St James’ Independent Schools, founded in 1975, comprises a group of three schools for boys and girls aged 4 to 8 based in London and Surrey. Together, these independent schools offer a distinctive approach to education which provides for the intellectual, emotional, and spiritual development of every child.

In this case study, we explore the benefits of implementing the Schools BI online analytics tool in these schools.

Prior to the introduction of Schools BI, the schools held such a huge amount of data in their MIS but had no way of sharing this information with key stakeholders due to it’s complexity. 

Plus, it meant extracting multiple data sets which were then instantly out of date, and manually compiling them before data analysis could even begin.

As it stood, there was simply too much data available for anyone to use effectively to drive decision-making. Even getting access to simple stats such as current attendance was labour-intensive and tricky.

St James needed to first extract data from SchoolBase, then present it in a visually appealing fashion, all whilst the data was current. Secondly, the information needed to be viewed under multiple parameters, i.e. by Group, by School and by Year.

Schools BI and St James worked together closely to conceptualise their dashboards. Schools BI then went away to do the whizzy clever technical stuff in the background to interface with SchoolBase to extract the relevant data, and perform the data modelling so that every aspect displayed correctly.

Now St James’ Independent Schools has a set of dashboards that signposts them to key data: monthly attendance data, attendance tracking and behaviour & sanctions, all in a few clicks. 

St James’ Independent Schools has thoroughly benefited from this streamlined approach, allowing to access and utilise data in meaningful ways for real impact.