September 2026 Newsletter Blog Post

• General Updates
• MIS Training
• FMS
• Arbor
• Bromcom
• SIMS

We hope you’ve had a restful summer and are looking forward to the year ahead.

While schools have been enjoying a well-earned break, our teams have been busy preparing for the new term. Over the summer, we’ve delivered training, supported schools and trusts with a wide range of projects, refreshed resources across our customer portal, and continued to develop our services to ensure we’re ready to support you from day one.

It has also been a particularly busy period for our Data Management and Exams Services teams, who have worked closely with schools throughout the GCSE and A Level results season. We’d like to congratulate all students receiving their results this summer and wish them every success as they take their next steps into further education, apprenticeships, employment, college or university.

This year also brings some exciting additions to our team. We’re delighted to welcome Annie Henry and Sarah Sapstead to our MIS Services team, and Heather Renton, who joins our Exams Services team. We’re pleased to have them on board and look forward to introducing them to many of you over the coming months.

As always, we’re committed to providing responsive support, practical advice and high-quality services to help schools and trusts get the most from their systems throughout the year.

From all of us at School ICT Services, we wish you a successful start to the new academic year and look forward to working with you in the months ahead.

Ruth Rogers

Head of Service Operations

The first few weeks of term are always a busy time for schools and for our support teams. If you need to call us, waiting times may be longer than usual due to increased demand. Please be assured that we are working hard to support every school as quickly as possible, and we greatly appreciate your patience and understanding during this busy period.

For the quickest response, we encourage you to log requests through the customer portal or email the team where possible. This helps us prioritise enquiries and ensure they reach the right specialist as quickly as possible.

Common September Challenges Schools are Tackling Right Now

September is one of the busiest times of the year for schools, and it’s often when processes, systems and school teams come under the greatest pressure.

This month many schools are dealing with:

• Teachers unable to take registers
• Students with blank lessons on their timetables
• Importing and exporting CTFs
• Managing staff permissions
• Helping parents log in to apps
• Setting up assessments for the coming year
• Removing students who are no longer joining the school
• Making timetable changes

If any of this sounds familiar, you’re not alone.

To help schools through this busy period, we’ve created a guide to common September issues for each MIS. These guides are always available on our portal and are worth bookmarking for future reference.

SIMS Common September Issues – Troubleshooting Guide

Arbor Common September Issues – Troubleshooting Guide

Bromcom Common September Issues – Troubleshooting Guide

Autumn Census day is Thursday 1st October 2026. You can find further guidance on our portal:

 Arbor Latest Census Guidance and Campaign News

Bromcom Latest Census Guidance and Campaign News

SIMS Latest Census Guidance and Campaign News

Exams Managed Service 

September always arrives quickly, bringing new students, new timetables and, of course, plenty of important deadlines.  

We Are Here to Help – in more ways than you may realise! 

The Exams Team are here to support you throughout the academic year. Whether you need advice, additional capacity, project support or a wider compliance review, please contact us to discuss how we can help. 

Our proven and successful Exams Mentoring Programme also remains one of our most popular services. It supports new exams officers as they find their feet and develop into confident, knowledgeable and proactive professionals. 

Those who know, know! There are multiple deadlines to manage, hundreds of regulations to understand and a significant amount of risk mitigation required throughout the examination cycle. Having an experienced expert to provide guidance and help lead the way is therefore invaluable, particularly when everything is new and the acronyms seem to have their own language! 

This carefully fine-tuned service covers every aspect of the exams officer role, providing practical guidance, reassurance and continued support throughout the year. No new exams officer should be expected to understand everything hidden within the regulations from day one. Without the right support, this is where the pressure begins to build and overwhelm can arrive like a high-speed train. When a new recruit feels they have no option but to walk away, the impact is felt across the school, affecting staff retention, operational stability and, most importantly, the students relying on a well-managed exams service. As well as developing capable and confident exams officers, the programme can help schools improve retention within this highly specialised and incredibly important role. 

