Leicester & Leicestershire Teaching School Hub
Explore how Pragmatiq helped Leicester & Leicestershire Teaching School Hub move away from spreadsheets and manual processes, to a bespoke cloud-based solution, built on the Microsoft Power Platform.
The Leicester & Leicestershire Teaching School Hub (LeLTSH) support schools and Trusts within the region to recruit, train, develop and retain the very best teachers, support staff and leaders, working in all phases and types of schools, and at all stages of their careers.
The Teaching School Hub is the focal point of an outstanding collaborative educational community, delivering on the Department for Education’s (DfE) Recruitment and Retention Strategy (2019) for 206 schools in Leicester City and the county districts of Blaby, Harborough and Oadby & Wigston.
Previous Challenges
- LeLTSH previously managed data with disparate systems and spreadsheets
- Manual and cumbersome processes for school and course management impeded day-to-day operations and management reporting
- Lack of a holistic view made it challenging for employees to work efficiently
- Tracking individual teachers’ qualifications, schools worked at, career progression, courses attended, etc., was particularly difficult without a centralised system
- Decentralised data set-up limited automation, leading to significant manual efforts in logging day-to-day activities, such as tracking courses and delegates
- Management lacked key insights into areas such as course statistics and school engagement
- LeLTSH needs to generate comprehensive reports for the Department for Education (DfE) several times a year, detailing school and course engagement. The previous process was time-consuming and manual, involving the consolidation of information from various spreadsheets
- There was a heavily reliance on employee knowledge of complex spreadsheets
The Solution
- Pragmatiq implemented a Custom Business Solution, built on the Microsoft Power Platform, tailored around LeLTSH’s processes
- Course management functionality facilitates easy organisation of courses, including setup, attendee management, teacher assignments, session planning, etc.
- Improved capability to structure and plan future courses
- Implemented a robust real-time reporting setup, providing easy access to key statistics in dashboards, including school participation and course engagement rates
- Integration with SharePoint enables the storage of relevant documentation (e.g., agreements, training materials) against contacts and courses
- Outlook Integration provides visibility of correspondence with stakeholders, capturing emails, phone calls, and appointments
- Leveraged Dynamics 365 Customer Voice to capture course feedback during and after sessions/courses. The information then populates the relevant records in the solution, so data is easy to access in future
- LeLTSH receive funding for course participation so functionality was developed to track this more effectively. Management can quickly see if a course is financially viable based on the costs to run versus funding available and make more informed decisions
The Benefits
- Improved visibility and access to information – Users now spend less time searching for information and can conduct their daily tasks more efficiently
- Improved reporting – Management can get more control of their operations and highlight areas that need extra focus and improvement, as well as areas that are performing well
- A stable platform for future growth – Business processes are now logically systemised in the new solution and data is accessible to those who need it, rather than relying on individual knowledge. This is also a solid foundation to potentially explore other areas of the Microsoft eco-system, such as leveraging Power BI for more advanced reporting requirements in future
- Enhanced user experience – The custom solution accurately reflects the way the organisation works, providing a better user experience
