Last month, students across the country were waking up to their GCSE results in one of the strangest of years in many respects, not least because of the back and forth discussions on how best to calculate exam performance. Sixth form enrolment day was more challenging than usual with some staff homeworking and unable to go into school for several months.
For many schools across the UK, 20 August is one of the busiest days of the school year and it’s not even during term time! Thankfully for our partner schools, they were using Admissions+ which has a dedicated digital enrolment area with three key steps:
- Details to be Checked – students complete their own enrolment form online and can upload their GCSE results to complete the student part of the enrolment process. The student then appears in the ‘Details to be Checked’ area of our platform where staff can review the student’s details and check their results and choice of Sixth Form subjects.
- Ready to Enrol – once checked, the student automatically appears in the ‘Ready to Enrol’ area where they are added to courses they have chosen and are eligible for. Staff can see students being added to the classes in real time and can see limits on class sizes meaning that classes can be evenly balanced.
- Enrolled – once this is complete, the student appears in the ‘Enrolled’ area. An automatic email can then be triggered to let the student know they have been enrolled and onto which courses. Students who don’t meet the entry requirements can be added to a ‘Waiting List’ area and put onto classes at a later date.
At Applicaa we strive to deliver outstanding customer service for all our schools. We listen to feedback and are constantly looking to iterate and develop our product to help improve our schools’ admissions processes and staff work lives. Our aim is that all students get the best start to their school career. Admissions+ enables this through the degree of individualised communications and superior customer support that it provides through customisation and efficiency savings.
New features to our enrolment area like the ‘Enrolment Waiting’ and ‘Enrolment Declined’ functions ensure that staff can see at a glance if a student cannot be accommodated or if one is waiting for further checks.
We asked for feedback from all our schools and were delighted to receive the comments below. We are continuously improving our platform and have added more new enhancements, such as fixing some SIMS matched fields so that they cannot be altered by schools, thereby ensuring the data transfer is as smooth as possible.
We hope that more schools in the future will be able to reap the benefits of digital enrolment and the enhanced data management it provides combined with face to face meetings with students prior to enrolment day.
“Straightforward to use” Drayton Manor High School
“Efficient and accurate” Waldegrave School
“Enrolment form is a great addition. Colour coding on real-time is very useful” Seven Kings School
“Worked well to go through large numbers of students. When calling for support got through to someone who could help” Bristol Cathedral Choir School
“No messing just hand on deck. Well-structured and straight to the point” Broadway Academy
For more information about Applicaa, please visit our website at www.applicaa.com where you can read recent customer success stories and ‘meet’ the Applicaa team. We run a series of webinars online for various types of schools including grammar and independent, sixth form, secondary and primary. We also host webinars focused on managing virtual enrolment and open days.