Qatar International School based in Doha, Qatar, has some 1,800 students on roll, aged between 3 years to 18 years. The philosophy of the school, “Learning Comes First”, is reflected in the high-quality teaching throughout, as well as in the students’ positive attitude to study.
QIS is very welcoming and friendly, with a focus on making the school environment safe and secure. This allows the school’s excellent teachers the opportunity to deliver high quality lessons, and students to develop and learn to the best of their varied and wide-ranging abilities.
Moving to a single system
When Principal Deane Baker joined the school in 2013 he saw immediately that, to fulfil its potential, the school needed a management information system sophisticated enough to support its vision. Deane explains: “We had two databases in place, neither of which was effective or up to date, and the use of data was very ad hoc, with no consistency in tracking progress or setting targets. I decided we needed to move to a single, reliable system – when I was leading schools in the West Midlands we were using SIMS so I knew SIMS would do what we needed it to. And, after a demonstration by one of the SIMS International team, my senior leadership team were also convinced.”
Deane wasted no time in getting SIMS installed – no minor feat as the school was moving from two systems, but Deane was impressed with how SIMS could adapt: “One potentially tricky data area for us is Arabic naming conventions, but we were able to simply modify the UK fields in SIMS to match – SIMS has the flexibility to accommodate our requirements as an international school and everything fell into place beautifully.”
Tracking and evidencing pupil progress
To ease the school into consistent progress tracking, Deane initially introduced spreadsheets to get staff used to the idea of entering assessment data. He then ensured key members of staff were trained in SIMS. Deane says: “SIMS takes assessment analysis to a different level so I introduced a number of staff to SIMS progress tracking to show how powerful SIMS is. As a result, we’ve gone from not having any consistent data, to entering it and using SIMS to drill down to identify individuals who need additional support.”
Deane is particularly impressed with SIMS Discover: “Discover is an extremely compelling and convincing tool – I’ve yet to come across anyone who has looked at it and not said ‘Wow’! It’s a major step change in assessment analysis, very different to anything else I’ve seen and has the ‘wow’ factor to enthuse teachers into saying ‘I can see how that can genuinely impact on the classroom’. We’ve found it useful across the whole school, particularly at key times such as for GCSE results, A Level results and also at points of transfer for students, for example as they reach the end of the primary stage and begin secondary education.”
“Our status as an international school in Qatar means we are accountable to the School Board. With Discover I have the tools to express that accountability and can present information to them in the way UK schools would to governors. They really value being able to see school information presented as graphs and statistics in an easily digestible, clear way. We’ll also use it for inspections by accreditation bodies, such as BSME and the government-run QNSA. SIMS is invaluable for being able to produce data-driven evidence to back up the claims we are making about the school.”
Deane continues: “Of course, the most important aspect of Discover is how having that information can impact on children’s progress – by being able to drill down to individual student level, we can identify straight away those students for whom we need to adopt a different strategy or intervention. Discover closes the gap in that circle of tracking.”
Supporting the school’s strategy and vision
Deane reports that SIMS is already having an impact on the school, with staff using it on a day to day basis: “Senior staff are now proficient in using SIMS to have informed conversations about the performance of subject areas and for decision-making. SIMS is also helping us enhance our merits system, as we use SIMS to track which house is winning the most points throughout the term.”
Deane is confident SIMS has the capability to support him in his ambitions for the school: “SIMS supports everything in my role as Principal. My aim is to deliver the best school in the country and I believe whole-heartedly in the importance of always aiming higher, no matter how good the school is. What sets SIMS apart is that it’s designed specifically for schools, and this shows throughout the suite of solutions - SIMS isn’t just an information system or database, it’s an invaluable tool for school improvement, featuring a suite of solutions to help strengthen schools.”
Next steps
Deane is keen to utilise SIMS more widely for timetabling and is planning to use Nova-T in the near future, as he is with SIMS Financial Management System. He is also interested in how SIMS can help with managing teacher’s performance: “We operate a UK system of performance related pay and our primary school is currently trialling Staff Performance in SIMS Personnel for managing teachers’ performance. All our personnel and HR information is in there and we’re using SIMS to generate salary spreadsheets and appraisals etc.” “My ultimate aim is to use all of SIMS to achieve excellence in every area of school life,” summarises Deane.