How did you hear about Sign In Central Record? ​

“We were first introduced to Sign In Central Record when we received the weekly newsletter bulletin from Andrew Hall.​”

What initial challenges did you encounter that led to your decision to upgrade to Sign In Central Record?

“​We were using LA templates (Excel) and the Office Managers in each school maintained these for their individual school. We wanted Trust level easy access to the records to increase support for each school and to improve and simply monitor across the board.”

What made our solution stand out against our competitors/other software available? 

“To be honest, apart from ensuring value for money, we only looked at Sign In Central Record and were assured of the quality of this as it had been recommended by Andrew Hall.”

How did you implement/introduce our solution? ​

“We had an initial online demonstration and invited key members of trust/school staff including the CEO, Headteachers, Office Managers and Governors with specific responsibility for Safeguarding. Following our decision to go ahead, a virtual training session was provided. I also use the live chat function regularly and get instant helpful responses, the staff are extremely friendly and approachable.”

What are the key areas that have either made your life easier or positively impacted the business? ​

“At a trust level we have more confidence that the SCRs are continuously up to date. Monitoring is now much quicker than it was previously and we can quickly and easily see where there are any gaps.”

What features are most appealing to you and why? 

“I like the customisable templates so we can tailor them to suit individual needs. We have adapted our template so that 'school ready' also records read policies and training dates - with an alert to let us know when these need updating. The Sign In Central Record staff were very helpful and patient with me when I was adapting the template to record these things! I have set the alerts to weekly which is a good reminder for me to check if anything needs doing

Has using our software helped save you time, resources, or money somehow? 

“It has saved monitoring time. Money wise the old excel system was free so we do have additional costs but the new system provides confidence, and it has the potential to be so much more than just an SCR. “

What success have you experienced overall since using Sign In Central Record? ​

“At a recent Ofsted Inspection, the inspectors were really impressed with the system. Staff confidence in individual schools since using the system has also improved. Using it to monitor training and distribution of policies has also been a huge success and the systems and processes are better.” ​

Is there anything else you would like to add, or any other particular highlight? ​

“I would recommend Sign In Central Record and their after-sales support has been superb.”

Victoria Marrow, Business Director at The Learning Partnership Trust tells us about their experience with Sign In Central Record

Sign In Central Record Testimonials | Victoria Marrow

Victoria Marrow - Business Director, The Learning Partnership Trust

How did you hear about Sign In Central Record?

“The system was recommended to us by our safeguarding consultant Carolyn Eyre.”

“As a growing Multi-Academy Trust it was becoming increasingly difficult to have a consistent, safe and secure way of both viewing the individual academies SCRs from a central perspective but also sharing up-to-date information with our academies regarding the checks that have been completed on central colleagues.”

Were there any external influences or industry trends that added to your decision to upgrade to us or an online automated solution?

“The requirement for us to comply with KCSiE and to maintain a single central record detailing checks carried out in each academy and centrally within the Trust. As well as  the need for a platform that allows for those details to be provided separately, and without delay, to those entitled to view that information, including inspectors.”

What made our solution stand out against our competitors/other software available?

“After viewing a range of platforms, the procurement team decided that Sign In Central Record looked to be the easiest to implement and use across a large Trust with functions that enabled the ability to create templates, user groups and permissions centrally, resulting in a consistent and compliant approach to recording and retaining the correct information.”

How did you implement/introduce our solution?

“With the support from Lisa at Sign In Central Record we were able to build the system centrally for our Trust. We shared information about the system with our leaders and those who are responsible for inputting and maintaining the SCR in each academy. We scheduled a number of video training sessions for colleagues to attend. We created and shared a ‘frequently asked questions’ document, which contained a selection of links to helpful documents/videos provided by Sign In Central Record to guide them during the implementation. We also offered ‘online drop-in’ appointments to academy colleagues, and ad hoc support as needed whilst they were transitioning to the new system.”

What are the key areas that have either made your life easier or positively impacted the business?

“Implementing this system has enabled key members of the central team and those who have responsibility for the SCR in multiple academies to have immediate access to the SCRs wherever they are working. It has also enabled academy leaders and other relevant staff to have access to the most accurate and up-to-date information about central staff in a secure way.”

What features are most appealing to you and why?

“We love the ‘traffic light’ dashboard which provides an immediate overview of the different groups of people within each of the academies, providing a clear view of where compliance has been achieved or where there are outstanding actions. The system enables colleagues to prioritise their work and ensures they have completed and recorded all the necessary checks. 

The Sign In Central Record Help Bot is a great resource that helps users quickly find answers to questions about the system by sharing a range of help documents. If the documents don't answer the question and you are still needing support, it will provide you with the option of having a direct conversation with one of the team. 

