Edvolve

Who it’s for: School leaders, school business professionals, IT and digital leads, and anyone involved in choosing school technology

Subcategory: EdTech & School Technology

Schools rely on technology for an increasing number of everyday tasks, from attendance and communication to finance, reporting, forms and administration. With each system serving a particular purpose, it can be tempting to add another whenever a new need arises. The cost, however, is not always as straightforward as the price on the contract.

What does another system actually add?

Every new system brings its own login, settings, processes and information to manage, therefore, staff may need training, administrators may need to keep information updated in more than one place and school leaders may find themselves managing several suppliers for areas of the same school day. None of these costs necessarily appear on the original quote, but they still take time.

There can also be practical questions around how systems work together, for example: Can information be transferred easily? Do staff have to enter the same information more than once? Can parents and students access what they need without having to remember several different places? These are worth considering before another system is added to the list, as more features do not always mean a better solution.

When comparing technology, it is easy to focus on the features each product offers - a system may have everything on a specification list, but that does not necessarily tell you how it will work for the people using it every day. Schools should also consider how the different parts of the system work together, how much administration is involved and whether the technology supports the way the school actually operates.

For some schools, that may mean reducing the number of systems they use and for others, it may mean making sure the systems they already have can work alongside one another effectively.

What happens when you want to change?

The Department for Education advises schools procuring EdTech to ask suppliers about data portability, particularly in case they decide to change provider. Its guidance also recommends planning for the end of a contract, including how data will be returned, deleted and transferred, therefore, it's also worth thinking beyond the start of a contract.

For MIS procurement in England, the DfE's Core Principles updated in July 2026 go further, covering migration-ready, machine-readable data, API access, reasonable cooperation during migration and contract terms. The current principles include a maximum three-year contract term, although these specific principles apply to MIS procurement rather than all school technology. Data portability and interoperability therefore deserve consideration before a contract is signed, not when a school is already trying to leave.

What should schools consider?

A few things to think about before adding another system, which are worth asking:

• Does the school already have something that can do this?
• Will staff have another login and process to manage?
• Will information need to be entered more than once?
• Can the system work with the technology already in use?
• How easily can information be exported if circumstances change?
• What happens when the contract ends?
• What will the system cost in staff time as well as licence fees?

The answers may not always point towards having fewer systems, but they should help schools understand the real cost of the technology they choose.

Looking at the whole picture

Technology should earn its place in a school by doing something useful for the people who use it, without creating unnecessary work elsewhere.

That is one of the reasons Edvolve brings communication, administration and everyday school operations together within one platform, with features covering areas such as attendance, documents, forms, finance, activities, reporting, users and permissions. Data portability and interoperability are included within the design from the ground up.

For schools considering their technology choices, the question is not simply what a system costs or how many features it has. It is how well it works as part of the school day, what it asks staff to manage and how straightforward it will be if their needs change.