Options for your upcoming 3 year SIMS renewal

James Weatherill - 16 November, 2021

Arbor Community | Arbor Updates

Category : Blog

Options for your upcoming 3 year SIMS renewal

I’ve never written a blog about a competitor before – I’m of the belief that you should just let your good work speak for itself. However, last week we became aware through public forums that ESS SIMS and ParentPay have written to schools and will be changing their contracts from an annual renewal to a 3 year renewal, effective from 1st April 2022. This means however good our MIS system may be, schools would not be able to choose an alternative to SIMS until 2025….

This news has come very late in an already busy school term, and we have already been contacted by a large number of schools who want to know what their choices are. So rather than give my opinion on SIMS, I wanted to dispel a few myths and highlight what options schools have:

• You do not have to accept 3 year terms. We also think SIMS is legally not allowed to force this change on you.

• A 3 year extension counts as a material change of your MIS contract. This means you should get 3 quotes to be compliant with DfE procurement advice. You can get quotes in less than a day using a Framework like G-Cloud 12 or Everything ICT – all the MIS suppliers on them have already been through a competitive tender process, and the Frameworks are designed to help you find value for money 

• Arbor and ScholarPack have already signed over 4,000 schools from SIMS and other MIS providers, and are ready to help you move in 2022. If you decide you’d like to move to one of our systems we will help you migrate your data in just 24 hours, and get you trained and ready for go-live as soon as Spring Term 2022. Remember you can give notice to SIMS now and still change your mind next term if you want to

At Arbor and ScholarPack, we’re proud to be the UK’s most-loved MIS providers – giving schools a choice of systems which are easier to use, offer fully integrated modules, and save you 30% on average price-wise compared to SIMS.

To support schools who would like to move MIS by Easter, we’ve put together a dedicated “fast track” programme – designed to give you and your team everything you need to decide whether Arbor or ScholarPack is right for you before the holidays.

• If you’re a primary school – click here to find out how to switch
• If you’re a secondary school – click here to find out how to switch
• If you’re a special school – click here to find out how to switch
• If you’re a MAT – click here to find out how to switch

If you want to speak to me about any of the above, you can reach me anytime at james@arbor-education.com. Happy to chat through in more detail!

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A few clarifications

1. We said that we understood from public sources that schools who have pushed back on SIMS have been offered 1 year extensions – we had evidence at the time of writing from public and private sources that this was the case, but SIMS has subsequently said in their new FAQs they now only offer 3 year contracts.
2. We said Arbor and ScholarPack have already migrated over 4,000 schools from SIMS – we should have said Arbor and ScholarPack have already signed 4,000 schools from SIMS and other MIS providers.