Member Article

Gateshead-based Mesma awarded 'intelligent' software contract

Mesma has won a contract to supply its North East-developed self-assessment and improvement planning software to the FE arm of a Surrey council.

Waverley Training Services, which employs 20 people at its Farnham office in Surrey, will be using the Mesma’s expertise after awarding the Gateshead-based company a contract for its ‘intelligent’ software.

The training provider offers a range of adult education and training courses, so the adoption of Mesma will enable its four strong senior management team to improve and record its actions in readiness for future Ofsted inspections.

Mesma is an adaptable, versatile and cost effective web-based resource, which enables important areas of the self-assessment process and the associated improvement plan activities to be allocated to authorised people within any education institute. Its key purpose is to drive accountability to improve educational provision for students and learners.

Pat Pryke, training manager at Waverley, is working closely with the software developer to build the functionality of the system and has been providing feedback since the start on how to develop the system’s capabilities to best meet their needs.

She said that the team was already benefitting from Mesma since its introduction in March this year, and sees it as a valuable management aid, offering a flexible and cost effective resource.

“We have only been using Mesma for a few months and are still populating it. However, we can already see significant improvements.

“Allowing more then one person to enter information is a bonus as it helps us to keep a clear record of where we are and what we need to improve on with a focus on developments that directly impact on the learner.

“We feel it has definitely improved our readiness for inspection, while it is a more transparent solution for our staff, who can see easily what areas need improving and why.”

Using Mesma, relevant reports, policy documents, quality assurance processes and guidelines and other important documentation can all be stored online in one place within the system for quick and convenient access and reference from any location. The system can also monitor activities allocated to other staff to track progress and completion.

Louise Doyle, Mesma director said: “It is exciting for us to continue to expand our local government client base. So far this has been in support of further education provision however Mesma’s capability is also of enormous value to school improvement teams.

“It allows them to see all school self evaluations and development plans in one place, helping them to quickly identify where schools may need further support to improve the quality of education for children.

“We look forward to being able to work with local governments in this way over the coming academic year as a new Ofsted Common Inspection Framework is introduced.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ellen Forster .