Theory3. Characteristics of school administration systems
Any organisation needs to have a system in place to store details of employees. This may be just a paper-based index card system to store their details or a full-scale database system.
Schools are particularly difficult because the school population is constantly changing, as young students arrive and older students move on.
The administration system need to keep track of thousands of changing details and must always be up to date.
Schools use a computerised database system to handle this task.
Characteristics
The system must be able to store important details about each student. These include
| Stores | Such as |
|---|---|
| Personal details | - Name, address, date of birth - Medical problems the school needs to be aware of e.g. diabetes, allergies etc - Doctor name and address - Emergency contact details - Parent \ Guardian contact information such as email address and mobile number, contact address(es) for school letters and reports - Religion, to help accommodate their particular requirements |
| Record of attendance | - May be collected automatically when each student uses a Student ID swipe card to record attendance or sometimes a fingerprint recognition system is used. - Attendance may be recorded on a paper form filled out by the teacher who then feeds it into an OMR (Optical Mark Reader) to upload daily attendance records into the system - Systems may send an automated email or SMS message to parent if the student is absent |
| Statistics of attendance | - Calculates average attendance of classes within the school over time - Records can be used to identify if a particular student has poor attendance and to track their attendance in the future - It can also be used to populate the annual school reports that are sent home to parents. |
| Timetable details | The system should be able to store details of every students’ and teachers’ timetable. Someone needs to know where a student or teacher is at any moment of the day, their location can be searched for in the system. |
| Record of Marks | - The administration system should be able to record details of students’ marks, perhaps from tests, projects, mock exams etc. - This data can be used by teachers to assess how well a student is progressing and to help identify students who are experiencing difficulties with a course. |
challenge see if you can find out one extra fact on this topic that we haven't already told you
Click on this link: School Administration Systems