Kim Harwood
Former School Business Manager

As a School Business Manager with over 25 years of experience, it has been my pure pleasure to meet and talk again with the designers of the SAM system and to hear of its development since the day I first purchased the package for one of my schools. I’m in a new role now but recognised that this package had everything that I had required to make my life of organising HR processes across the school easier and everything that I asked development wise was added to the package. That was over 8 years ago now and I believed that I was one of their first customers. If you check out their website you will see exactly how all-encompassing the package has now become. The people are exceptional and very driven, with a particular regard for customer case and focus. I recommend that you take a look and ask for a demonstration. It really does have everything you need and nothing is too much trouble for any of them.

Sarah Barnes
Business Manager, Broadfield Community Primary School

I have been using SAM for staff absence for a number of years, and definitely wouldn’t have been without it during covid. It definitely made monitoring and reporting so much easier and enabled school to clearly see the costs involved.

Hasib Hikmat
School Business Manager, Olga Primary School

The onboarding process was very successful because we were able to speak to the customer support team quickly and get immediate solutions to the variety of issues, which naturally occur when integrating two systems. The excellent customer support meant we were able to launch SAM to our staff on time and make a complete switch in our absence management procedures with little or no problems. All our staff have now registered and are submitting requests through the portal

Lorraine Nicholls
Head of HR, Education Partnership Trust

As a Trust we had been using SAM for over 5 years and had found it a simple but effective way to manage staff absence, as the Trust grew in numbers, we needed a system that could support absence management alongside case work and payroll, we demo’d many providers and found SAMPeople to be a “friendly” system and that appeared simple to use, something which was needed to enable buy in from the school users.

 

Onboarding was fairly straight forward, there were, and still are a few teething issues as you would expect with all new systems, some easier to solve than others, however the team have worked hard to rectify these.

 

We have been involved with suggestion making for the systems future roadmap and look forward to the developments that are “coming soon” including single central record and candidate application updates.

Nathan Colman
Business Manager, Meadow Park School

Being able to successfully manage, track and report on staff absences whilst carefully balancing other commitments as a School Business Manager can present a significant challenge.  Staff absence policies require strict adherence to processes and date monitoring with accurate record keeping being critical to making this happen.  I have been able to develop a number of systems to help record and manage staff absence data but none brought all the procedures into one place quickly and simply.  To identify trends or patterns in absence, see if triggers have been hit and record new absences historically took me too much time and diverted my attention away from other key priorities within the School’s development plan.

I undertook research of suitable staff absence management products available in Schools and arranged a demonstration of SAM alongside other senior leaders in School and we collectively felt the system would meet the School’s requirements.  Following a swift and thorough implementation process the system was live within days meaning I could quickly input day to day absence each morning and know that my MIS (SIMS) would be automatically up to date the very next day without duplication.  The system has continued to add value and improve the way we manage staff absence and we are looking to launch employee self-service in the coming months and see even more benefits to the system.  I would recommend SAM to any School looking for an intuitive solution to effectively manage staff absence and free up valuable time in order to add additional value to the School.

Claire Burnard
Business Manager, Tor Bridge High

From the first demonstration of SAM we knew it would help us manage our absences more efficiently and effectively.  We have been using the system for about 2 years, and despite COVID, have found this an extremely useful tool.  The system allows us to keep all absence information and documentation in one easy to manage area and with a few ‘clicks’ to see each member of staff absence details.  The SAM team are easily contactable and always very helpful.  We would highly recommend SAM to other schools.

Ann Sunter
Office Manager, All Saints Church of England Primary School

I have worked with SAM for a number of years and love it, it’s a great system, I wouldn’t be without it.

Natalie Kopczyk
HR Administrator, Redwood School

SAM is a simple system, easy to use & reduces administration time to track, monitor & follow up on absences. The system centralises all documents & information related to an individual’s absence. Now we can identify any concerns or issues related to staff health & wellbeing instantly. Due to providing support earlier we are now seeing a positive impact on staff absences.

We are still in our early days of using SAM & are now introducing the SAM portal to our staff so we can reduce paperwork & administrative processes when requesting leave of absences.

