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Boston Spa 6th Form College
Boston Spa School is a school for boys and girls aged 11–19 years old in Boston Spa, West Yorkshire, England. It is one of the largest schools in the area with 1,880 students on roll, including 350 in the Sixth Form. The school is also a specialist Sports College.
Customer Challenge
Accurate time and attendance management is essential at Boston Spa Sixth Form. Unlike the school, the Sixth Form School does not use a morning registration system as students start at various times throughout the day. The Sixth Form School therefore needed an automated system which they could rely on to provide time and attendance data for each student.
As well as ensuring that students turn up to school, a new attendance monitoring system was also required to assist and facilitate the school with Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) calculations. This is a weekly payment paid to students from low-income families on a weekly basis to encourage them to stay in learning after the age of 16.
Good record keeping is essential to its success as payments are dependent on the student’s weekly attendance levels. Once they have applied for EMA and been accepted, they have to sign up to a Learning Agreement which sets out what they have to do. This includes 100% attendance at classes each week. If students are ill they are marked as absent but if they have unauthorised absences,they will lose their EMA for that week.
The Business Solution
Auto Time installed three magstripe terminals in locations throughout the Sixth Form School and integrated this with Auto Time Premium Software. This software automates the entire system and includes personal records and detailed attendance records for each student so that adminstaff can gain a greater insight into attendance levels.
Currently 344 students are enrolled to use the system. They are each provided with a magstripe card which is personalised with their phot and tutor group details and which they must swipe when arriving and leaving school.
Every morning the admin department monitors the arrival of students and registers on the system those who are not in attendance, whether they are sick, have a doctor’s appointment or are on a field trip as part of their studies. This is updated throughout the day so that the Sixth Form School can monitor for regular patterns of absence.
The system provides accurate real-time reports, which can be quickly and easily viewed, downloaded or printed enabling staff to effectively monitor attendance and accurately administer EMA payments. With this information the Sixth Form can quickly reward students who meet their goals, while encouraging under-performing students to step up their commitment. Every week the admin department prints off a report from the software and use the attendance data to process the EMA payments.
On top of this the system is also used for roll call purposes in the event of a fire alarm, so that the school can ensure the wellbeing of students in emergency situations.
Recommendation
Liz Ayton, from the admin department at Boston Spa School says: “By working closely with Auto Time Solutions we have been able to implement a very effective EMA system at Boston Spa School.
Accurate time keeping is essential to the EMA system and thanks to Auto Time we can reward students for their attendance.
The customer service offered by Auto Time is exceptional. I regularly call the team with questions and every time they sort out my queries immediately.”
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