Yesterday, we were lucky enough to be invited to attend the annual Bromcom at The Shard event.
Hosted by Bromcom on the 34th floor of The Shard in London, the invite-only event for Multi Academy Trusts and Local Authorities included sessions on a variety of issues affecting MATs and Local Authority Education Teams.
The entire event revolved around the vast amounts of data we have at our disposal within our schools, Multi Academy Trusts and Local Authorities. The sessions discussed how we can harness this data and use it to make data-informed decisions and develop better strategies across all areas of education – from improving outcomes for all pupils, increasing MAT sustainability through to managing the well-being of staff and students.
Whilst listening to the various presentations, we had quite a different view to that which we usually enjoy in our working spaces!
The morning session was aimed primarily at Multi Academy Trusts with sessions on ‘Improving Ofsted readiness through innovation’, ‘Practical MAT strategies using data insights’ and ‘Growth in MATs – when mergers work and when they don’t’.
In addition, there was a presentation from South Farnham Educational Trust who outlined their search for a bespoke MIS system for their Trust.
Alongside these informative sessions, Bromcom gave details of their recent developments for the UK education sector as well as discussing ‘Analytics on Demand’ and ‘Complex Timetabling’.
During the lunch break, Bromcom celebrated their 40th year in the education sector with a presentation to their founder and Executive Chairman, Ali Guryel. Ali started the Bromcom business 40 years ago and described the various innovations along their journey – from early hand-held devices to take attendance through to the current cloud MIS platform they provide.
The presentation took Ali by surprise as he had thought it was intended for one of his long-term employees!
It was really interesting to hear how the company and their services had developed over the past 40 years and to see the passion for improving outcomes for students displayed by Ali himself.
The afternoon was devoted to Local Authority education teams and included a session on ‘Harnessing data to improve outcomes’ – a presentation from the team at Rhondda Cynon Taf describing the data and analytics work they have done for their schools since deploying the Bromcom MIS platform.
Other sessions included ‘Data-driven school improvement’ and ‘Supporting schools in a changing world’. We also heard about Bromcom’s work in Northern Ireland, delivering the first country-wide cloud MIS as well as getting an insight into the Bromcom road-map for the next 12 months.
