When do you admit new intake?

[CyBeRkId2002]

Hi all,

 

We have a quick question regarding the admissions process. When do you actually admit students on to your school MIS. Historically we have waited until the first day of term and admitted them when we know they are in the building. This is a bit of a pain in that we need to do manual registers for the first day, the admission process comes at a time when we are already extremely busy with first day admin etc.

 

Is there any issue (legal or technical) in admitting during the summer holiday (with a start date of the first day of term) and deleting if they do not attend. We use Bromcom if that makes any difference.

[CAM]

All the guidance I have seen says to admit them only when they arrive on-site for their first day.

[thimon]

I believe it is a safeguarding issue. Staff have to physically see the students before they’re accepted. Otherwise they could be accepted on the system however be at another school depending on circumstance. It’s a pain for us as we use Salamander to create student accounts from SIMS, means any new student has to wait at least a day to get their logon details.

[David44]

Can't you just run the Salamander script manually?

[thimon]

We can do. However the process with Salamander means they have to be physically seen before they’re accepted in SIMS, sometimes this can take a while to be done. Not looking forward to the first few days back!

[markwilfan]

You can get salamander to create users from pre admissions. Just put a ticket in. That's how we create users for our y6 taster days

[thimon]

Ah cheers Mark! I’ll put that forward

[SpuffMonkey]

Never admit anything - deny all knowledge!

[FN-GM]

I believe it is a safeguarding issue. Staff have to physically see the students before they’re accepted. Otherwise they could be accepted on the system however be at another school depending on circumstance. It’s a pain for us as we use Salamander to create student accounts from SIMS, means any new student has to wait at least a day to get their logon details.

You can get the accounts created before admission. That's what we did with our Salamander.

[vikpaw]

Can’t you add them the day before? It’s usually a staff only day anyway isn’t it.

Otherwise you can add them on the day it should be a bulk process.

 

You would just need a way to capture the having seen them requirement but I’d have thought there would be some kind of new starter registration / induction which may have to be done with a manual list but that could quickly be fed to the admission person. A lot of schools I’ve worked with have some procedure for new starters, a meeting/assembly, earlier start than usual (even a day early) or otherwise. You just need to marry the physical process with the technical to see what fits best.

[krtek]

Err

 

admissions regs say you should admit pupils on their agreed first date of attendance - even if they don't show up

 

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/818204/School_attendance_July_2019.pdf

 

The MIS and associated systems should be able to handle this (in SIMS this means ensuring that prospective students have a status of Accepted - i.e. the parent has accepted the offer of a place and intends to send the child to your school)

 

Dave

Edited August 7, 2019 by krtek

[thimon]

We’re getting Salamander configured so staff accounts are created 2 weeks before their start date, and student accounts when they’re set as pre admission. Win?

[MartinT]

I set all new students as 'Admitted' on the start date of 4 September (for this year). That way they show as status 'Future' in SIMS and we can get the curriculum, house, tutors etc. all ready for them. I also create their logins and e-mail addresses in readiness.

 

Similarly, I set Leavers as leaving on 31 August so that we can process their exam results before they get terminated in SIMS.

[CyBeRkId2002]

Looks like very mixed opinions here then.

 

Looking at the DfE guidance then, and what would make our administration abilities simpler, we may pre-admit with a start-date on the start of term. This makes the most sense to me, will quickly help us identify who has not attend and be able to contact them to find out a reason. My only concern was whether we were going against admissions guidance on this but looking at the document above this does not seem to be the case.

[MartinT]

Some DfE guidance makes no sense and is unworkable. For instance, the LEA leavers' process is to retain a student on-roll until we receive proof that they have started at their next school. This is unworkable as our on-roll numbers would quite often be incorrect, fire lists, trip lists etc. likewise. There is also no appreciation that a leaver going to a school abroad may well result in no contact ever again. Foreign schools are very bad at acknowledging any communications. By the time we get permission from the LEA to actually remove the student it can be a couple of months down the line.

 

We therefore mark them as 'left' at the right time and have a user-defined flag for when we receive confirmation of the next school or LEA contact about them.

[mavhc]

Still get paid if they're on roll I'd guess. Wouldn't your fire list be only people who'd been signed in that day though?

[MartinT]

Boarding and day school, makes it very complex. Having 'on-roll' students who are no longer there is just silly. All because inept people in the LEA think up these processes without having a clue how a school actually operates.

 

i know what they're trying to do - track under-age students who fall through the cracks in the system. Holding schools falsely accountable for students who have left isn't the way.

[Damon]

Regardless of how ridiculous it seems from a school perspective, you shouldn't be off-rolling students until you've received confirmation. I'm sure if it worked in your favour, i.e. the student still being on roll during a census then your process would be slightly different. I can appreciate you're wanting to streamline the process but if you were doing this during an audit or Ofsted visit, I doubt they would look upon it favourably.

[elsiegee40]

Boarding and day school, makes it very complex. Having 'on-roll' students who are no longer there is just silly. All because inept people in the LEA think up these processes without having a clue how a school actually operates.

 

i know what they're trying to do - track under-age students who fall through the cracks in the system. Holding schools falsely accountable for students who have left isn't the way.

 

Off-rolling students ahead of transfers is illegal. Just because a student has stopped turning up, hasn’t arrived, or the family decide to vanish doesn’t mean you can immediately remove the child from the roll. These aren’t procedures made up by inept LAs. They’re in place for Safeguarding and other reasons and backed up by the law.

Edited August 14, 2019 by elsiegee40

[mavhc]

Wouldn't it be better if they were off roll, and then the government system would notify when a child was on roll at 0 schools?

[Damon]

That assumes the government has an accurate, up to date database of all pupils in the country. When pupils are entered onto new schools, they don't necessarily have the UPN immediately so matching would be a nightmare. Having a human confirm the child is now the responsibility of another establishment is not the worst use of time.

[mavhc]

Don't they have to apply for places?

[Damon]

Via the local authority if it's a maintained school but not if it's independent. The LA won't have a record of the UPN at this stage as it's details from the parent. It could be a move to a different authority, etc..

[MartinT]

We're an independent school and it's our decision when we off-roll a student. Yes, we follow the LEA process, provide the information required and mark in SIMS what has happened as far as we know. However, we don't want our database indicating that a student is on-roll when we know they have left. Our parents always give communication, no-one just disappears.

 

Also, we are inspected by the ISI, not Ofsted, and we achieved an Excellent in our recent inspection, which included compliance.

[mavhc]

So if they don't know who's joining schools, how do they know if someone's not joined any school?

 

Waiting for a new school confirmation before removing them from old school is only half the problem