Choosing the most suitable school management system for your school can be tricky.

With varying needs, schools are advised to consider the following factors before deciding on a digital partner to help change the way they operate.

Factors to Consider

We’ve listed down 3 factors we believe schools should strongly consider as a team before making this life-changing decision. While there may be other factors such as cost, parents’ support and features that you would like but not included, these are the main factors that play an important role in decision-making.

1. Available features

What are the features offered in the school management system? Does it cater to your daily needs? Will it make a negative or positive impact on your teachers’ routine?

We tailored some of the few important features that a school management system must have to help make a positive change in your school.

• Digital attendance: Manual attendance-taking can not only take up plenty of time, but it also involves tonnes of printing required that costs you money in the long run. Thus, with a digital attendance feature in the school management system such as Little Check In, schools can capture attendance, temperature and visual health check all in one single platform, and record staff and visitors’ attendance as well.
• Parent communication: Key in running a successful school is to ensure parents are happy. With a strong home-and-school partnership, parents can entrust their children under your care. A parent app, such as the Little Family Room offered by LittleLives consist of regular progress updates, health records, e-billing, attendance notifications, and have an accessible and secured communication platform.
• Portfolio feature: Parents want to stay updated with their child’s progress, and an optimal school management system must have a Portfolio feature for schools to easily share students’ progress whether it’s through media or an evaluation checklist. LittleLives provides an integrated Portfolio feature that allows teachers to do just that via the LittleLives app, saving plenty of time and increasing their efficiency.

2. Needs of school

Not every school requires the same features so it is important to identify your needs first. Use these questions to help you understand your needs better:

• Is it easy to use? Is it easy to learn?
• Is it reliable? Does it have a lot of technical problems? Will it crash when you need it?
• Does it have the features that your school needs?
• Does it make the school day easier for your teachers? For your students? For your administrators? For yourself?
• What is customer support like? Is it immediate? Are the staff helpful and pleasant?

Choosing a school management software can be a difficult task. You will be investing time, money, and effort in transitioning your school to a new operating system. As a result, it's critical to understand what you're getting yourself into. Ask lots of questions to ensure you're getting the best deal!

3. Strong Support & Training

While it may sound easy to adopt a school management system, schools should take note that it requires patience, time and effort to learn and adapt to such a big change. 

Thus, the company that you choose should have a strong support and training team that can help you make the transition easier. Not only will you change the way you operate, but teachers will also change the way they perform their daily tasks (excluding teaching, because they know what’s best).

A good company to refer to is LittleLives, where providing customer support and success is something they take pride in. Once the school is onboard, Customer Success personnels (or Angels, in LittleLives) will conduct several training sessions for the respective stakeholders in the school, from Owners and Principals, to Administrators and then Teachers. Their goal is to ensure that the school is well-equipped with the school management system and integrate it well into their daily lives. While schools may face difficulties, the LittleLives’ Angels are there to support and answer any questions they may have.

LittleLives is also constantly in trend with its development of features and products. For example, when COVID-19 first hit Asia and a global pandemic happened, LittleLives quickly modified their features to suit learning at home and assist schools in operating virtually from home. When schools are allowed to open in phases, LittleLives enhanced their Little Visitor feature to include a travel declaration to keep themselves safe. 

While there are plenty of school management systems available, we highly recommend LittleLives with over 1,500 schools using it in over 10 countries. Get signed up here.