Results Day 2026! 

Congratulations to all students who received their examination results this summer. We hope their hard work was rewarded and wish them every success as they move on to their next steps. 

Results days were also extremely busy for our Managed Service team. As a service we successfully completed multiple results downloads across our schools, with all results imported and available to senior leadership teams by 7.30am on GCSE results day and 6.30am for A-Level results – both days way before many people had even finished their first cup of coffee! 

This was a fantastic team effort and ensured schools had plenty of time to review their results before students arrived the following day. We were also able to support schools on our Mentoring programme, prior to, during and after results day, where recent feedback has confirmed how invaluable new exam officers felt this to be! 

Enquiries About Results are now well underway, and volumes appear to be considerably higher than in previous years. We are already seeing outcomes being returned and will continue to manage and monitor requests closely for our schools.  

New and Exciting Support Packages 

We have been busy developing a range of new and exciting support packages for schools and trusts. These packages will offer more flexible and targeted support, helping organisations address specific challenges without necessarily requiring a full managed service. 

Our developing services include: 

• Project-based support for schools needing help with a specific area of exams administration, service development or improvement at a significant point in the exam cycle. 

• Consultancy and compliance reviews to assess existing processes and help schools and trusts meet examination regulations. 

• Trust-wide support to standardise procedures and create a more consistent approach across multiple schools. 

• Process improvement work to strengthen systems, increase efficiency and reduce examination-related risks. 

• Tailored guidance and practical recommendations based on the individual needs of each school or trust. 

Whether you need support with one specific project or would like a fresh pair of eyes to review your current processes, our team can provide a package that works for you. Sometimes a fresh pair of eyes is all it takes, particularly when you have been staring at the same spreadsheet for several hours! 

Further details about these packages will be shared soon. 

Important Dates for Your Diary 

September and October bring several key deadlines, so please make sure the following dates are safely entered into your exams calendar (and perhaps also highlighted, underlined and accompanied by a reminder!) 

• 24 September – Enquiries About Results deadline 

• 4 October – Entry deadline for November GCSE resits 

• November GCSE basedata is already available. 

• 10 October – Estimated entries deadline 

• Estimated entries must be submitted to the relevant awarding organisations by this date. 

Please check the individual requirements of each awarding organisation and allow enough time for internal checks and authorisation ahead of each deadline. As always, it is better to discover an issue a few days early than at 4.59pm on deadline day! 

Don’t forget, We Are Here to Help! So, if you’re currently without an Exam Officer, or know they are leaving soon, or maybe going on maternity leave or having an operation, or if you’ve just hired someone brand new who needs support, just reach out for an informal chat – we can solve most problems! (Providing chocolate is involved!).

September is here and so are the SICT Data Management team!
Behind every smooth start to the academic year is accurate, reliable, and well managed school data and that’s what our team is here for. Making sure that the information that supports attendance, assessment, statutory returns, safeguarding, reporting and more, is done the right way to help your school and everyday leadership decisions.

Understanding our Data Management Service

Our Data Management Services support schools and trusts throughout the academic year, whether you need regular managed service capacity, short-term cover, help with a specific project, support around statutory deadlines or a fresh pair of eyes on your current data processes. 

For many schools, data management is one of those areas that only becomes visible when something is missing, incorrect or urgent. A census deadline appears, assessment information needs to be collated, leaders need a report for governors, Ofsted questions are being prepared for, or a key member of staff is absent. When the data is right, everything feels calmer. When it is not, pressure can build very quickly. 

Our service gives schools access to experienced Data Consultants who have decades of exposure to the world of data in schools and who understand your needs. Our Data Consultants work alongside your team to maintain accurate data, manage agreed tasks, support deadlines, improve reporting confidence and reduce the workload that often falls to senior leaders, office teams or teaching staff. We leave you with the time to concentrate on the most important thing: the students!  

