The school reporting season is notorious for being one of the most challenging times of the academic year for your teaching staff, but it's critical in understanding your school's performance. An end of term report helps to determine your student’s summer exam results, and where best to exert your future learning efforts.
However, with numerous templates, hundreds of students and unwavering deadlines, it's a daunting process that adds to the existing pressures that your teachers face day-to-day.
So, we’ve compiled our top 5 tips to help you make the process as smooth and painless as possible. Let iSAMS help you to complete your end of term reports more quickly and efficiently.
1. Plan ahead and don't rush
It’s easy for the deadline to sneak up on you, particularly at such a busy time of year. Avoid late nights and additional last-minute stress by getting started on your reports as early as possible. Some teachers even find it helpful to have a weekly schedule to stick to, breaking up the volume of reports into more manageable chunks throughout the term.
We always ask our schools to submit their report requests to us a minimum of four weeks before they’re required. This is so that we can ensure that all the data is entered correctly within plenty of time and, perhaps more importantly, so our schools have enough time to fully test them ahead of their submission dates.
Given the extensive use of these reports, it’s likely you may want more bespoke changes to your existing reporting templates. This makes it even more important to organise any changes you need as early as possible, so your reports are ready with plenty of time left over.
2. Use templates if possible
It’s likely that you’ll be producing similar reports year on year. They will likely require consistent formatting and the use of similar data sets. To save yourself having to build new reports from scratch, take the time to develop a set of templates you can populate each year.
To help ensure our schools have as seamless an experience as possible, we offer a Reports Catalogue. The catalogue contains a variety of different report templates, specifically designed to cover each of your reporting needs, which you can populate and amend in-house. To make use of the available templates, submit a request via a form and specify which report template from the catalogue you’d like to use.
3. Customise reports to meet your needs
We always appreciate feedback on our schools’ plans surrounding academic reporting for the remainder of the school year. If you need to adjust your plans for end of term reports or if your teaching staff will be writing their reports as normal using existing templates.
However, once you've gathered some useful templates for your reports, it’s nice to be able to customise them so they’re recognisable to your school community. Including your school logo, name, and a header on your reports, and all in your brand colours and fonts, is a great way to personalise this important piece of external communication.
That’s why our dedicated Reporting Services team will adapt templates from our Reports Catalogue, making all minor amends, like those listed above, free of charge.
However, there may also be times when you need something more bespoke than that. In such cases you might be able to adapt existing templates, or it may be more suitable to design something new.
If your MIS is able to support these reporting requirements, then that will save you additional hours spent amending your report design. At iSAMS, our Reporting Services team are available to build more bespoke reports on request, according to your individual requirements. All you need to do is a fill out a form requesting bespoke reports and we’ll get back to you to discuss more details.
4. Find a sustainable way to input data
It's repetitive filling in the same reports over and over again, especially if you have a lot of them to get through. Conserve some of your staff resources and energy by finding a more manageable way to input your report data.
Our iReport App, a companion to the iTeacher App, means you can now write and log reports wherever you are, with full functionality on smartphones and tablets. Easy to set up and use, with minimal training required, you can even check past reports and grades whilst you’re on the move. The powerful and intuitive app streamlines your report-writing process into something much more manageable and accessible.
Alternatively, our report wizard within the iSAMS application acts as a step-by-step guide to support you in your report creation, and will ensure that you have all the right information to help the process run smoothly from start to finish.
5. Test each report fully before submitting them
It's easy to finish your reports and then set them aside, relieved they’re finished and you can tick them off your list. However, it’s crucial that you thoroughly check them for errors or missing information. If you give yourself plenty of time between the submission deadline and beginning your reports, then there should be plenty of time for testing and editing. Ultimately, this is the best way to secure your peace of mind when sending your reports out.
For more information about how your school administration software can support your school reporting process, click below to watch our demo.
