In education, time and resources are always under pressure and in short supply. Moving to a cloud solution like SIMS Connected can significantly reduce workload, streamline operations, and deliver real cost savings.
At City Learning Trust in Staffordshire, bringing together school data and processes into SIMS Connected has delivered game-changing efficiencies. IT Director Matt Watson explains how manual processes were holding the Trust back:
“We faced significant challenges with manually performing patches and updates every three months, which was cumbersome and time-consuming. Ensuring every device was updated properly often required manual intervention, further straining resources.”
By shifting away from a reliance on on-premises servers and manual updates, the Trust has been able to centralise operations and free up IT teams to focus on more strategic priorities. “Updates now happen automatically overnight with no disruption,” says Matt. “It’s massively reduced our workload and allows us to focus on initiatives that improve education, not routine maintenance.”
These changes have also allowed the Trust to extend the lifecycle of existing hardware, avoid costly upgrades, and significantly reduce IT maintenance costs. Administrative tasks, which previously required input from multiple sites, can now be managed centrally, saving both time and resources. “We’ve condensed four people’s work down into one, greatly improving efficiency and speed of access to information,” Matt highlights.
At Conway Primary School in South East London, the story is similar. By enabling staff to securely access information from any device, both in school and remotely, the school has eliminated unnecessary admin bottlenecks. “Teachers can now access key data such as pupils’ health information and parents’ contact details quickly and easily wherever they happen to be,” says Keith Robertson, School Business Manager. “They can run reports too without having to request them from the school office — saving at least seven working hours every week.”
By moving to SIMS Connected, the school has also saved thousands of pounds by reducing the need for external IT support and maintenance. “We’ve saved £4.5K on IT upkeep, repairs and updates, plus many thousands annually in support costs,” Keith reports.
Whether across a large multi-academy trust or a single primary school, adopting cloud solutions is delivering measurable efficiency gains — freeing up time, cutting costs, and allowing schools to invest more energy where it matters most: supporting pupils.