Whether you have a vacant data manager post, a new or developing data lead, an experienced colleague who needs additional capacity, or a trust looking for greater consistency across multiple schools, we can shape support around your priorities. That may include census preparation, MIS Operational Health Reviews, assessment collection and analysis, reporting, year-end and new academic year processes, data quality reviews, trust-wide standardisation or practical guidance for staff using the MIS.

The value of the service is not simply completing tasks. It is the reassurance that important data work is planned, checked and managed by people who know what good practice looks like. It is the confidence that leaders can trust the information they are using. It is the continuity that comes from having a named consultant supported by a wider specialist team. It is also a cost-effective way to access experienced data management expertise without the recruitment burden, salary on-costs, training overheads and resilience risks that can come with relying on one internal post. 

Our relationship-led approach means support should feel familiar, responsive and practical. Schools benefit from someone who understands their context, priorities and calendar, while also having access to the wider knowledge of a team working across different schools, trusts, MIS platforms and reporting tools. That wider perspective helps us spot common risks, suggest improvements and bring helpful examples of what works well elsewhere.  

Results Day Success 

Results day is always an important time for the Data Team, and it is very much a team effort for us. This year, as we have done previously, we again brought the whole Data Team onsite so colleagues could work alongside one another, share knowledge in the moment and support each other throughout the day. That approach reflects how seriously we take this point in the academic calendar: no issue should sit with one individual, no one person should carry the pressure alone, and as a team we are better placed to support your schools when it matters most.  

Reflecting on this period also shows why data management should never be seen as a task that only happens at key deadlines. The strength of the results day process depends on the quality of the work completed throughout the year: the accuracy of pupil information, the consistency of assessment data, the reliability of reporting structures and the confidence leaders have in the systems they use. When that foundation is strong, schools are better placed to understand outcomes, identify trends and plan their next steps clearly. 

Flexibility in our Support 

We are continuing to develop flexible Data Management support options for schools and trusts that need targeted help without necessarily requiring a fully managed service, that is more bespoke to your requirements. These can be shaped around a specific challenge, pressure point or school priority. 

Examples of our support options include:  

• Short-term cover where a data manager is absent, leaving, newly appointed or temporarily unavailable. 

• Project-based support for census preparation, assessment setup, reporting improvements, year-end processes, new academic year setup or data clean-up work. 

• Trust-wide support to align processes, definitions and reporting approaches across multiple schools. 

• Data mentoring for new or developing data leads who need regular guidance, confidence-building and practical support across the academic year. 

Key dates and things to keep an eye on 

• The next few weeks bring several important data priorities for schools. The October census is approaching, so now is the time to start checking the key areas that can affect the return, including pupil information, enrolment status, attendance, funding indicators and any new FSM categories that need to be recorded correctly. 

• A data checking exercise is also coming up, with a two-week window expected once dates are confirmed. Please keep an eye out for the confirmed timing and use this period to review the accuracy of your core MIS data, resolve known issues and raise any questions early so they do not become last-minute pressures. 

Expert Support for Statutory Returns 

Statutory returns are high-stakes, deadline-driven and often reliant on specialist knowledge that can be difficult to maintain within busy school teams. When key staff leave, responsibilities change, or competing priorities take over, preparing returns can quickly become a source of pressure and risk.  

Our Statutory Returns Service gives schools access to experienced education data specialists who can either manage agreed returns on your behalf or provide an independent review before submission. From census and workforce returns to validation, error resolution and submission support, we’ll help ensure your data is accurate, compliant and submitted on time.  

Whether you need support because of staff capacity, a knowledge gap within the team or simply an extra pair of expert eyes, we’re here to help reduce the pressure and give you confidence that your returns are right first time. 

Protect your Post-16 Funding Before the Autumn Census 

For many schools, post-16 funding is too important to leave to chance. Yet the autumn census arrives at a time when teams are already balancing new starters, timetable changes, enrolments and the day-to-day demands of the new academic year. 

