A school’s main priority is to provide the best quality education and care for its students. It only makes sense if the school adopts a school management system to streamline its daily operations and administrative tasks – admin work, parent communication, enrolment and student data management.

What are some of the key points schools should look out for when deciding on the best digital school system to help them run their schools more efficiently?

What is a School Management Software?

The primary role of a school management system is to reduce the school's manual operations and make school life easier. It automates processes and has a variety of features to complement the school’s day to day operations.

It can also:

• Automate recurring tasks e.g. attendance taking and generating fees
• Digitally storing school data, making it easier to access and more secure

While most schools are already adopting technology such as Excel, Google Classrooms and shared drives, a school management system such as LittleLives, is designed specially to help schools run smarter that caters to the school’s daily needs.

Top Features in School Management Software

Plenty of school management softwares aim to assist multiple school operations: class-related, staff management, finance, and data management. 

Additional features such as training and managing your teacher’s progression, community reach out and providing a bulk of resources are extremely beneficial for schools today.

Classroom Management

• Attendance-taking: digital attendance-taking, monthly/weekly attendance reports, daily health check feature (e.g. option for logging temperature and symptoms)
• Portfolio: automated portfolio generation, portal for teachers to record student observations and share them in one integrated platform
• Daily Logs: on-the-go recording of school incidents for future reference and for the reference of other teachers
• Events & Bulletin: to display upcoming events and notices to parents

• Fee generation for parents: automated invoices and receipts sent to parents
• Secure digital transactions: digital records of all transactions and outstanding fees
• Finance Reports: accessible  financial reports generated from school transactions recorded

Parent Communications

• Parents' platform: parent log-in that allows them to view student progress/information, and outstanding fees independently
• Parent-school communication portal: records of all communication between school and parent, secure communication channel to facilitate exchange of sensitive information

Why Consider Adopting a School Management System?

While a high-tech system is great, a school management system that fits your needs is more important. Take these questions into consideration when deciding to adapt to a digital system.

• 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 daunting. You will be investing time, money, and effort shifting your school over to a different way of operating. So, it's important to know what you're getting into. Ask a lot of questions and make sure that you're getting the best deal!

Read more: Benefits of a Cloud-Based School Management System

Factors that schools should consider as well:

• • Accessible anywhere, from any device, at any given time
  • Able to handle huge amounts of data for storage
  • Secured and has backup in case of emergency
  • Scaleable and following the ongoing trends e.g. teaching from home, learning at home, etc.
  • Inexpensive and caters specifically to your daily needs

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!

Check out LittleLives to start transforming your school to a smart school!