Package Details

Annual Buyback Package

The School Management Support Team offer an Annual Buyback Package for maintained schools and Academies, which covers a range of performance and contextual analyses, as well as any guidance and advice required from the team.

All analyses are subject to availability of data and may change in the future according to DfE and Ofsted requirements.

Services that allow schools and the LA to meet statutory requirements will continue to be free to all schools.  This will include support for data collections, statutory processes and access to a core set of performance and contextual data.

The relevant analyses from the list below are provided as part of this package, dependent on school type and availability of data.  Please note that the content of the packs may vary year on year, based on changing DfE/Ofsted policy, accountability measures etc.

Costs for the 2023-2024 financial year package are shown below.  This package will include analysis of summer 2022 assessments, tests and exams.

Annual Free School Meals (FSM) eligibility checking service

The School Management Support Team (SMST) provides a service that checks the Free School Meals (FSM) eligibility of pupils by checking their parent’s details via the DfE’s Eligibility Checking System (ECS).

For every child registered for Free School Meals, your school will receive additional Pupil Premium funding so that you can support your disadvantaged pupils and close the attainment gap between them and their peers.

Parents apply to the school using a simplified paper form. In most cases no further paper evidence of benefits is required.

The school enters three details about the parent into a spreadsheet (NI number or National Asylum Seeker Service number, DOB and surname). This spreadsheet, which can contain multiple applicants, is then forwarded to the SMS Team by secure file transfer.

The SMS Team will then run batch routines through the DfE’s Eligibility Checking System (ECS), which will return either a True or False result for each parent. These results would then be passed back to the school securely using the file transfer process. The aim is to provide confirmation of eligibility no more than three business days after the school submits the spreadsheet. Paper evidence may then be required from a parent if they question a false result. The school will collect this evidence and assess the parent’s eligibility against the criteria. A list of protected pupils from the latest census is also provided.

This service runs on an academic year basis, from September to August each year in line with pupil intakes, but will be billed in line with other packages so that schools have a single payment point.

Annual FFT subscription service

This package gives you access to the FFT Aspire system at discounted rates. FFT Aspire is a web based system that supports school self-evaluation and target setting.

Target Setting - In a life after levels and letters, Aspire’s Target Setting dashboards help you to set challenging targets for your school and pupils.

Evaluating your performance - Simple, visual and clear. FFT Aspire’s innovative Self Evaluation dashboards allow you to quickly and comprehensively evaluate attainment and progress in your school.

Intervention and support - Behind each one of your pupils is a unique story – Aspire’s Student Explorer dashboard can help you to find it.

New and coming soon – Data Exchange (linking your management information system to FFT Aspire for pupil data updates), new reports, new dashboards, pupil tracking.

This service will also include help and support from the School Management Support Team (SMST) via email and phone for all queries - accounts issues, data queries, report questions, "how to" etc..

We can only offer this service at the advertised price if a minimum number of schools purchase, if we don’t reach that minimum number we may have to withdraw the service.

Subscriptions run on an academic year basis, from September to August each year, but will be billed in line with other packages so that schools have a single payment point.