The MIS transition starts with the contract you already have

01 / Establish the contract facts

Establish the contract facts

Locate the signed agreement, amendments and any relevant extension terms. Record expiry, notice periods, who can authorise a change and what associated services are covered. A renewal email may not describe the whole contractual position. The trust should know whether several schools hold separate agreements and whether linked tools rely on the same contract or a different one.

Bring procurement, finance, school administration, safeguarding and digital responsibilities into the review. Each may know a dependency that the others do not. Keep the work focused: the first output is an accurate contract map with a decision timetable, not a full technology strategy. If dates or terms are uncertain, clarify them before approving an extension. An apparently convenient renewal can constrain the later transition and leave the trust explaining why a preventable delay has occurred.

02 / Distinguish expiry before and after launch

Distinguish expiry before and after launch

The handbook limits extensions for contracts expiring before the framework launches and requires the core principles where a new contract is procured in that period. It also says extension options must not delay transition for contracts running beyond launch. These are different circumstances, so a trust-wide instruction to renew everything for the same period could be inappropriate.1

For each agreement, set out the applicable situation and the proposed next step. State which dates depend on the planned launch and when they will be checked. Do not assume the national timetable can never change. Equally, uncertainty is not a reason to ignore the current requirement. A clear decision paper can preserve the distinction between the rule now in force, the planned framework date and the trust’s practical implementation assumptions.

03 / Map the information that must survive change

Map the information that must survive change

The operational risk is not confined to whether records transfer. Schools need to know which information is essential, how its accuracy will be checked and who can authorise access. Include attendance processes, safeguarding interfaces, statutory reporting and historical records where applicable. Avoid treating every old field as equally valuable, but do not delete or migrate sensitive information casually.

Ask the data protection lead and system owners to establish the relevant retention and access requirements. Identify which linked processes would be disrupted if the system were unavailable. The article does not prescribe a particular technical migration method. Its recommendation is that the trust should understand its information responsibilities before selecting an approach. A change that preserves data but leaves staff unable to find or interpret it can still damage school operations.

04 / Give implementation a realistic school calendar

Give implementation a realistic school calendar

A procurement timetable and a school implementation timetable are not the same thing. Training, testing, data validation and changed routines need time around examinations, reporting and term transitions. Identify the staff who will carry the work and how their ordinary responsibilities will be covered. A project plan that assigns the same administrator to every critical task may be fragile even if the dates look plausible.

Distinguish essential functions from improvements that can wait. The first priority is reliable daily operation and accurate information. Adding many new workflows during a transition can make it harder to identify the cause of problems. Agree the minimum conditions for a safe move and a route for resolving issues. School leaders should be able to explain what happens if testing reveals that a key function is not ready, rather than assume the project must proceed because a date has been announced.

05 / Make the governing decision about resilience

Make the governing decision about resilience

Trustees should receive a paper that connects contract compliance with operational continuity and full cost. Include preparation, staff time, training, data work and any overlap that the plan requires. A headline contract price does not capture the entire consequence of changing a system. Nor does a familiar system eliminate the need to test whether its arrangements remain appropriate.

Avoid framing the discussion as loyalty to one commercial product or enthusiasm for another. The relevant questions are whether the route meets the handbook, whether the information and operational risks are understood, and whether the trust can deliver the change. This supplier-neutral approach also makes scrutiny more useful: governors can challenge assumptions without needing to compare marketing claims. Where professional advice is needed, define the question it must answer and retain the reasoning that informs the final decision.

Include communication with families where a change affects their access or routine contact with the school. Identify what they need to know, when and how support will be available. Avoid announcing a new process before staff can explain it and the essential functions have been checked. The trust’s implementation success depends partly on ordinary users being able to complete their tasks. That includes families whose access, language or confidence may differ from the assumptions in the project plan.

06 / Begin with a bounded autumn task

Begin with a bounded autumn task

Before the end of this half term, produce the contract map and identify decisions due within the next year. Check the current DfE position on the framework and core principles. Allocate one coordinating owner, with explicit contributions from school operations and information governance. Then schedule the next decision gate, rather than launch an uncontrolled replacement project across all schools at once.

The practical benefit is time. Early knowledge of expiry and dependencies gives leaders room to choose, test and communicate. Late knowledge compresses those tasks into the period when staff are already under pressure. The October lesson is that a framework planned for next September is already relevant to today’s extension decision. A trustworthy transition begins when the trust can explain its existing commitments and the conditions required to change them safely.

Leadership questions

Questions that turn the development into a governing conversation.

What we are monitoring next

Publication is the beginning of the watch.

• Framework launch confirmation, core-principle clarification and the relationship between procurement and school implementation timetables.

Continue the evidence trail

How this develops our earlier coverage

• A trust-wide account of digital readiness ↗