Schools are first and foremost a place of learning, their whole reason for existence is to educate and train young minds to prepare them for the next stages in their lives and to be able to become contributing members of society.
However, what is not seen by many is the amount of work that goes into running a school and a class. There is so much to it than what everyone thinks it is, there are individual classes, learning objectives, lesson plans, learning materials, instructional strategies, learning assessments, grades, exams and assignments and classroom management, attendance, and the like. Then there is the management of the school itself, the scheduling of classes, teachers, rooms, facilities, hiring of new teachers, training of teachers, changes in the curriculum and state requirements, monitoring teachers, attendance, conduct, and discipline. None of this is acknowledged by people outside the school, instead, the school is judged in terms of its student outcomes, graduation rates, enrollment rates, student drop-outs, and the like.
As a school administrator, if you could at least lessen the work needed in any of these then it will make work more manageable, and teachers can focus on their teaching rather than have to spend all their energies on paperwork.
Fortunately, there is now a way to help administrators manage their schools efficiently and effectively, a cloud-based school management system is the answer. This computer program makes teachers focus on their roles as teachers and administrators in managing those that are vital to the management of the school. It would also help lessen the need for additional support staff that often the school does not have the budget to hire. It is a cost-effective solution to the myriad of concerns involved in the running of the school daily. It will help the school develop more programs that would enrich the students’ learning and be able to provide the support students need to get the most out of their education and achieve their goals. Parents do not put much thought into how the school is run as they only expect to send their children to go to class and pick them up at the end of the day, but with an integrated school management system, all stakeholders will benefit from it.
What is a school management system?
The many wonders of technology have led to the proliferation of computer programs or what is now referred to as applications that have been programmed to automate tasks that it has been designed to accomplish.
For example, there are school management systems that contain lesson plans which teachers can use or modify and enhance to suit the learning ability of their students. Some may have features like an integrated attendance portal, where students, teachers, staff, and administrators can log in their attendance and it will provide you with daily, weekly and monthly reports to help identify those who have been chronically absent from school. Some keep track of resources and monitor where it was used or last accessed.
However, the shift to distance learning in the past two years has glaringly made us rethink the modality in which learning is delivered. It also made us realize that the current school management systems were not able to address the needs of teachers and learners in an online class set-up. Thus, developers have been quick to provide the solution to this issue and came up with a new school management system that is best for distance and online learning.
It is interactive and allows teachers to use the predeveloped lesson plans, instructional materials, presentations, and other multimedia resources to help students learn even if they only have online classes. The lessons and activities are engaging and build on skills to equip students to be able to accomplish the succeeding tasks. The lessons have been developed by education experts and are appropriate for each grade level, the teachers can assign them tasks and students can work on them at their own pace or in a given period. Teachers are available for consultation and will coach students on how to do the tasks. Moreover, the new system also has a grade book which makes it easier for teachers to keep track of the progress of the students and alerts them if tasks have not been submitted on time or not.
The system is also set up in a way that teachers can grade students’ work easily by inputting the scoring key for each task. It is also able to compute the grades so that teachers can focus more on facilitating students’ learning.
Where to find school management systems?
The need for an updated school management system that was appropriate for the needs of distance learning has made it possible for the development of affordable and effective systems. There are now a lot of systems that you can choose from, and sometimes it can be confusing figuring out which is the best one for your school. A great option to explore is the newer companies that have developed functional systems but are lightweight and cloud-based as they can offer a more competitive price and will be more responsive to your requests and need for assistance.
At the same time, they can oversee the installation and the migration of your present system to the new one in a matter of hours and it will be ready to use. It also allows access for students and teachers and will help them establish the routine and delivery of the lessons. You can find them in the online market, and some will gladly give you a free trial for a limited time so you could test out their system. These systems are mostly user-friendly and will not require intensive training to be able to use them.
Also, the school will not have to invest in new hardware or computers since it is cloud-based, the only concern will be the internet bandwidth but this is a different concern from the school management system itself. In choosing which system to purchase and use in your school, the only way to find out is to meet up with the different vendors and developers and find the one that you can best work with as well as having more value for your money.
