Name: Ramona Metcalfe
Organisation: New Cross Gate NDC
(New Deal for Communities)
Position: Education Programme Manager

New Cross Gate New Deal for Communities (NDC) is an area based regeneration partnership. In 2001, New Cross Gate NDC was allocated £45m by the Government to work with local people, community organisations and key service-delivery partners to regenerate the New Cross Gate area over ten years.

One of the six themes of the NDC's work is education and they have contracted Wauton Samuel to monitor the impact of their interventions in this area. We use Fischer Family Trust (FFT) data to compare the actual achievements of the children and young people supported by the NDC with those predicted by the FFT.

According to Ramona Metcalfe, the NDC Education Programme Manager: "Wauton Samuel has helped us develop new recording systems for all our projects, that staff find simple and easy to use. This will help us understand the impact of our work more clearly and help us target pupils better in the future. we have been impressed by their professionalism and they are always ready to help and advise."

Name: Geraldine Stupples
School: Forster Park Primary School, Lewisham
Position: Senior Administrative Officer

Forster Park primary school have been using PASAPP from Wauton Samuel since 1997 and the FINANCE module since 2001. Both systems are now invaluable tools within the school. Geraldine Stupples, the school’s senior admin officer is full of praise for the FINANCE package as she finds it so user friendly. She is especially pleased with the way that it is easy to correct incorrect transactions and finds that the reports are of very high quality and detailed. It is the complete package for the school’s finances with staff salaries calculated as part of the system. Geraldine regards the flexibility of the software, including the fact that Wauton Samuel regularly make changes which schools request, as a big benefit to the school.

Forster Park also use the PASAPP system from Wauton Samuel to manage all the school’s administration needs. Geraldine is especially pleased with the ease with which she completes the PLASC return each January. With her previous system the old form 7 was an administrative nightmare. Geraldine has timed the entire process and states that it takes between 30 and a maximum of 60 minutes to complete the task – as she says “at the press of a button your PLASC is completed with PASAPP whereas it took an eternity prior to PASAPP.”

Name: Cath Hawkins
School: Wyborne Primary School, Greenwich
Poistion: Senior Administrative Officer

Wyborne Primary School in the London Borough of Greenwich has recently switched to Wauton Samuel’s PASAPP package to handle all their school administration needs.

Cath Hawkins, school administration officer at Wyborne said, “It was a leap of faith but well worth it in our opinion. Both the product and the company meet our demands for functionality, flexibility, value for money and speed of response.”

Several factors led Wyborne to choose PASAPP over its competitors. Wyborne was impressed with Wauton Samuel’s growing reputation amongst its satisfied client base. Cath cites the fact that the software’s flexibility was an important factor in this decision – PASAPP can rapidly be tailored to cater for a school’s needs.

Of paramount importance to Wyborne school was the level of customer service they would receive from Wauton Samuel. Cath is full of praise for the approachable nature of the Wauton Samuel staff who, she says “They are always there on the end of the phone to talk us through a software query”. Moreover Cath says that she and her colleagues have been very impressed with the standard of training they have received and a smooth transition from their previous system thanks to Wauton Samuel’s professional approach to new client implementations. “In fact the system is so user friendly, we didn’t need all the allocated training days”, said Cath.

Name: Barbara Fitzsimmons
School: Elfrida Primary School, Lewisham
Position: Head Teacher

Since the introduction of PASAPP from Wauton Samuel in Elfrida Primary School, Lewisham, assessment information has taken a big step forward.

Commenting on PASAPP’s benefits in this area, Barbara Fitzsimmons, headteacher at Elfrida, said, “PASAPP has enabled us to find information on a pupil very quickly, which in turn allows the school to be more responsive. Since the advent of PASAPP we are able to target support to those pupils who need it more quickly.”

The PASAPP system, according to Barbara, is a very effective tool for the senior managers in the school. It allows them to have an overview of the whole school, which previously they didn’t have and they can therefore allocate resources more effectively. The system also gives Barbara the flexibility to compare groups of children across the school by certain criteria, for example ethnicity.

Barbara is full of praise for the analyses PASAPP provides her with, she can now be much more focussed in the school’s assessment of numeracy and literacy. She cites as a good example of the power of PASAPP, the comparisons she is able to perform on KS2 SATS results to see why certain scores have been achieved and what has affected children such as mobility and cohort changes.

Name: Stephen Owens
School: St Anthony’s Primary School, Southwark
Position: Head Teacher

St Anthony’s Primary School in the London Borough of Southwark uses PASAPP from Wauton Samuel to handle its school administration needs and their FINANCE package to manage all the schools’ finances.

Stephen Owens, headteacher at St Anthony’s, is full of praise for the FINANCE module, as it has enabled the school to save around £5,000 per annum. Previously this money was spent on buying in external expertise to fulfil finance functions; now that the school uses Wauton Samuel’s FINANCE package this expertise is no longer required as the system caters for all their needs.

Stephen cites a major time saving benefit of PASAPP too for his school: ‘One of the major benefits of using PASAPP for us was demonstrated with the completion of the annual PLASC return. With our previous system the task was labour intensive and frankly awful. As a complete novice with the PASAPP system it took me minutes and therefore saved the school hours of valuable time’.

Several factors led Stephen to choose PASAPP over its competitors, but one of the major strengths of Wauton Samuel is the fact, as he says, that they listen to their clients. This is, he says, demonstrated by the fact that the Service Level Agreement, which exists between each school and Wauton Samuel, is not fixed but negotiable.

Name: Pauline Snow
School: Victory Primary School, Southwark
Poistion: School Administrative Officer

Victory Primary School in the London Borough of Southwark are really pleased that they switched their hardware and software support to Wauton Samuel. Wauton Samuel looks after the entire school network of PC’s, servers and printers, servicing both hardware and software. Pauline Snow, the school’s admin officer said, “The service is fantastic, we are amazed at how quickly things are dealt with and that we are able to talk to our technician. They visit us regularly and deal with any issues we have swiftly, we no longer feel left high and dry.” She is especially pleased with being able to fax the technician a list of jobs which are then dealt with promptly and competently.

For schools, IT is an essential tool both in the classroom and office, but all too often staff’s ability to use it is hampered by poor supplier service and so valuable time is taken up with the chasing of support staff.

Pauline cites the main factor that led Victory to choose Wauton Samuel to provide hardware support over its competitors as their excellent reputation for client service. She says that Wauton Samuel have excelled in all aspects of their service and believes that Wauton Samuel represent “real value for money for the school”.