This is a great tool to produce visual reports for the Leadership Team, Governors and to support health related absence meetings.

SAM also provides simple, easy to follow step-by-step guides. Customer service are very supportive and are quick to respond to any questions you may have.

Tina Button
School Business Manager, The Wyvern School

SAM has transformed how we manage absence here at the school. As SAM updates automatically from SIMS it means inputting information just once, and then the website flags up which members of staff are a concern. The printable calendars are a really good way of showing staff how many days absent they have had, sometimes a visual representation is so much clearer to them. Although we have only been using the system since Easter I can see it is going to help reduce absence considerably.

Tricia Dee
Business Manager, Church of England School of the Resurrection

In such difficult times as we’re all experiencing due to increased staff absences from Covid-19, I have found SAM really helps with all the tracking and monitoring, and in particular the reports are great to use as evidence for our staff sickness insurance claims.

Angela O’Brien
Federation Business Support Manager, Endeavour Federation (Castlefield Campus)

The SAM programme has enabled the federation to have a well organised and efficient way to manage staff absences. The after support is also really impressive.

Joanne Hayes
Office Manager, St Columba’s Catholic Primary School

I log into SAM every morning. In just a quick glance you can see who is off on that day and deal with the necessary actions. I love the automatic link to SIMS, as it means I am only having to update one system, which reduces the amount of administration and then allows SAM to provide instant information that you can act on. SAM is simple to use and the reports can be run in seconds, making it easy to provide information to the Senior Leadership Team and Governors. Within SAM you can define your own categories so it is easy to compare and report on the issues you want to. I love SAM and would highly recommend it to other schools.

Marie Allison
Assistant Headteacher Business & Staffing, Balby Central Primary Academy

Our Governors find the reports that SAM generates extremely useful and they are so easy to run. SAM is easy to use and when needed the customer service is excellent with quick helpful advice.

Sharon Longmire
School Business Manager, Peel Park Primary School & Nursery

Before SAM it took hours to generate reports. Now I can issue a cost of absence report by type of employee for the Governors in seconds. They love the fact that they can see which areas need addressing and drill down to which staff have caused the absences.

Lesley Stead
School Business Manager, Diamond Wood Community Academy

SAM is a user friendly staff management system. The support from the SAM team is excellent and quick. Love using it.

Clare Bourne
Communications & Data Manager, Furze Down School

Using SAM has made a considerable difference to managing staff absence. We are able to give more responsibility to line managers, taking the pressure away from our senior leadership team. We can easily carry out and monitor return to work meetings, giving informed feedback to staff and we can see the impact that this has on our absence rates. The system enables us to track, monitor and follow up absences effectively, using triggers that are in line with our policies. It enables us to identify issues quickly and easily and provide support where needed. The reporting is excellent, producing many different formats that are suitable for a variety of audiences. Previous manual procedures were time consuming and open to error and SAM has eliminated this.

Nina Boland
Business Manager, King’s Oak Primary School

From the moment we saw SAM we knew it could help our school save time and money, but the appeal to us also included the way that SAM helps you to further support your staff. Being able to see trends and analyse absence data, at both employee and school level, is going to help us to act quickly and provide the necessary support. The reporting suite is so easy to use that extracting reports for Governors can be done in minutes, rather than taking hours of spreadsheet analysis and SAM automatically reminds you when tasks are due helping us to always be on top of our absence management.

Jo Godbolt
Business Manager, Oathall Community College

We purchased SAM around a year ago as we found that our existing systems for managing absence and absence statistics were very cumbersome. We wanted a product that could sync with our existing MIS so we did not have to duplicate work. What we like about SAM is that because it is on the cloud it allows managers to access details about their team members from work or home. Now that we have got into the swing of using it we find it really useful for logging all the details where employees have met absence triggers. Essentially it is like having an accessible electronic employee personnel file. The reports are very useful with the employee absence calendar proving to be an extremely helpful tool for managers. It is quite a different way of working for the school and so it has taken a bit of time to bed in. Now we are using it more & more it has become a very valuable management tool.

