SOCS is used by leading schools such as Millfield Prep to manage and communicate sports and co-curricular activities. SOCS also offers a comprehensive online school calendar solution that integrates with the sport and co-curricular modules. SOCS is used by over 800 schools worldwide.
SOCS has worked with Millfield Prep for a decade. For any school, the planning of the sports and co-curricular programme is a huge undertaking and requires careful management and effective communication, but at Millfield Prep there are more than 500 activities on offer each term. During the last academic year, the school played over 2,000 fixtures.
SOCS enables the staff at Millfield Prep to ensure that parents are kept up to date with their child’s activities, fixture locations and results, and other calendar events that take place at the school, including cancellations and last-minute changes to schedules. Parents can also log in and sign up to activities that are available to their child. Staff use SOCS internally to take registers, generate reports and ensure that the pupils are taking part in a balanced range of activities.
Jo Morgan-Hughes, director of sport at Millfield Prep, said: “Adopting SOCS to administer our provision for sports and activities has been without question our most significant development in my lengthy tenure as director of sport at Millfield Prep School.
“With busy children, participating in multiple sports and activities our internal organisation has been transformed. Communication problems with parents have disappeared. Parents can view live team sheets, synchronise electronic diaries and check activity schedules. All activities are registered electronically. With safeguarding such a priority, we know exactly where every single pupil is at any point in the day. Pupils with medical conditions are flagged to staff. ISI inspectors are hugely impressed!”
He added: “SOCS also helps to retain historical data. We know exactly how many and which fixtures every pupil has participated in. We can monitor heavily committed pupils and, importantly, ensure that we do not have students missing out on selection. SOCS has had a positive impact on recruitment.
Prospective parents can view fixture lists on the web pages, and we use SOCS on open days to demonstrate our provision. SOCS Big Screens are located outside the changing rooms and students can easily check teamsheets or match details. Busy parents with more than one child can also see where they are playing sports fixtures and what kit for clubs is needed. We quite simply could not operate on the same scale without SOCS!”
The full system consists of separate modules for managing the school’s calendar, sport and co-curricular offerings. It helps to manage fixtures and teamsheets, run activity sign-ups, communicate club schedules and content, and take registers. SOCS also provides competition microsites, making it easier for schools to operate competitions each season.
Like Millfield Prep, most schools are opting to use the full range of SOCS modules, but it is also possible to pick and choose the aspects of the system that are most needed to strengthen the existing systems at a school.
Lucy Watkins, head of client management at SOCS, said: “We are delighted that Millfield has chosen SOCS. With our help, their busy parents are able to cut through the noise of school life and follow their child directly, by synchronising their smartphone to their child’s activity calendar.
“This way they are always up to date on where their child is and what time they need to be picked up. Having a system that is kept up to date on the latest data protection standards that staff, pupils and parents can use safely has been at the centre of our strategy from the start.”
Contact the SOCS team for a product demo by emailing sales@misocs.com
Find out more about SOCS: www.misocs.com
