Blogs & Updates

School servers targeted by hackers
  December 05 2016

ICT

It has been brought to our attention that hackers are targeting school servers What has been happening? The following unusual activity has been reported at a number of schools: Server drive permiss...
SIMS for Safeguarding
  December 02 2016

MIS

With Ofsted placing greater emphasis on safeguarding than ever before, it is essential that staff in schools are aware of their responsibilities and have confidence in the monitoring systems that are...
A Guide to the Apprenticeship Levy
  November 30 2016
The Apprenticeship Levy is a new government initiative announced in the 2015 Summer Budget that will come into force from April 2017. It is in effect a payroll tax that will apply to large organisati...
On The Horizon
  November 22 2016
With the first named storm of the year having rolled across the horizon, in this week’s blog we look at a number of issues set to impact on schools. Future School Funding The National Union of Te...
SIMS Training Courses in 2017  
  November 14 2016

MIS

Dates for our 2017 SIMS courses are available to view now on our SIMS Training page. As well as some of the ever-popular, regular SIMS training courses you will also find some new courses on offer: ...
Online Monitoring and Schools' Safeguarding Responsibility
  November 11 2016

ICT

As of the 5th September, solely using web filters to protect students from harmful content is no longer sufficient and schools are expected to be more proactive in monitoring online activity. An inc...
Personal Tax Account
  November 10 2016
Don’t have the time to call HMRC and wait on hold for what feels like forever to check your tax code or inform them of a change of address? HMRC have now created the personal tax account service ...
The SIMS Autumn Release is available now
  November 09 2016

MIS

If you are a school for whom we run the upgrade, we will be contacting you to arrange a convenient date. Important Information regarding this release School Census – this release will remove the A...
Important changes to Microsoft UK licensing
  November 08 2016

ICT

From 2017, Microsoft will increase the pricing of all UK licences Why the increase and how much is it? To keep their British pricing in line with European Union pricing, Microsoft has announced a ...
Governance and Financial Healthchecks
  November 04 2016
Academy Accounting Officers will have received a letter from the CEO of the Education Funding Agency, Peter Lauener, reminding them of the principles that those holding public office should adhere to...