Lesley Burton
Executive Business Manager St John's CE Primary Academy

Probably one of the most impactful business management systems we use. Being able to instantly cost absence is extremely powerful and has helped us reduce it #worthitsweightingold

Anne-Marie Dorsey
Business Manager, Baguley Hall Primary School

Before SAM, we were having to count days manually and plot absence on a spreadsheet which was an administration nightmare. Now, SAM does it all for us, saving us much needed time. It identifies absence patterns when staff hit triggers and makes it easy to provide information to senior management who can then further support staff. We would highly recommend SAM to other schools.

Anita Bowker
School Business Manager, Mellor Primary School

We recently purchased SAM as a tool to help us manage our school absences more effectively. The software appealed to us due to its ability to provide an easy to understand overview of absences both at a whole school and employee level. The reports available within the system have made reporting to our Governors and HR Support easier and more relevant whilst reducing admin time.

Julie Pratt
Business Manager, Sandal Magna Community Academy

Using the SAM system allows us to work proactively and means the school can tailor the system to meet our own bespoke requirements. The system gives us the ability to produce transparent and usable reports that are extremely clear and concise, which ultimately results in us being able to make fully informed decisions with all the information being available in one place. This is one piece of software that I would not like to be without.

Kirsten Middleton
Business Manager, Bury CE High School

We recently purchased SAM as a tool to help us maintain an overview of and manage our school absences. We were attracted to the software both by its ability to provide an overview of absences both at a whole school and individual level. The reports available within the system have made reporting to SLT and Governors a lot easier, more relevant and reduced the preparation time.

Carmen King
Business Manager, Camberwell Park Specialist Support School

We were so impressed with the SAM software from the moment we saw it. The reporting suite gives you the information you need as a leadership team to make informed decisions, all at the touch of a button. Staff absence in special schools is high due to the emotional demand and physical requirements of the job. Supporting staff wellbeing whilst reducing absence ensures we are providing the best support we can for our pupils.

Jane Rawson
Business Manager, High Park School

We are a special school and started using SAM in April 2017.  SAM has been a blessing in disguise, it has already revolutionised how we manage staff attendance, saving us valuable time, we now find it much easier to track and monitor attendance in line with our policy.   It’s still early days but we are already seeing the impact of SAM…..  I would highly recommend SAM to any special school that needs a bespoke educational absence software tool to monitor triggers hit, manage absence cases and provide quick and easy reports for Trustees and Governors.

Sandra Barrett
Business Manager, Princeville Primary School

We are delighted with how SAM has helped us reduce absence. In the first year, we have increased staff attendance by 49% and saved 279 days of absence. This has saved the school time and money and has helped us to maintain the consistency of teaching standards across the school. We would highly recommend SAM to any school.

Victoria
HR Administrator, St Johns Church of England Primary School

Before we started using SAM, the process of dealing with staff absence was old fashioned, impersonal and confidentiality couldn’t always be assured. The whole issue of staff absence was quite scary and not a lot of people wanted to take it on. Since we started working with SAM, the whole process of dealing with staff absence has become much easier. It is more personal to the individual we are dealing with and from my point of view it’s a lot less time consuming and what we record is a lot more accurate. The best thing about SAM is its simplicity. It’s easy to use and easy to follow. Uploading from SIMS is straightforward. The reporting options mean I can pull a report for my business manager at the touch of a button and all the information for that employee is there. The support we have received has also made things so much easier right from the beginning. I just love SAM, it’s my new best friend.

Joanne King
Senior Deputy Headteacher, Chislehurst and Sidcup Grammar School

Using SAM has not only saved us time it has also saved us money. At the end of the first year we found that we had saved 712 days of absence overall across teaching and support staff. This will have helped to reduce supply costs across the school and increase attendance of key members of our teaching staff which is so important to us and our pupils. We would recommend that all schools consider using SAM to help manage absence.

Shaila
Girlington Primary School

To efficiently monitor staff absences, we believe that SAM is a must have for every school or business…  SAM is a great way to visualise individual absences, the graphs are very clear to understand and you can easily recognise any persistent absences. We say “Keep calm and use SAM