Marcus RichardsA school management software has become an essential part of every school nowadays. No doubt that it holds many important functions that ensure the smooth operation of the school management. Teachers, staff, administrators, and other external parties can easily collaborate through a centralized platform. But that’s not all. Integrated school management systems also make communication easier between teachers, parents and students.
Owing to the rapid growth in school management technology, the term school management software or system is now used to refer to a number of diverse tools and functions instead of a codified software product.
It would be impossible to capture the specific nature of the products in the market if we were to offer a framework of a usual school management system. Rather, it is a lot more feasible to first evaluate school management systems by understanding the parts which your school or educational institution would use to decide on what product is the most appropriate and suits your needs.
Below is a list of features representing the potential solutions school management systems provide. There may be other features that we fail to include here, but the list will give you a good idea of what you can get from the system. Everything is described in detail, so check it out.
Essential Features to Look for in a School Management Software
How does the functions of a school management system satisfy your needs over central administrative processes and tasks you seek to improve? More or less it’s the essential features that make it what it is. Below is a list of functionality that you might enjoy with your school management system.
1. Student Management
One of the most important features you should look for in a school management system is its ability to manage your student data online. This feature will help you to create student profiles easily and to get all the information you need in one place. This is necessary for organizing related administrative processes.
Among the information administrators and teachers will have at their disposal are contact details and students’ academic history. This information will be available whenever you need them and can be accessed wherever you are. Lastly, the system allows you to import a huge chunk of student data stored in other systems. This is done with the help of CSV files, to make the transition a lot easier.
Another important thing worth mentioning is that student management becomes a lot more effective with transparency and delegation. Many management systems have included a student portal as a standard feature.
2. Student Portal
Student portals give students access to important information, such as their grades, timetables, and homework. It’s like hitting two birds with one stone. This is not only a powerful administrative tool but it is also a way for students to be informed about matters that concern them. With the student portal, you free teachers and administrators from doing extra tasks, such as keeping students updated about their schedules and any changes that follow.
3. Curriculum Management
Another important feature worth considering when it comes to a school management system is the curriculum management or program management feature. It’s very important to have a tool that lets you build and share an online version of your curriculum system in cooperation with your teachers. With this online curriculum system, you’ll be able to structure your educational operations on it.
Many school management systems allow you to create Classes and Subjects within minutes. Then you group them together to form your curriculum, regardless of how complicated it is. After doing so, registered students can be enrolled in classes.
4. Timetable Management
Once you have students enrolled in Classes, all that’s left for you to do is to put your curriculum into use and set up your bell schedule.
With a good management system, you can easily put your lessons on the system’s online school calendar and share them with teachers and students. With a reliable scheduling feature, you’ll be able to create repeat and/or one-off lessons.
5. Attendance Management
The Attendance Management feature of most school management software works like a dream, because it allows teachers and administrators to take attendance in bulk. After that, they can review student attendance data online easily, at a later time.
6. Performance and Gradebooks
For schools that place high importance on performance, here’s a feature that you might find interesting. With this feature, you can easily create and manage online gradebooks for classes. In fact, besides gradebooks, it’s also possible to create student assessments. You can even have performance data instantly created for you. This information is ready to be shared with parents and students any time they need it.
7. Teacher Management
What is teacher management and how can you process it with the help of a school management software?
First, it’s important that you are able to create teacher profiles, the way it is also important to create student profiles. After you have all of your teachers’ data in one place, you can now assign them to classes.
8. Teacher Portal
Teachers must also be able to log in to their profiles with the information you give them. Now unlike the student portal, teachers are not only there to view data or information coming in. They also use the portal to perform administrative tasks such as taking attendance, creating lessons, creating gradebooks, and more.
9. Network Management
Although this is not a feature, it remains a necessary part of the school management system facility. It provides a centralized dashboard that manages more than one of the features mentioned above. It controls access to records, permissions, internal communication and documents. The scope of the dashboard varies depending on the system you use. But it can be narrowed down to simple user administration or as broad as to include every part of faculty data and student data management, such as prerequisite checking and health checks.
Conclusion
School management systems are changing and being upgraded day by day, and while the market is currently divided between a large number of developers introducing similar but specialized products, the need for this kind of software will only keep growing. And with this growth, school management systems will become even more targeted and all-inclusive until a true industry standard based on consumer needs shows up.
