Switching MIS step by step: a plan for the school year
Switching MIS is a project for most of a school year, not a weekend job. When to move around the census dates, what the DPIA and the data cleanse involve, what the CTF does and does not carry, who does what, how long to run both systems — and how to tell that the move worked.
Switching MIS means moving what a school's management information system holds — pupil and contact records, the attendance register, assessment, the data behind the census returns — into another supplier's system. Plan for most of a school year. In short: decide in the autumn, while your contract leaves time; finish the DPIA and the data processing agreement before real data moves; clean the data; agree in writing with both suppliers what will be migrated; go live just after a census return, never in the weeks before a census day; get one daily task working first, then bring in parents, then the rest. Keep read-only access to the old system until you are sure.
Choosing the system is covered in Choosing a school management system. Up front: Bildena produces no DfE census returns or common transfer files, so a state school in England runs it beside an MIS, not instead of one.
Switching MIS: the seven phases at a glance
- Decide and tell people: leaders, staff, governors or the trust.
- Data protection: the DPIA and the contract.
- Data cleanse: duplicates, leavers, contacts, names.
- Migration: what moves, what is archived, what the CTF is for.
- One daily task first: register, absences, cover.
- Parents: logins, messages, consents.
- The rest: assessment, admissions, exams, payments.
When to switch: the census dates and the school year
In England the census sets the calendar. The DfE's dates for 2026/27:
- Autumn: Thursday 1 October 2026, return by Wednesday 28 October.
- Spring: Thursday 21 January 2027, return by Wednesday 10 February.
- Summer: Thursday 20 May 2027, return by Wednesday 16 June.
The school workforce census follows on Thursday 5 November 2026; registered independent schools complete the school-level annual school census instead. Since 2024/25 most state-funded schools must also share daily attendance data with the DfE, for compatible systems through Wonde: check that the new MIS is on the DfE's list. And check your contract's notice period; the DfE's Core Principles for school MIS procurement (July 2026) ask suppliers to write at least six months before a contract expires.
The safest go-live dates fall just after a return:
- February half-term or Easter: the summer census is the first from the new system, and the next year is built in it from the start.
- The summer holiday: a clean start, but the autumn census comes a few weeks into the busiest term.
Keep go-live away from the fortnight before a census day, exam season and report deadlines. More in The MIS and the school census.
Phase 1: Decide, and tell staff and governors
Start with an inventory, not a demo: which data lives where, who keeps it, where the same fact is typed twice. While the old way still runs, measure two or three baselines: minutes on morning cover, absence calls before 9am, days to collect trip consents. Governors or the trust need the decision, cost and risks; staff need to know what changes for them and when; the data manager and the office belong in the project from the first meeting. Bildena is new on the market and has no reference schools to name yet, so a trial with your own processes matters all the more.
Phase 2: Data protection and the DPIA
An MIS holds children's data, some of it special category, such as medical information. The DfE tells schools to complete a DPIA when processing is “likely to result in a high risk to the rights and freedoms of individuals”, “as early as possible”, with the DPO's advice; its MIS example disables optional fields the school does not need. Before real pupil data moves, complete the DPIA, check the data processing agreement (security, sub-processors, deletion and return of data, breach notification, staff access), have the supplier walk you through the data flows, and update privacy notices.
In Bildena the data processing agreement (Article 28 GDPR, under German law) is agreed at sign-up; a data-protection pack for your DPO (in German today) is available on request, and data is hosted in German data centres. Fields you do not need — health note, support plan, religion, home languages, photo — can be switched off: hidden, refused on entry and import, stored values deletable. AI stays off until the school switches it on, and a record history shows who changed a record and when.
Phase 3: Clean the data before it moves
A migration copies mistakes as faithfully as facts. In the old system, where staff know the screens, fix:
- Duplicates: one parent entered twice for two siblings.
- Leavers never taken off roll with a leaving date.
- Contacts: priority order, parental responsibility, separated parents with two addresses.
- Names: one spelling per class and group (“9A” and “9-A” are two classes to any system).
- Custom fields nobody uses: retire them rather than migrate them.
Phase 4: Migration — what the CTF does, and what really transfers
The common transfer file is not a migration tool. The DfE's CTF 26 specification calls it the format for sending “common transfer information” to the next school when a pupil leaves. It carries pupil identifiers and thirteen containers: basic details, FSM history, Wales details, looked after, transient child, SEN history, address, phones, email, contacts, attendance, stage assessments, school history. None covers behaviour, the timetable, staff, letters or payments.
The new supplier usually migrates from the old system's database or exports. Get it in writing: what moves, how many years of history, what is archived, what is lost — naming behaviour, SEND documents, staff records and permissions. The Core Principles ask that school data be available “at any time, including during any exit period, for no additional cost”, in a “migration-ready, machine-readable format”. Do a trial migration into a test copy, check it against the old system's reports (numbers on roll, attendance, SEN counts), then run the final one.
In Bildena records arrive from Excel or CSV — subjects, staff, classes, rooms, pupils, parents and carers — from its template or your own export, columns matched on screen; a preview shows what will be created, and nothing is written until you confirm. Timetables come from aSc TimeTables (XML) and Untis (XML or DIF); the other formats it reads belong to German school programs. It reads neither a CTF nor any English MIS's own format.
