3 ways school automation can save staff hours each week

James Weatherill - 5 July, 2017

School Operations

Category : Blog

3 ways school automation can save staff hours each week

School automation is a bit like having an automated robot which takes all the tediousness and drudgery out of manual data entry and repetitive tasks. All you need to do is set the criteria for what you want the robot to do and, once the action is triggered, the robot will take care of the task for you without any extra clicks or work. For example, you might want your Headteacher to get a text message whenever there is an exclusion, or a pupil’s guardian to be notified when their child has 100% attendance, or any incident involving bullying to be automatically escalated and the child assigned a detention.

Just as sales and marketing automation have transformed the private sector, so too we think that school automation will transform the education sector over the next 5 years by saving staff time on repetitive administrative tasks, allowing them to concentrate on teaching and learning activities. The timing for this is as much driven by technology as it is by cost savings and time pressure, with the IFS stating that school budgets will decline by 7% in real-terms over the next 5 years, meaning schools will have to look for smart ways to start making savings without increasing staff workload.

There are 3 immediate ways we see school automation helping to save staff time, all of which can be implemented immediately:

1. Automate reporting
With senior leaders spending around 4.4 hours per week on data analysis, automation can help save time by having reports built, scheduled and sent to those who need them automatically. It also cuts out time spent on manually gathering data. The example below shows a school report on 100% weekly attendance being built and automatically scheduled to send to all pastoral leaders at 8am every Monday morning ready for registration. You could of course build more complex reports for governors, heads of department or headteachers using any reporting template you like too!

2. Automate escalation
Staff spend 8.0 hours per week on administration, much of which is taken up by behaviour management and escalation. This escalation can be automated – allowing, for example, detentions to be assigned automatically for certain behaviours, senior staff to be instantly emailed for trigger behaviours such as bullying, and parents to be notified of repeated good behaviour – all without any additional data entry. At the MAT level, this allows groups to monitor and report on a school’s behaviour policy, ensuring that it’s consistently delivered.

3. Automate chasing
Staff spend 3.8 hours per week on parent and guardian interaction, and although much of this is essential, some of the communication is repetitive and can be automated. For example, communication around late payments, attendance year-to-date below 95%, and good behaviour on a particular day could be automatically scheduled in your MIS. Chasing staff for late marksheets or incomplete registers can also be automated, saving administrators valuable time.

How do I try this in my school or MAT?
Workflow and data automation is now commonplace in businesses, but old-fashioned school MIS systems have held schools back. All of of the above is now possible in Arbor, and some other integrated, cloud-based MIS systems, so ask your provider for more information or get in touch with us for a demo to see how Arbor can help automate your repetitive admin and data tasks and give your staff their time back!