Our Post-16 Funding Scrutiny Service provides an independent review of the key data that underpins your post-16 funding, helping identify anomalies, compliance issues and potential funding risks before census submission. Whether you’re new to post-16 funding, have experienced staff shortages, or simply want additional reassurance, our specialists can help you validate funding-critical data and highlight areas that need attention. 

Don’t wait until queries arise after submission. Gain confidence that your data is accurate, your funding is protected and your school is claiming what it’s entitled to.

Need extra capacity or specialist support with statutory returns this year? 

Our Statutory Returns Service gives schools flexible access to experienced education data specialists when internal time, capacity or knowledge is limited. Support is delivered remotely and can be used for one return, several returns or as part of an agreed package across the academic year. 

We can work alongside your team or manage agreed parts of the process on your behalf.  

This includes preparing and checking data, identifying missing or incorrect information, resolving validation errors, reviewing funding and enrolment details, producing the required return file and supporting submission. 

If your team has already completed the return, we can also provide an independent review before it’s submitted to provide reassurance, accuracy and funding assurance. 

The service can cover returns including the pupil census, School Workforce Census, key stage collections and Catholic Census.  

The level of support is shaped around your school, the condition of the data and how much help your team needs. 

Whether you are covering staff absence, managing a vacancy, supporting someone new to the process or simply want specialist reassurance, we can help reduce pressure, protect valuable staff time and give leaders confidence that returns are accurate, complete and submitted on time.  

Get in touch to discuss the right support for your school. 

Welcome Back! 

A new academic year brings new opportunities, new challenges and, for many school teams, new responsibilities. Whether you’re returning to a familiar role or taking on something completely new, we’re here to help. 

Our 2026/27 training programme includes new courses and webinars, alongside the practical, expert-led training our customers know and trust. From statutory returns and attendance to assessment, parental engagement and MIS best practice, our courses are designed to help school staff build confidence and get the most from their systems. 

New for 2026/27 – Added Arbor training! 

Arbor Data Manager Pathway Training 

We’re excited to introduce our new Arbor Data Manager Pathway, a structured programme designed to support both new and existing data managers throughout the academic year. Ideal for those new to the role, new to Arbor or transitioning from another system, the pathway combines practical guidance, best practice and the opportunity to develop confidence in managing school data. 

Our first cohort gets underway this month, but it’s not too late to join us in January 2027, we’d love to hear from you. Please contact helpdesk@schoolicts.co.uk to register your interest. 

Arbor CPD Sessions for Teaching Staff 

We’re also introducing a new range of Arbor CPD sessions designed specifically for teaching staff. These focused one-hour sessions help teachers make the most of Arbor’s classroom tools and the valuable information available within the system. 

Topics include: 

• Lesson Dashboard & My Classroom – making day-to-day classroom management easier 

• Recording Behaviour – promoting consistency and making effective use of behaviour information 

• Assessment & Assignments – recording, monitoring and using assessment data effectively 

• Using Data Holistically to Drive Improvement – turning information into meaningful actions that support pupil progress and outcomes

Sessions can be delivered at a time that suits your school, making them an ideal option for staff meetings, INSET days or targeted professional development. 

Interested in arranging a session for your staff? Contact helpdesk@schoolicts.co.uk to discuss your requirements.  

Arbor Behaviour: Building a Behaviour System That Works 

A well-designed behaviour framework does more than record incidents. It supports consistency across the school, streamlines processes for staff and provides leaders with the information they need to make informed decisions.  

This half-day training Arbor Behaviour course will explore how to configure and optimise Arbor’s behaviour tools, build workflows that promote consistency and standardisation and reduce unnecessary administrative workload for staff.  

Drawing on our extensive experience of supporting schools with Arbor Behaviour implementations, we’ll share practical approaches that help schools establish effective behaviour systems that are both sustainable and easy for staff to use.  

Book your place here: Arbor Behaviour – School ICT 

 Don’t have time to set up a behaviour framework yourself? Ask us about consultancy support to complete the work according to your brief – contact helpdesk@schoolicts.co.uk to find out more.  

