Question 1

Why Bede's chose Involve

Accepted Answer

When a new deputy head joined Bede's, they counted 17 systems staff needed to learn. By the time the school adopted Involve, that number had grown to 26. Sachin Choithramani explains why adding another platform still made sense: the longer-term goal was to simplify how staff find student information and how parents interact with the school.

Bede's planned to keep iSAMS as its underlying database while exploring which other systems Involve could replace. Sachin illustrates the need with a familiar classroom question: when a student is missing from a lesson, how quickly can a teacher establish whether they are at an appointment, on a trip, at a fixture or somewhere unexpected?

“The ambition is what systems could drop away if we used Involve Education as the single platform.” (Sachin Choithramani)

Question 2

Replacing separate systems, one step at a time

Accepted Answer

Bede's began by asking whether Involve could replace My School Portal without making the parent experience worse. The school also identified parents' evenings and seating plans as functions it could bring into Involve.

Sachin discusses what remains under review. Bede's is experimenting with moving sport and activity scheduling away from SOCS. It has open questions about whether Involve can replace the specialist risk-management support it uses for residential trips and how it might serve the prep school's use of Classlist. The aim is to reduce separate systems where doing so genuinely improves the experience, not to claim that one platform already does everything.

“Straight away three systems went out the exit door for us.” (Sachin Choithramani)

Question 3

Launching with exam results

Accepted Answer

Bede's first major parent-facing use of Involve was exam results day, a high-stakes starting point dictated by the end of its previous portal contract. Sachin describes the preparation involved, including the complexities of BTEC result slips and the need to release information at the right time.

The Involve team worked with the school beforehand and was on standby on results day. Sachin says students received their results without complaints. That experience helped build the school's confidence in the new platform.

“There were no complaints. It just worked seamlessly as it needed to. Children saw their results.” (Sachin Choithramani)

Question 4

Registers, student information and seating plans

Accepted Answer

Sachin walks through features Bede's staff use during the school day. The register gives teachers a visual view of attendance and can show another place a student is expected to be, such as a fixture. That helps staff distinguish between a student who is accounted for elsewhere and one whose absence needs following up.

Bede's has also created custom indicators for information staff may need at a glance, including medical needs, SEND, welfare levels and exam access arrangements. Teachers can open those indicators for more detail. They also appear in seating plans, where staff can take the register directly. Sachin describes this as a way to make relevant information available at the point of use, rather than requiring teachers to search across systems.

“It's really put that information front and center to the staff when they actually need it as opposed to having to go hunt for it.” (Sachin Choithramani)

Question 5

Giving parents a fuller picture of school life

Accepted Answer

Sachin sees an opportunity beyond helping staff account for students: showing parents more of what happens during a school day. Lessons alone do not capture assemblies, talks, fixtures, music lessons or support sessions, and students may not mention those experiences at home.

He describes how bringing those activities into one timeline could give families a clearer view of their child's day and the broader experience the school provides.

“That really does communicate the value of what education you're providing their children.” (Sachin Choithramani)

Question 6

Q&A: Product development, integrations and implementation

Accepted Answer

Attendees put practical questions to Sachin and the Involve team:

• Will Involve keep listening as it grows? Edward Davies asks whether development-partner access is open to other schools and whether the team can remain responsive at scale. Sachin describes Bede's experience of requesting improvements, including Involve observing its exams process. The Involve team explains that it expects to focus on each school's most important problem as the customer base grows.
• How does it work with existing tools? The group discusses Microsoft Teams, Outlook calendar feeds, analytics, Power BI and data exports. Sachin explains that Bede's currently writes reports in iSAMS, produces branded PDFs externally and delivers the finished reports to parents through Involve.
• What can staff do on phones? Sachin describes taking registers and recording behaviour in the moment. For voluntary activities, he explains options including adding students as they arrive, registering those who signed up and using QR codes.
• How should schools introduce it to parents? Harriet shares her school's first-term experience. Sachin explains why Bede's introduces features when parents need them rather than announcing everything at once. He also discusses why its prep and senior schools handle parent-reported absences differently.
• What should schools plan before implementation? The discussion covers security questions for IT teams and Sachin's advice to map precisely what syncs between Involve and the MIS. David Todd adds his perspective after nearly two years of using Involve.

“I like the fact that not many schools are on Involve at the moment, but I'd really like to market this as part of our USP at Bede's: that this is the service you will get, this is what you'll find out, this is how you'll be able to interact. And we're asking Involve to think about how we can share with parents how we specifically, as a school, are doing it, because now we're relying on, you know, the deputy head's child or the bursar's child, or some data that we're willing to put up there. And we kind of need to find a way to share with parents that, when you sign up to a school like ours, this is the interaction and service you get, because, again, we all know it's a tough market out there, and we're trying to show parents the service we're providing.” (Sachin Choithramani)

Involve Discovery Session with Bede's School

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