Questions schools ask before buying
The key information you need to find out before proceeding is listed below. No appointment or form filling required.
What it costs
How much is it?
One price per school per year, by size of roll: £299 for the smallest and £949 for the largest, plus VAT. Every band and what it typically covers is on the pricing page.
A trust is priced as one trust, not school by school. Tell us how many schools and we will give you a figure.
Do we pay for each member of staff?
No. There is no per-user charge and no cap on how many people you set up.
Attendance is everybody's business, and a system which charges per person often becomes one rationed to only select users. Under our pricing, the teachers who see pupils every day can access adsum without any financial barrier.
Is there a setup fee?
No. Setup, training and support are included in the annual price.
Can we try it on our own data first?
Yes, because using your own data rather than a demonstration school will show you the things you actually want to know.
Ask us on the contact page and we will set one up with you.
Getting your data in
Will it work with our MIS?
Yes. It reads the attendance reports your MIS already produces, and works out the columns for itself, so it is not tied to any one system.
If you are not sure which reports you need, we will show you.
How long does it take to set up?
About an hour the first time, most of it setting up the reports in your MIS. After that, each import is one file and one click.
Who can see what
How do staff sign in?
With the Microsoft or Google account they already use at school. There is no separate password to issue, forget or reset.
There is no email and password option, and that is deliberate. An issued password would be the weakest way into a system holding children's records.
Can governors see pupils' names?
No. Not on a screen and not in a report.
Governors get the figures, the comparisons and the trends, with no child identifiable in any of it. This format is built in rather than switched on, so no child details can be accidentally included.
What do teachers see?
That's up to you. Teachers can see their own classes or the whole school. You control the settings.
There is also a View as control, so you can see the product exactly as one of the other roles sees it. Deciding between Teacher and Senior leader for a colleague? Look at what each one actually gets, rather than read a description of it.
Data protection
Where is our data held?
In London. The database, the files and the backups are all in the United Kingdom.
Our email service is in the United States, and it carries notifications rather than anything about a pupil.
The privacy and data protection notice sets all of this out in full, including every sub-processor and what each one holds.
Do you have a DPIA and a data processing agreement?
Yes, and both are generated for your school inside the product rather than sent as a generic document. They are version stamped, printable, and the agreement's annexes are produced from the same source as the assessment so the two cannot drift apart.
You can read both before you upload anything.
What happens to our data if we stop using it?
It is deleted 90 days after the contract ends. That period exists so a school that leaves and changes its mind has a way back, and so that an accidental cancellation is not immediately irreversible.
You can also have a single pupil erased at any time, which removes them from every table rather than hiding them from the screens.
Support
What support do we get?
Access to the iCT4 Limited helpdesk, by telephone and email. A real person in Cornwall who knows the product, and who can look at it with you if that is easier.
Support and training are included in the annual price. There is no support tier to buy.
Why is it called adsum?
Adsum is Latin for “I am here”: the word a child answered with when a teacher read the register aloud, one name at a time.
Attendance is not really a percentage. It is a series of individual answers, and the job is knowing which of them went unsaid.
Who is behind it?
adsum is made by iCT4 Limited. We have looked after school MIS and IT in the South West since 2012. The same team was doing that work for the local authority from 2005. Twenty years in school offices rather than in front of them.
It was built with attendance leads rather than for them, which is why the screens are shaped like the questions they actually get asked.
Something not answered here?
Send us the question and we will answer it properly, usually the same day.
Ask us your question