We’re looking forward to working with schools again this year and hope to see many of you joining us at one of our upcoming training sessions.

Looking for training that’s not currently scheduled?  

Whether your school uses Arbor, Bromcom or SIMS, our team can discuss additional training and consultancy support. 

If you cannot find the course you need within our current schedule, please get in touch. We can discuss your requirements and explore a bespoke session tailored to your school or trust. 

We’re constantly reviewing our training offer, so if there are any courses you’d like to see, please don’t hesitate to get in touch at helpdesk@schoolicts.co.uk.  

Autumn Census 2026: Prepare with Confidence 

The Autumn Census is one of the most important statutory returns of the school year and, with changes to DfE requirements alongside ongoing MIS migrations, it’s more important than ever that schools are fully prepared.  

For some schools, this will be the first census completed in a new MIS, while others may be adapting to changes in staffing, responsibilities or reporting requirements. Whatever your situation, our Autumn Census training courses are designed to help you understand the latest requirements, identify common issues and submit returns with confidence.  

Led by experienced education data specialists, our practical sessions cover key census requirements, validation checks, common errors and changes you need to be aware of, helping reduce the pressure as census day approaches.  

Whether you’re preparing your first census or your fifteenth, our training can help ensure your school is ready.  

Booking is now open, please visit: https://www.schoolicts.co.uk/online-training/  

Unlock the full potential of your MIS  

Your MIS is one of the most important systems in your school. Our Data Assurance Service helps you ensure your data is accurate, your processes are efficient and you’re making the most of the functionality available.  

What’s included? 

• Expert review of your MIS data and configuration. 

• Identification of unused functionality and opportunities for improvement. 

• Advice on the latest developments and best practice. 

• Support with housekeeping and data retention requirements. 

• A tailored report with clear recommendations and training opportunities. 

• A server health check for on-premise systems. 

The result? Greater confidence in your data, improved efficiency, and reassurance that your MIS is supporting your school as effectively as possible.  

Could your MIS be working harder for your school? Speak to our team about our Data Assurance Service and uncover opportunities to improve efficiency, strengthen data quality and maximise the return on your MIS investment. Contact us helpdesk@schoolicts.co.uk to find out more. 

ParentPay Group are continuing their exciting project to move all FMS6 schools across to FMS (Next Gen)!  

This major programme will continue throughout 2026, with ESS/PPG contacting schools directly to support them through the migration process at a suitable time.   

What happens next?   

Step 1 – When your school receives the migration email, please complete the onboarding form as soon as possible. 
Step 2 – Your school will then be invited to select a preferred migration timeslot. 
Step 3 – Your school will move from local FMS6 to FMS Connected – this is typically completed within 24 hours. 
Step 4 – Later in the year, schools will transition from FMS Connected to the full FMS platform.   

Why this change matters  

Moving to a single cloud-based platform allows us to provide schools with a more secure, reliable and continuously improving service, while reducing the technical burden on finance teams.  

Please note: this is a mandatory migration, and all schools will need to move to FMS Connected before the end of the migration period. Schools that do not schedule their migration within the required timeline may have restricted access to local FMS6.   

Important reminder   

Please keep an eye out for communications from PPG/ESS regarding your migration window. Some schools may have already received emails relating to the migration programme, but these may have been overlooked or filtered into other inbox folders.  

When it is time for your school to move, you will receive regular reminder emails asking you to complete the onboarding form and choose your preferred migration date.  Once you have completed the migration questionnaire and have your migration date, please contact the helpdesk.  

These emails do require action, so please do not ignore communications from ParentPay Group, as delays may impact your migration timeline and access to local FMS6.   

September Migrations – Schools who are scheduled to migrate as part of the September cohort will have already been invited to choose their migration slots and these will be going ahead in due course.  

October Migrations – Schools included in the October cohort will start to receive weekly emails from the end of August, please complete the required questionnaire and return to PPG with your chosen migration date.  

If you have any questions or require support, please contact the Helpdesk via email directly.