St. Joseph’s College:
Software to Support a Thriving Catholic Independent School
With a commitment to offering all students ‘MORE than you imagine, for LESS than you expect’ St. Joseph’s College is a constant hub of activity and ambition.
To learn about how our software has positively impacted St. Joseph’s College, we spoke to Ben Clarke (Head of IT Strategy).
The Challenges
As the best value independent school in Reading and Berkshire, St Joseph’s College has always prioritised student experiences. This means the chosen MIS and supporting software have important roles to play.
The previous MIS required a plethora of bolt-ons and different supporting systems to provide the functionality that St Joseph’s required. However, with SchoolBase, the software has been streamlined as the system offers the type of one-stop-shop the college needs to thrive. Additional challenges that software from Furlong was tasked with providing a solution for were as follows:
St. Joseph’s faced a problem with their former school MIS supplier as the company was not developing the software to the required standard. SchoolBase was selected as it’s constantly evolving and changing with unlimited potential thanks to customisations and regular updates.
The institution also wanted to consolidate software into one platform to eliminate the issues it had previously experienced, which included heightened security risks, multiple passwords and logins, and a lack of functionality. The only option was sourcing a complete software tool that offered all of this.
St Joseph’s College also required more support from their chosen MIS provider to ensure they got the most out of their investment in a platform.
Managing School Admin with Ease
The whole package appealed to the team at St. Joseph’s, with modules available in the SchoolBase MIS for all tasks. Ben commented that “having access to the entire system without needing to budget for extra subscriptions is unique. We came across plenty of other MIS options that required many bolt-ons for the way we needed to use our system. There was no question that SchoolBase was our choice as everything is available in one place for a single cost.”
In addition to using everyday features such as Markbook, St. Joseph’s also makes the most of having Maestro integrated into their SchoolBase software. This means extracurricular music lessons can be managed easily, unlocking more opportunities for students. Being able to manage this within the MIS is proving helpful as it means pupils’ records can be updated with achievements in these fields, plus staffing cover can be properly planned.
Ben also added, “We are only just scratching the surface with what SchoolBase can do, and the entire team is excited to do even more. We are doing more every week and think the platform is intuitive to use, with staff able to pick it up quickly.”
Futureproofed Financial Management with FeeMaster
St. Joseph’s has also decided to use our billing software, FeeMaster.
The team have recently undertaken an onboarding of the software, which will replace the previous manual systems that were in place. From managing recharges efficiently to collecting fees for trip bookings, the team is excited to start using all the features that FeeMaster offers.
Ben also added, “FeeMaster is going to bring all financial billing duties into one place for the whole college. Not only will it streamline work for our bursary department, but we think it will also revolutionise the service we offer parents.
Another big benefit is that duplicate entries are not required as all information is sent across securely from SchoolBase. I believe the software will offer a benefit to everyone included in the process of invoicing, plus it will give us a much better way of handling payments”.
A Team to Rely Upon
“Everyone that I deal with at Furlong is always brilliant. Rhiannon has been great in terms of project management, and Catherine has also supported us extensively in the evening, delivering onsite training. Everyone that I speak with also confirms they’ve had a positive experience with Furlong in terms of the software and the people.”
