Civica has been rolling out a full Education Management System (EMS) solution to 900 Department for Education of South Australia schools, which started in 2020 and is progressing per schedule (expected to be completed in 2023).

The first cohort of schools went live with EdSmart in August 2021, enabling them to benefit from the EMS ahead of their full implementation schedule.

For some of the schools that have scheduled implementations later in the project, the ability to introduce EdSmart as a standalone solution was a welcome option. Not only could they proceed ahead of schedule but EdSmart’s introduction into the schools could not have been smoother, with all schools EdSmart-enabled without a hitch.

“EdSmart is one of those products that you can onboard very quickly regardless of the data source you’re reading from,” says Theresa Klunk, EdSmart’s Programme Manager responsible for overseeing the project delivery.

Theresa believes EdSmart’s flexibility and adaptability to change was central to the success of the implementation: “We were able to read the schools’ data and implement Single Sign-On in a way that was not originally planned without changing the schools’ experience.”

“In this case, we worked with Civica on the Wonde integration – another very flexible tool, designed for accessing school data – at a jurisdiction-level to get access to a number of schools,” Theresa continues. “We were able to read the data for each school as they were approved by the Department. We also implemented a way of signing in via the Department’s Single Sign-On System that didn’t require the entire EMS to be live.”

“This goes to show that EdSmart can stay a continuous experience for schools no matter what is the underlying data source.”

Appreciation for Civica and EdSmart’s hard work was expressed by Nailsworth Primary School who took the time to create a thank you video posted on social media.

As Jenny Parhas, Principal from Nailsworth Primary School notes, “EdSmart will support us as a school and as a parent community to get our communication to you quickly and effectively and be able to get that two-way correspondence, so we can get permissions [from parents], electronic notes and really support communication as a two-way mechanism.”

“Throughout the whole process, EdSmart was able to meet all the demands of the deployment,” concludes Theresa. “It goes to show that EdSmart can meet you where you are.”

The South Australian Department for Education’s new Education Management System (EMS) built on Civica’s Education Suite promises to be a modern, student-centred online service for public schools and pre-schools that supports the Department’s ambition to deliver world-class education. Other technology partners include Frog Education (also available to schools in advance of their full EMS implementation) and Yellowfin.

For more information about the EMS, visit Civica’s website.

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