As a result of this and other factors many changes
have taken place over the intervening 10+
years with most schools either
rebuilding
or upgrading
their
facilities. In many cases this has been just what
was needed because it has helped attracted new
students
to boarding.
Unfortunately boarding still has a way to go because
while boarding facilities are now new or
have been upgraded, many of their standards
of operation are still
decades old. The New Zealand Boarding School
Association Inc. (NZBSA) has addressed this issue
and has produced a manual on best practice
for
boarding
schools.
This and other efforts are exactly what is required
to continue to keep boarding evolving. Practical measures
are also required and as boarding attempts to become
ever more professional in its approach other systems
of management are also needed these include things
like the ability to of staff to effectively track
students while they are off site and under
the care of the school.
These requirements fall under the Education Standards
Act, the governments ‘duty
of care’ legislation which mandates boarding
schools to maintain certain standards.
The last and perhaps most obvious requirement is
the continual challenge of running a cost effective
operation.
Boarding schools
need
to
find new more effective ways of doing things, these
can be
a simple
as improving the
flow of
information
around
the
school
particularly between the staff in various hostel
complexes and the hostel kitchen...
The Challenge:
With St Andrews College the challenge was to discover
a better way of organising and successfully taking
care
of a
large
number of students
that were constantly on the move in and out of the
school. Paper systems (leave book and pen/pencil)
just did not achieve
this effectively.
The existing paper system was slow at getting useful
information to the
staff in charge and inaccurate meaning not updated
frequently enough or even at all in many cases. Quality
decision making was difficult under these conditions.
It quickly became obvious that large numbers of
people on the move required a better system to efficiently
manage
their
leave requirements
than paper could provide. LeaveRegister
ASSIST was initially developed to satisfy the need
to get students in and out of the boarding complex
as
quickly
as possible while simultaneously trying to exceed
the standards expected by the government when dealing
with
'duty
of care'.
The
Solution:
The
first step was a review of the existing paper
based system to see what its strengths and weaknesses
were... It was discovered that information
collation or bring together of existing information
was the probably the biggest problem. Often the
leave book and paper slips for weekend leave were
miss
placed
this meant that students returning from leave or
students wanting to go on leave had to search for
these items. The problem centered around getting
all of this information into one easy to interpret
form so students knew and could complete their
responsibilities and staff could easily monitor
the flow of people by conducting random attendance
checks and quick reviews of the situation at all
times.
The
first prototype of LeaveRegister ASSIST was very
simple because it only allowed students to sign
out and
in for daily leave situations. What it immediately
did allow was a more accurate student roll to
be generated, this resulted in an instant improvement
in student management. All of a sudden students
knew that the staff had the ability to check what
was happening and fast if required. Another benefit
of this that quickly became apparent was students
were encouraged to use the leave system because
they could get the admin side of leave out of the
way
very
quickly. Leave could be
pre loaded and then authorised at the click of
a button by
staff and the leave book never got lost because
it was not required.
As
LeaveRegister ASSIST developed other features
were added. The ability to load weekend
leave in advance was added making the weekend authorisation
process far simpler, weekend leave was kept in
the same location as daily leave but separate.
Other benefits also became apparent...
with accurate numbers of students already recorded
electronically in the system it was a simple matter
to convey this information
directly to the hostel kitchen therefore eliminating
incorrect meal numbers and enabling
the kitchen to reduced over production of meals.
LeaveRegister
ASSIST like any computer program continues to evolve
along with requirements of modern boarding schools.
It is expected that new requirements will continue
to emerge in the future. LeaveRegister ASSIST is
here to continue delivering improvements in all
areas
of boarding school administration.
About St Andrews College:
St Andrews College is a leading New Zealand Boarding
school providing a broad education base to students
of varying cultures both locally and internationally.
It provides education to students from years 1 through
to 13 for both boys and girls. St Andrews College runs
a 180 bed modern boarding facility that caters to
all of its students need.
Meals are provided on site and students are housed
up to 7 days a week.
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