but we currently have a process for that and we like the way it works.

The final thing from me is the help desk.

We would have no hesitation in recommending Bromcom to other schools!

Join us next week for more members of the Bromcommunity and find out how they are utilising our market-leading cloud-based MIS.

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