When it comes to creating towering paper mountains, schools can rival any office. Letters, forms and assessments very quickly fill up banks of filing cabinets and drawers.
It’s not just the space that these piles of documents take up that creates a problem. Searching, sorting and updating all this paperwork are laborious tasks, and that’s before the environmental toll of the paper, ink and printing is taken into account.
Digital technology has already had a big impact on school life, whether it’s the introduction of interactive whiteboards (expected to reach 93% of all UK schools this year) or enabling students to file their homework through a virtual learning environment.
But record-keeping is one of those areas that has proved resistant to digitisation – until now. Uplands Primary School in Berkshire is one school to have recently trialled the use of emailed consent forms to reduce costs and lessen the chance of slips going astray.
Switch to documents stored online and the benefits start to stack up, beyond the immediate savings on space and expense: control over who can authorise which files, the ability to access documents remotely, easier data processing (to check which pupils have returned consent forms, for example) and instant updates that can be applied with the click of a mouse.
This all sounds good in practice — but how do schools get started? And how can they convert physical paper mountains into digital form?
Scanning in paperwork takes minutes
Mark Byrne of Business IT Systems, who helps install Brother’s Direct Scan Solution in schools, says the hardware and software available today to go paperless is more efficient and easier to use than ever, from installation to day-to-day use.
“We spent around a year evolving the current software based on feedback from schools to ensure it was as simple and functional as possible,” says Byrne, citing time savings and security protections as the key benefits of a school opting to switch. “Having this system within a school means that scanning in batches of paperwork can be done within minutes when it would have normally taken weeks or months.”
The Capita SIMS-linked system that Byrne works with allows for an audit trail to identify when documents were scanned and by whom. Pupil data can even be quickly exported when necessary — if someone is moving from one school to another, for example. With the right scanner, bulky batches of files can be processed in minutes, with software taking care of converting printed text into a searchable, digital version.
With scanners and their associated software now taking care of almost all the digitisation process and in a faster time, leaving older solutions looking clunky by comparison, teachers and administrative staff can concentrate on their core roles without having to worry about mastering an oblique and technical set of programmes.
“Every person who has seen the system has always commented on how easy it is to use and how they like the presentation and layout of everything,” adds Byrne. “It feels natural and intuitive to use.”
What adds grease to the wheels is the ability to quickly select groups of records for processing, whether that’s a collection of pupils in a class or all the parent consent forms for a particular field trip.
St Paul’s C of E Primary in Chessington, greater London is one school that’s already installed the Brother Direct Scan Solution alongside SIMS software: hundreds of consent forms, medical records and planned absence forms are now processed each month.
“It makes a previously laborious process quick and easy, allowing me to focus on more pressing priorities,” says St Paul’s office administrator, Jane Walker.
“Previously, whenever I needed to find a particular document in a child’s record, I’d need to physically go through the files, which could take several minutes. Now I can pull up all the information I need with a simple computer search.”
Less waste, lower cost
And the knock-on benefits keep adding up. Greg Hughes from The de Ferrers Academy reports that teaching and learning has been enhanced by going paperless, with more opportunities for rapid feedback and student engagement, on top of the reduced paper waste and lower expenses involved. For pupils growing up with iPads and touchscreens, a move to digital forms is easy and intuitive.
The idea of paperless schools is by no means a new one, but in 2016 it’s an ideal that seems more attainable than ever. Head teachers, teachers and administrative staff wanting to make the switch now have a choice of fast, effective and straightforward solutions to pick from.
Content on this page is paid for and produced to a brief agreed with Brother, sponsor of the Partnerships in practice hubs on the Teacher Network and Healthcare Professionals Network.
