Management Information Sheet

As many of you will be aware, the Local Authority has worked in partnership with schools to create the infrastructure for collection of data from schools which relates to respective responsibilities for school attendance and children missing education. This is the briefing note outlining the aims of this project.

This project has been operating since 2019; over 90% of Norfolk Schools are engaged with the project and 74% are currently connected. Changes in Management Information Systems (MIS) and technical issues with some MIS API's have meant that the aims of the project have not been fully realised to date. It is for this reason that we now want to move to extraction of data via Groupcall XVault for all schools as this has been working successfully for those schools using SIMS for a sustained period of time.

What will schools need to do?

Many schools will already be familiar with Groupcall Xporter as a data integrator tool between your MIS and applications (i.e. CPOMS, text messaging). For those who are not, a Groupcall connector is added to a PC or server within your school to pull the data into the Xvault server in a safe and secure way. A data extract then pushes the data into Synergy, our Children Services Education management information system. Both Xvault and Synergy are hosted within the NCC data centres in Norwich.

Details per MIS

SIMS schools

As you are already providing the data in this way, there is nothing more for you to do.

Arbor MIS

You are in the process of being set up with Xporter for this data collection, for which Groupcall are currently in communication with you about the set up required.

Bromcom, Pupil Asset, ScholarPack, Integris and any MIS not listed

ICT Solutions and Groupcall will be in contact soon with details of what you need to do to set up the connection.

"Our school is already providing the DfE with daily attendance data, why do we need to do this too?"

We are encouraging schools to engage with both our local project and the DfE collection of attendance data via Wonde. At present, the DfE data is experimental and does not provide the facility to export the data that we would require as a Local Authority to reduce the administrative burden on schools. In the longer term as the DfE project develops, we envisage that we will be able to cease the local collection of data and are providing feedback on proposed future development of the national system. Engaging with both systems simultaneously will not add to schools workloads or compromise information security.

Next steps

We are encouraging all schools that are not currently providing data in this way to engage with the project. If you have any questions please contact Kelly Waters, Senior Adviser - Safeguarding - kelly.waters@norfolk.gov.uk or Tanya Allen, Head of Schools IT- tanya.allen@norfolk.gov.uk.