Hello and welcome to the last Scomis newsletter of the Spring Term. 

Many of our customers take the Easter break to ahead on key projects and to take some well-earned time off. Hopefully in between the work and the rest you'll find time to book your Summer Term CPD. Our bookable Training Schedule is here.  

As usual, Scomis Service Desk is available to you during our regular term-time hours - we don't cut back over the holidays because we know you don't either. 

Everyone at Scomis wishes you a great Easter break.

Scomis Service Desk - Easter holiday opening hours

Our Service Desk open hours are the same as during term time:
Mondays to Thursdays - 7:30am to 5:30pm
Fridays - 7:30am to 5pm

We will be closed for the Easter bank holidays, on Good Friday 7th April and on Easter Monday 10th April. If you need to log a query out of hours, MyScomis knowledge articles are available 24/7. Please email the Service Desk to request a login if you don't already have one.

Leading Arbor's Customer Satisfaction rankings 

We recently reviewed Scomis' Autumn Term performance with Arbor. The measure we looked at together was customer satisfaction (CSAT). It's our Mission to deliver service excellence to our customers nationally, achieving improved outcomes and creating proven value, so we're pleased to share this slide from Scomis' Arbor Support review.

It shows that while positive CSAT across all Arbor's Support Partners is at 56%, Scomis' CSAT is head and shoulders above at 71%. Get in touch to find out more about Scomis' highly-rated support, and how we can help your establishment focus on continually improving education outcomes.

Scomis Online Store

Scomis Online Store is for everyone in education who 

• Needs to source and receive written quotes for the best value technology

• Procures and purchases technology for their schools, trusts and federations.  

Typically Scomis Online Store is used by

• Business Managers

• Administration team

• School senior leadership

• Trusts’ Chief Finance Officers

• Trusts' Chief Operations Officers  

If you are a reader, check out our introductory blog post here.

If you are a watcher, here's our three-minute video introduction.

Spring Upgrade for SIMS and FMS  

The Spring 2023 upgrade for SIMS (7.210) and FMS (6.210) will be checked over by our team and ready for customers on 31st March.

More information can be found on the SIMS upgrade bulletin FAQ or MyScomis.

Process for Scomis Hosted Application Service customers
Our tech team will automatically apply the upgrade for all Scomis Hosted Application Service customers on the evening of Friday 31^st March. 

ACTION for all Scomis Hosted Application Service customers: you must log out of the Scomis Hosted Platform by 5pm Friday 31st March. 

Process for non-hosted customers 
This upgrade will be deployed automatically by Solus 3 and then checked afterwards for any issues. The upgrade will be available on the afternoon of the 31st. Our Service Desk, as ever, are available for any support you may need.

Scomis Hosted Application Service removes the burden of managing SIMS, FMS and Discover onsite with school-based servers. We take care remotely of upgrades, patches, backups and updates as well as ensuring trouble-free third-party software integration with SIMS, without disrupting your teaching and learning. If you're not a Hosted Application Customer and would like to find out how this very popular service benefits other customers, get in touch with your account manager right away by following this link or calling the Service Desk.

Year 1 Phonics Screening 2023

In June 2023, the Year 1 Phonics Screening Test is scheduled to take place for all children in Year 1 in England.

Who takes the 2023 Phonics Screening Test?

The 2023 Phonics Screening will be taken by children in Year 1, the first year of Key Stage 1.

When is the Phonics Screening Test 2023?

Schools have the freedom to choose a day within the week commencing 12th June 2023. As some schools are larger than others, the test can take place on one day or across several days.

Teachers will administer the tests within that week and submit teacher assessment data shortly afterwards to the Primary Assessment Gateway (PAG).

User Groups 2023 - join our panel and tell us what you think

We last held a regular User Group in 2019. Since then we hosted our online-only conference, ScomisLive, in spring 2022. 

Now it's time to think afresh about what User Groups could be - for us and for you. So much has changed since 2019. The MIS market is transforming before our eyes, education technology (EdTech) continues to improve beyond recognition, and blended learning and blended conferences are commonplace. 

Some of our valued customers have already volunteered to spend 25 minutes over Teams sharing their vision for the future of User Groups. If you've got something to say, please let us know by filling in this form. We're especially keen to hear from trust-level leaders, as well as more widely from leaders and practitioners at primary and secondary establishments. 

We'll send a goodie bag for your staff room as a thank you for your time! 

This is what one of our 2019 User Groups looked like.

Changes to key stage 2 assessment dates in 2023

The full article from the DfE is here.