Being able to quickly navigate between each of the different academies across the whole Trust (or between the range of academies where access has been given) is a brilliant feature for different members of the central team and academy users. It’s easy to use and provides immediate access to everything that is required centrally. Being able to set the templates, user groups and permissions centrally enables Co-op Academies Trust to be confident that all academies will be applying a consistent approach that is also compliant with KCSiE.”

Has using our software helped save you time, resources, or money somehow? 

“Being able to navigate easily and quickly between the different academies has saved us time having to search our systems centrally to access the different academy SCRs. Having a consistent approach has also saved time knowing that the system will immediately flag if the information is missing or has incorrectly added the wrong date, rather than relying on reading each individual line on an excel or google sheet.”

What success have you experienced overall since using Sign In Central Record?

“The ability for multiple users to view the record from different locations and discuss the content has enabled us to discuss and resolve queries more efficiently.”

Simone Noorie, School Administrator at Odyssey House School tells us about their experience with Sign In Central Record

Sign In Central Record Testimonials | Claire Dodd

Claire Dodd - Regional Safeguarding and Child Protection Lead, Co-Operative Academies Trust

The Founder and CEO of Odyssey House School, Charu Kashyap, brought the Sign In Central Record software to my attention, after receiving an introductory email. I immediately booked a call with the friendly customer success team, who went to great lengths with explanations and examples and introduced the software to me. Lisa tailored the introduction to our school’s needs, and it was both fascinating and refreshing to know that the founders of Sign In Central Record observed the difficulties schools faced without streamlined support – and then provided a credible solution.” 

“As a small and newly found school, our resources were initially limited – thus we created our Single Central Record on Microsoft Excel. The live spreadsheet was compliant but required careful data input, which naturally left room for human error. Our administration team would carry out frequent audits to ensure all inputted data was correct, which was incredibly time-consuming. Knowing that the Sign In Central Record provided prompts and alerts for expiry dates of DBS certificates or training certificates, as examples, evidently contributed to our administration team working smarter with their time and more Strategically.”

“We needed an online automated solution to address the difficulties we were facing using Microsoft Excel. Having a central system implemented into the school created a secure foundation and left no room for mistakes and was a huge factor in upgrading our internal systems.”

“Sign In Central Record stood out against competitors with its ability to be customisable to the user and the business' needs. As a business, being able to gather insights and extract information to produce statistics is a crucial part of growth. The school has appreciated being able to track and record individual internal processes in a non-complex way that is both time-efficient and accurate.”

“From the introductory call to the onboarding training, we were able to implement the software into our school in under two weeks effortlessly. The solution-focused software has established further trust within our Safeguarding and Safer Recruitment processes.”

“We are a newly established school that is rapidly expanding. Sign In Central Record has supported our employee recruitment process drastically. we can identify, if any, gaps in paperwork, be conscious of approaching deadlines and carry out disclosure checks with a faster turnaround time. The software has positively impacted our growing business and has become an essential tool to support the compliance and fulfilment of statutory requirements within the School.”

“A feature that appealed to me instantaneously when introduced to Sign In Central Record was the home-page widgets. The widgets are most helpful in identifying gaps and obtaining information expeditiously. Accessing information in this way, cannot be achieved using Microsoft Excel, and is a simple and smart way to use time efficiently when ensuring your database is compliant with Safeguarding legislation and policies.”

Has using our software helped save you time, resources, or money somehow?

“Sign In Central Record has saved our school time, resources, and money. Our administration team have saved time, as audits do not need to be carried out as frequently as they were on a live Excel spreadsheet because of how secure and attentive the software is to data input. Our school, where possible, aims to be paperless. We can now save resources by attaching electronic files to each employee’s profile on SCR Tracker to evidence completed documents and vetting checks that have been carried out. We have saved money by carrying out disclosure checks through the SCR Tracker software, which differed from the slightly more expensive third-party providers we were previously using. Additionally, the turnaround time for disclosure checks through the software has been incredibly swift – our new employees are able to join the team sooner as a result.”

“We can manage and monitor our Single Central Record with ease, knowing that any inputted errors will alert the user immediately. We can now confidently navigate through the platform, with our data, highlighted green and labelled inspector ready and school ready. Our school recently had a quality assurance inspection by the neighbouring local authority, and they were incredibly impressed with our Single Central Record and Safer Recruitment Processes - all feedback that we received was highly positive.”

Is there anything else you would like to add, or any other particular highlight?

“It can be quite daunting to introduce new software into a workplace, where the team may be comfortable using a more familiar software such as Microsoft Excel. However, the team at Sign In Central Record made the transitioning process very smooth sailing. After the onboarding training with Alicia, who patiently guided me through the steps to transfer our Single Central Record data onto the software, within a couple of days we were confidently using SCR Tracker. The team have provided ongoing and instantaneous support via email and web chat – the service has been second to none!”

SCR Tracker Testimonials | Simone Noorie

Simone Noorie - School Administrator, Odyssey House School

richard_woodlands_-_west_country_schools (1080p)

 “I first heard about SCR tracker through speaking to one of the directors of safeguarding network, an organisation that we work closely with here at West Country School’s Trust.”

