Introducing the SIMS support accreditation scheme
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Celebrating top-class support
 Capita Education Services are committed to ensuring schools receive high quality local support. To that end we have established a process to monitor and assess the quality of support services offered to schools. Support services that go through this process successfully are accredited by Capita Education Services. A vital part of the process is a survey of schools in which they can rate the work of their local support team in a number of key areas. Schools can also add comments to explain their views on the service they receive. Only those support teams whose ratings exceed a defined benchmark level for both primary and secondary phases can be accredited.
The school survey is conducted electronically via the internet. The online questionnaire asks each school to rate the following aspects of their support service provision on a scale of 1 (Low) to 6 (High). These include:-
- Training
- Helpdesk
- Support visits initiated by the support provider
- Requested on-site visits
- Technical services
- Communications with Schools
How the Online Survey Operates
An email explaining the questionnaire is sent to the school, with the full permission of the LEA. A password, unique to the school, gives access to the school's own questionnaire web page for completion on-line. When the final return button is pressed, the return is automatically available for viewing and analysis by the LEA and Capita. Our recent experience has shown that only a few minutes are required to complete the questionnaire and that a response rate of over 80% of schools can be achieved.
The complete process leading to accreditation has three major elements:
- A LEA contribution, covering the various aspects of the SIMS support it delivers to its schools - with associated evidence.
- The on-line questionnaire for all supported schools. There is a 'prize draw' for the responding schools in each LEA with a prize of a digital camera!
- A visit by a Capita consultant is undertaken to the support team to discuss the school survey findings, comments and ratings. The visit also considers what actions, if any, with timescales the support team needs to take to address issues highlighted by the feedback schools have provided.
Up-and-running
The Accreditation scheme is now in its third year. Numerous support teams have achieved fully accredited status. This lasts for 2 years, so the first authorities to qualify are now embarking on their re-accreditation reviews. Re-accreditation is no less demanding than the original process, as these teams will testify.
One effect of involving the schools so fully in the process is that they are very aware of the measures their support teams take to ensure that the service they provide is first class. Schools supported by accredited teams have good reason to be confident in the help available to them.
| At present the following LEAs have achieved accredited status: |
| Barnsley |
Birmingham |
Blackpool |
| Blackburn |
Bristol |
Cambridgeshire |
| Cheshire |
Cornwall |
Devon |
| Doncaster |
East Sussex |
Gloucestershire |
| Guernsey |
Harrow |
Kent |
| Kingston-upon-Hull |
Lancashire |
Leicestershire |
| Medway |
Middlesbrough |
Newham |
| NE Lincolnshire |
North Lincolnshire |
Plymouth |
| Rochdale |
Rotherham |
Shropshire |
| Somerset |
Southampton |
S. Gloucestershire |
| Stoke-on-Trent |
Sutton |
Tameside |
| Torbay |
Warrington |
Warwickshire |
Reviews will be undertaken at two-yearly intervals.
We fully believe that the Accreditation process does lead to an improvement of the quality of support for SIMS and look forward to all SIMS authorities being involved.
Bernie Carson of SIMS Accredited Warrington LEA gives her reaction:
"The team were extremely pleased with our achievement in receiving accreditation from SIMS and found, in particular, the results of the survey completed by our schools to be of great value to us. We were very pleased with the high ratings and positive comments that we received from all our schools. We have built up an extremely good relationship since going unitary and feel this was reflected in the responses to the survey . In addition, the evidence that we gathered for the LEA return helped us consider the services that we provide and assisted in our plans to improve and add to the current services. All in all we found the process to be very useful to both the team and the LEA as a whole and has without doubt increased our profile in the Authority."
St. Andrews CE Primary School, Warrington agrees:
"The support team are excellent- confident and knowledgeable in all aspects of the SIMS operations and queries. Their response to any call made by myself at this school has been extremely quick, thus enabling them to correct the problem in a very short space of time. I believe that the team at Warrington offer an exceedingly high level of service."
Jayne Mellor - St Andrew's Administration Officer
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