Reduce your carbon footprint with your school’s MIS data

Sustainability is fast becoming an integral part of the ethos of many schools and MATs across the UK as more and more look for ways to go green. But did you know that the way you use your SIMS/MIS data can play a role in reducing your carbon footprint?

Sustainability is fast becoming an integral part of the ethos of many schools and MATs across the UK as more and more look for ways to go green. But did you know that the way you use your SIMS/MIS data can play a role in reducing your carbon footprint? 

According to Sustainable Schools, schools are responsible for 2% of the UK’s carbon emissions. And, with the impact of climate change regularly making headlines, it’s easy to see why both staff and students feel compelled to be more eco-friendly. 

Switching off lights and turning down the heating to reduce energy waste is often the first and most obvious port of call for schools who want to minimise their environmental impact. 

However, what if we told you that your MIS data could play a role in helping to reduce your carbon footprint? 

By automatically linking the data from your school or trust’s management information system to your network and learning platforms, you can dramatically reduce wasted materials and resources. 

Below, we share some real-world examples of this in action. 

Paperless timetables. 

Syncing timetables with your MIS data has many benefits, from ensuring everyone (staff or student) knows exactly where they need to be to reducing paper waste.

Instead of printing timetables and reprinting (or sending update emails) whenever there’s a change, this information is automatically synchronised to your calendar system. 

Everyone knows what’s happening and where they need to be – whether it’s a cover lesson, detention or exam. It automatically shows on the student’s mobile phone.

Online resources. 

Using your school’s MIS data to create classes in Microsoft Teams, Google Classroom or Apple School Manager means that all your learning resources can be housed online and do not need to be printed and handed out to individual students. 

Instead, everyone has access to the learning materials they need – whether it’s a revision guide, hand out or worksheet. 

What’s more, when a new academic year starts, you can easily roll over you’re teaching and learning resources to your new class – there’s no need to spend time or energy recreating them. 

Environmentally-friendly meetings.

By creating and maintaining staff groups based on information in the MIS, you can save a lot of time and reduce your impact on the environment. 

One example of this in action is staff meetings.

The most obvious is digitally sending out meeting agendas to staff members in a particular group or department instead of printing handouts. 

Meanwhile, using Teams or Google Meet, staff members can remotely call in if needed, which is particularly useful if you’re hosting a MAT-wide meeting, which would traditionally require staff from multiple schools to travel to a central location. 

Linking your cloud-based workspaces with your MIS data helps save time, fuel and energy. 

So how do you automatically link your MIS data to your school or trust network? 

The Salamander Integration Suite is fully automated so that your network and relevant users, groups and permissions reflect your management system. As long as your management system is up-to-date, so is your network. Everyone has the access they need to the resources they use, whether that’s in Microsoft 365, Exchange, Google Workspace, or any of the other systems Salamander integrates with. 

We set it all up for you and manage the installation – leaving you free to concentrate on other important tasks. Every aspect is configurable, allowing you to have a truly bespoke set-up without spending days writing your own scripts or being limited by what other systems allow you to do.

Talk to a member of our team today to find out how we can support your school or trust.