How healthy is your current student information system?
Introducing the SIS Health Check: twenty-one questions, about five minutes, and a report you can take to your leadership team.
Most schools can say how healthy their finances are, or their buildings. The student information system gets looked at less often, even though it holds every enrolment, family, medical plan and consent the school relies on.
Usually the moment to look closely arrives on its own: a renewal notice, a move to the vendor’s new web version, a new principal, a busy census season. Any of those is a good time to ask how well the system is serving the school. It helps to have a clear picture before that moment arrives.
So we built a free SIS Health Check for Australian schools.
What it asks
Twenty-one questions across seven areas, three in each. They are practical questions about everyday work, the kind a registrar, business manager or head of IT can answer from experience. One from each area:
- One record. When a family moves house, how many places must someone update their address?
- Answers and reporting. The board asks a new question about your students on Monday. When can you answer it?
- Families. How long does an excursion consent round take, from request to full confidence?
- Care and privacy. On an excursion, can the teachers with the group see each student’s medical alerts and action plans on the day?
- Integrations. When a student enrols or leaves, how many other systems does someone update by hand?
- Platform and readiness. How many separate systems hold student or family data?
- Security. When someone leaves the school, when is their access to the student system removed?
Many questions have a “Not sure” answer. Finding out is often a useful first step in itself.
What you get
A score straight away, out of 100, in one of three bands: Well placed, Ready to modernise or Time for a fresh look.
Then a report by email, as a PDF:
- a score for each of the seven areas
- your strongest area and your top priority
- a paragraph of practical next steps for every area, matched to how you scored
- a short film chosen for your role, or for your top-priority area, showing what it can look like in practice
The report is written to be shared. It works as a starting point for a conversation with your principal, your business manager or your board.
Who it is for
Anyone who works with the student record: principals and deputies, business managers, registrars, heads of IT and heads of wellbeing. It is more useful still when two or three people take it separately and compare their answers. Different roles often see the same system quite differently.
If you are in a procurement or a review, there is a detailed version with 29 questions, about seven minutes.
What it is, and what it isn’t
The Health Check is general information, based only on your answers. It isn’t an assessment of your school’s systems or of any vendor, and the advice in the report holds whatever system you run.
It is free. There is no phone number to give and no obligation. You’ll get your report, and one short note a week later in case you’d like to talk it through. Nothing more unless you reply.
Take the Health Check
It takes about five minutes.
Take the 5-minute Health Check
We’d be glad to hear what you think of the questions. If something you deal with every day is missing, tell us at sales@hoverpoint.io.