Online access to school education

The ability to check achievement, attendance records and other information are just a few of the benefits of the sophisticated and innovative SIMS Learning Gateway from Capita which is to be rolled out by the County Council to all of its schools.

Teachers and pupils will also benefit from being able to access certain school files and information following a successful pilot of the software in eight schools.

Cllr David Elkin, the council's lead member for learning and school effectiveness, said, "I think this is an extremely exciting project that really enables us to use IT technology to improve links between schools and parents', improve flexibility for teachers, and lay the foundations for pupils to access much more school information at home."

The County Council has signed a contract with Capita to supply all schools across the county with the new secure internet interface system.

Teachers will have greater access to pupil information outside of school and will be able to logon at a time convenient to them to carry out planning or reporting tasks.

It will mean more flexible working arrangements allowing them to complete certain jobs at home.

Parents will have secure access to their child's test results and progress reports. They will also be able to view daily attendance information.

The county's school pupils will have a secure online portal to their test results, school event information, timetables and pupil discussion forums.

The plan is for the SIMS Learning Gateway to also become the single access point for pupils to see all school information securely online including learning materials from their school's virtual learning environment.

The gateway will now be rolled out to all of the county's 27 secondary schools, 10 special schools and 157 primary schools from September.

Mark Jones, the deputy head teacher of Eastbourne Technology College which was one of the pilot schools, praised the system.

He said, "For the first time teachers, parents and students will have easy access to live school information and learning resources 24-hours a day."