What initial challenges did you encounter that led to your decision to upgrade to SCR Tracker?

“Prior to using SCR tracker, although we had given all our schools a template for the single central record, we were finding that they were going off-piste and adding extra columns and not using it in the way that we had prescribed. All of those problems are taken away if you move to the online portal of SCR tracker.”

“For me, one of the standout features of this product is just the simplicity and  ease of use.

Although at first, the portal might look a little almost childlike it's so intuitive and so user-friendly, our administrative staff who manage our single central records absolutely love the platform.”

“Being able to remote into the individual single central record of any of our 27 schools, from our West Country HQ is a real boon for us. It means that we save time actually going into schools and looking at Excel spreadsheets, or we save time by not having to send them back and forth by email or being set up on shared platforms.  The online nature of the product means that it can be accessed remotely at any point in real-time and that is a really useful feature for us.”

“Some of the features that we find really useful as a multi-academy trust, are being able to easily copy or transfer profiles between our schools, where we have members of staff on secondment or working across a number of schools it means that we can do that in a time efficient manner and allow our staff to concentrate on other things rather than multiple data entries.”

Has using our software helped you save time, resources, or money somehow?

“I think the ease of use and efficiency of the system, as well as the fact that we can move profiles between our schools, has helped massively. We get weekly reports on the health of our single central records and our 27 academies which dramatically helps us save time. It makes our work more efficient and means that we can be concentrating on other tasks, safe and secure in the knowledge that our single central records are up to date and would pass muster should they be inspected.”

What success have you experienced overall since using SCR Tracker?

“Since we’ve been using SCR tracker, a number of our schools have been visited by the inspector and we've had no problems with showing the evidence required to show that safeguarding is effective within this area.”

“As a final comment, I would just like to say that as a company, SCR tracker is really responsive from the initial sales demonstration, right through to the training and the subsequent onboarding of additional academies as our trust has grown, the customer service has been fantastic. 

Furthermore, the team are always willing to hear new ideas and I can testify that some of the comments I made about making the product easier to use when schools are facing an inspection are listened to and put into the process. You can now click a button, to create a downloadable version of the SCR, just incorporating the data fields that you would want to share with an HMI; so that's a real concrete example of how the company listens to their customers and tries to improve the product.”

Richard Woodlands, the Inclusion Director at West Country Schools sits down to tell us their thoughts about Sign In Central Record

Sign In Central Record Testimonials | Richard Woodlands

Richard Woodlands - Inclusion Director, West Country Schools

ian_thistlewood_cognita_testimonial (1080p)

We were one of SCR trackers' earlier clients, and as such, we didn't hear about them through a trade show or through the web or anything like that. We were specifically looking for a partner to build out our competency and our professionalism with how we handled SCR. And SCR Tracker were just the ticket for us at the time.

We operate over a hundred schools around the world, many of which are in the uk. And the need to safeguard the children in our care is our number one priority. Always has been. And it always will be. And part of that is having a robust and predictable process for managing pre-employment checks and capturing people on the SCR register.For us SCR Tracker was a way to integrate our approach for dealing with SCR, with our HR system and with our general people processes for bringing people into the organisation and therefore into contact with children. 

One of the key reasons that we chose to work with SCR Trackers on the basis of their willingness to become our partner in how we evolved and developed our processes around doing background checks and recording of those checks. They were particularly eager and professional in how they approached the unique system landscape that we have, where we wanted to integrate together our people system together with our SCR system and without MIS.

And really they were the partner who were most willing to develop alongside us rather than just give us a product that came off the shelf.

Has using our software helped you save time, resources, or money somehow? 

The level of compliance that we have as a result of implementing SCR Tracker is significantly higher. And I think crucially what we can do that we couldn't do previously was to identify where we have risks. Previously, there was the challenge of pulling out paper files, none of it being centralised and digital. And of course, now we can access potential risk areas from a central location, can work together with the schools, the administrative staff to make sure any perceived risks are either closed or in fact they are simply an error in the process somewhere. And so it's really allowed us to pursue our ambition to continuously improve. And I think when you're talking about that subject in the context of something like safeguarding, it really is very crucial.

The key thing that SCR Tracker has done for us is to reduce the risk associated with making a mistake in the pre-employment checking process, and then capturing that information on the SCR. Because it is now regulations change regularly and because of the potential high risk associated with it, what we wanted to do was to remove as many of the barriers to doing it properly and correctly that we could and we found that the combination of technology and reports and just generally a can do attitude from the team at SCR Tracker has really demonstrated their value to us and demonstrated to the organisation as a whole, the relative ease with which we can execute this this very important process of safeguarding our children.

Ian Thistlewood, the COO of Cognita Schools sits down to talk to us about their thoughts about Sign In Central Record