Phase 5: Start with one daily task that saves time
An MIS moves on one day: records and register switch over together. What you can stage is how the school starts using it. Pick the task that costs time every morning — absence calls, the register, cover — and make it work first: a small group a week ahead, then everyone. Keep parallel running short: a few days, one named person comparing totals, then stop; give every old spreadsheet an end date. Train by role, not by module — what the office does at 8.30am, what a form tutor does at registration — in short sessions the week before go-live.
In Bildena cover starts from staff absences: for every uncovered lesson it suggests free teachers, with a reason for each. Once the plan is published, each teacher sees their own changes and families those for their child's class — never the reason for the absence. A school keeping its MIS can have timetable and cover on their own in Bildena Scheduler, which exports the timetable as aSc or Untis files; ask your MIS supplier whether it imports one.
Phase 6: Parents
Parents use a login when it lets them act: report an absence, give consent, book a meeting. Invite them once those processes work in school — new-intake evenings are a natural moment — and keep paper or email for families who do not join.
In Bildena school leaders or the office invite parents and carers: one login per parent, several children in one account. It runs in the browser, also on a smartphone: report an absence (it appears at once in the child's absences), answer letters and consents, message the office or teachers, book parents' evening slots. The parents list shows who has joined. Logins cost nothing extra.
Phase 7: Then the rest
Each before its first deadline: assessment and reports at the start of a term, with one test run; admissions before the next round; exams with the exams officer, checking how entries reach the awarding bodies; payments at the start of a billing period. In Bildena School assessment, reports, admissions and payments are in the one price, switched on when you are ready. Bildena does not exchange exam entries or results with awarding bodies.
A timeline across the school year
An example for a school starting now.
| When | Phase | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| October–November 2026 | 1 Decide | Inventory, baselines, demos; governors and staff told; contract notice checked. |
| November–December | 2 Data protection | DPIA, data processing agreement, migration list agreed. |
| December–January | 3 Cleanse | Cleanse; trial migration. Spring census (21 January) from the old system. |
| After 10 February | 4 Migration | Final migration and go-live at February half-term or Easter; old system read-only. |
| Spring into summer | 5 Daily task | Register, absences, cover; training; parallel running ends. |
| Summer term | 6 Parents | Parents invited. Summer census (20 May), the first from the new system. |
| From the summer holiday | 7 The rest | New year built in the new system; assessment, admissions, payments. |
Who does what
- Headteacher or senior leader: sponsor; decides the order and when old lists end.
- Project lead: often the school business manager, with protected time.
- Data manager: cleanse, migration checks, census.
- Office, timetabler, exams officer, SENCO, DSL: their data and connected systems.
- IT and the DPO: logins, integrations, the DPIA.
- Governors or the trust: decision and budget.
In Bildena the daily jobs map onto built-in roles (school management, front office, class teacher, cover planner, IT administrator and more). School management or IT set which screens each role may view or edit, and the server enforces it: a form tutor sees their class, the office the whole school, a parent their own children. Staff can also sign in with their Google or Microsoft account.
Typical mistakes
- Treating the CTF as the migration: it serves a pupil changing school, not a school changing software.
- Migrating unchecked data: the duplicates move too.
- Forgetting what was connected: attendance sharing, payments, catering, safeguarding, visitor sign-in.
- Not planning the next exit: ask what you get back, in which format, and when it is deleted.
For Bildena: pupils, parents and carers, staff, classes, subjects and rooms export as Excel or CSV; timetables as Excel, PDF, aSc or Untis files. If a school asks for its data to be deleted, it can still be restored for 30 days; then the data is deleted, with a certificate, and 14 days later the backups are gone too.
How to measure that it worked
After a term and a year, compare with the baselines: spreadsheets still kept beside the system; minutes on morning absences and cover; errors and queries on the first census return from the new system against the last from the old; days until every consent is in; the share of parents using their login; a short staff survey.
A note for US schools
In the United States this is usually an SIS migration, and your state's reporting windows replace the census dates; the phases stay the same. See Bildena School for US schools.
Frequently asked questions
How long does switching MIS take?
Most of a school year: a few months to decide and sign, a few for the cleanse and trial migration, then a term to settle.
When is the best time of year to switch MIS?
Just after a census return, with weeks before the next census day: February half-term or Easter, or the summer holiday if you can handle the autumn census a few weeks later.
Will the CTF move our data to the new MIS?
No. The CTF sends a pupil's information to the next school when the pupil leaves; your migration is agreed in writing with both suppliers.
Can Bildena replace our MIS?
Not for a state school in England: it produces no census returns or CTFs and is not connected to the DfE's daily attendance collection. It can run beside your MIS, with records imported from an Excel or CSV export; there is no automatic link, and a later import only adds what is missing. An independent school, which does not complete the pupil-level census, or an international school outside the UK can run its administration in Bildena School, after a trial with its own processes.
Bildena School costs €5 per pupil a year, at least €1,000 a school, invoiced in euros, plus VAT where it applies: prices for UK schools. In the free month you try every module with a sample school, then with your own data. No card needed.
