Medway Council - Case Study
Synergy education management software supports Medway Council in achieving its integration and interoperability goals.
Medway Council is now using one system across its Education Service, enabling users to retrieve information more quickly and easily
Our support has allowed the team at Medway Council to take school admissions online and build a system that works for the families they serve.
Introduction
Medway Council has transitioned from its legacy education management system to the Synergy suite in less than 12 months – implementing the Synergy Admissions, Early Years, Special Educational Needs, Pupil Support Services and Early Help modules.
Medway Council is a unitary authority which covers Chatham, Gillingham, Rochester Strood and Rainham in Kent. The Council manages approximately 12,000 school applications every year.
How we helped
The Synergy School Admissions module has enabled Medway Council to progress the delivery of a more digital approach – enabling schools, parents and providers to self-serve information where required. This has resulted in significant and sustained online take-up from parents,
less paper handling and an increase in efficiency for data management teams; allowing Education Services to focus on improving outcomes for young people and families in the area.
The reduction of paper-based processes is helping to cut costs and reduce the administrative burden on staff, as data is only entered once, and then shared across the service areas. Reporting is much easier as staff can retrieve the information they need more quickly.
The School Admissions module has modernised the way in which parents make school applications while reducing the number of paper applications and administration time to input the data. The implementation of Synergy was an efficient and straightforward experience.
The result
- Online applications rise to 98%
- Reduced paper-based processes – helping to cut costs
and reduce risk - Reduced administrative burden eliminating duplicated
data entry - Simplified reporting
- Staff can retrieve the information they need more quickly
Inspiring others
When choosing a new education management information system, Medway Council was looking to enable digital transformation by ensuring the system had the necessary functions to allow access for parents and carers, professionals and the Council’s partner organisations.
From the start of implementation to going live, the Synergy team worked in partnership with Medway Council to help achieve its goals.
