Loughton Manor First School: Q&A on Transforming Payroll & Parental Engagement with IRIS
Products used:
Located in Milton Keynes, Loughton Manor First School is a primary school serving over 200 pupils. With a mission to build “a lifelong love of learning in a safe and happy school”, the team understands the importance of reliable, efficient back‑office systems to support that vision.
We completed a case study with Loughton Manor just over a year ago, and recently checked in with them to see how things are going with IRIS Payroll Services and IRIS ParentMail. Since moving away from a previous payroll provider, they’ve continued to enjoy a smooth and stress‑free payroll experience, and their communication processes with parents have never been stronger. We caught up with Kim Rodwell, School Business Manager, to see how things are going a year on.
Answer
Before moving to IRIS Payroll Services, our payroll process was incredibly painful. With our previous provider, it often felt inconsistent, one month it worked, the next month it didn’t, and it created a lot of additional admin and anxiety. Since switching, it has been a complete transformation, and a lot of the pain we felt has gone. Every payroll run over the past 12 months has been processed seamlessly, our workflow with our payroll advisor is running perfectly.
Answer
IRIS Payroll Services is an absolute dream. Our payroll advisor has taken every bit of pain out of the process, and we now have an incredibly slick, reliable process. Staff are paid correctly and on time, every time. It’s honestly the best decision we made.
Answer
I would say he is my hero! He genuinely goes the extra mile for our team, and we will always be grateful. The difference he has made to our payroll experience has been huge.
Answer
ParentMail continues to be fantastic for us. We’re really conscious of how much communication parents receive from school, especially those with children in multiple settings. A lot of us in the team are parents ourselves, so we get it! ParentMail helps us send the right messages to the right parents, and we clearly mark when something is urgent, so that parents don’t feel bombarded by spam. We now have 99% of parents receiving SMS, 96% receiving email, and we send no paper communications home at all.
Answer
Parents Evening Manager is genuinely one of our favourite features. We just love how easy it makes the whole booking process. It has completely removed the burden from teachers and they are so grateful!
It used to take weeks to manage appointments manually using paper. Now it’s a simple, online process and the software does most of the admin work for us. We LOVE it.
Moving was the best decision we made, and I couldn’t recommend it enough.
Answer
Yes, we are really excited to be upgrading to the new version of ParentMail. The demos look brilliant, and the layout looks familiar enough that parents won’t struggle to get their heads around it. We can’t wait to get started.
Answer
Absolutely! ParentMail works perfectly for our needs, whether that’s sending communications, booking parents evening or collecting payments, and we can’t wait for the upgrade! As for payroll, we’ve experience what it’s like to have a poor provider, which is why I will shout from the rooftops about IRIS Payroll Services. As I said above, moving was the best decision we made, and I couldn’t recommend it enough.
Related Resources
Blog Article
From pressure to performance: what school and trust leaders need to know about workforce and procurement
The pressures facing finance and operations leaders across schools and trusts right now is high. Budgets are tighter, expectations are higher, and the day-to-day demands leave little room to step...
Case Study
Every HR makes an invaluable impact at The Grammar School at Leeds
The Grammar School at Leeds (GSAL) is a leading co-educational independent school for pupils aged 3 to 18. Named the North Independent School of the Year 2024, the school is...
Case Study
Learning Academy Partnership makes time count with IRIS Financials
As multi-academy trusts continue to grow and evolve, the systems that support them must be able to keep pace. For finance teams, this means having software that is not only...