SalamanderSoft has partnered with Matthew Moss High School to automate the management of staff and pupil data. The school now uses most of our integration tools, including Active Directory, Google Classroom creation automation and Google Calendar Sync.
Based in Rochdale, Matthew Moss High School is a secondary school that strives to help learners gain the skills they need to thrive in the world.
The school is dedicated to providing a real sense of direction for its pupils in order to prepare them for the world after they leave in a way that enables them to create successful, happy and productive lives.
Salamander supports Matthew Moss in providing ‘learning for life’, by automating the creation of user accounts for Google For Education – a tool that pupils will likely use in the workplace once they leave school. Automation not only saves staff time but also enables students to access everything they need to develop and learn.
Strategic IT Director and Google For Education Certified Innovator Dave Leonard decided to replace an off-the-shelf VLE with Google For Education.
“I was searching for an easy way to get timetables onto pupil’s digital calendars, and Google seemed to provide a solution with G Suite and Google Calendar,” says Dave.
“However, I quickly realised we needed to streamline our processes, especially when it came to provisioning new user accounts.”
A large portion of his team’s time was taken up by provisioning accounts for new starters, and this took a significant amount of time before each September intake, with the team having to manually set up login details, passwords and an email account for every Year 7 pupil.
We provided Matthew Moss with our Integration Suite, which synchronises user accounts, groups, permissions and more from MIS into Active Directory, allowing the automation of Google Classroom provisioning.
“The automation has taken away so much of our workflow. We just hit one button and the rest is taken care of. We can also provision unexpected new starters on an ad hoc basis, which is really useful,” Dave explains.
“Time, or rather a lack of, is a huge barrier in education. And that’s why I often describe Salamander as the best £1,000 I spend each year out of my budget. The money directly converts into time for us, which we can now dedicate to helping pupils learn, rather than inputting data.”
Google For Education is at the centre of learning at Matthew Moss.
Teachers can create assignments, which are then automatically sent out to every member of the class. Meanwhile, students can submit work and get real-time feedback from their tutors, all within Google Classroom.
“Everything is built and set up ready to go thanks to Salamander’s automation. It’s simple, consistent and easy.”
Timetabling is another barrier that Matthew Moss has been able to overcome through automation.
“Previously, timetables were paper-based – printed out and glued into planners. This didn’t accommodate for timetable changes and it was difficult for students to keep track of where they needed to be and when,” Dave adds.
Now, Google Calendar is automatically populated with lessons, which can be updated as and when timetables change.
In Dave’s own words, Google has become a way of life for pupils. They can pull their phones out of their pockets and everything they need to learn is in one place.
