In this guide we’ll look at how you can set up Admissions Policies and how you can use them to manage your Pre-admission Students.
- Admissions Settings
- Admission Criteria
- Creating a New Admissions Policy
- Admission Candidates Management
- Updating Candidate Profiles
- Finalising Admissions
Access: The minimum permissions required to access Admission Groups can be found in the Administration module from within Config > Setup > Roles & Permissions.
See Also: How to Create a Pre-admission Group and View Pre-Admission Students
Admissions Settings
Go to Config > Administration > Admissions Settings
In order to use Admissions Policies you will need to ensure the Own Admission Authority for the Purpose of Census box within the Default settings to be used at Admission panel is ticked.
If you make any changes on this page make sure you click Save in the top left.
Admission Criteria
Next we need to add the Criteria that the Admissions Policy will be based on. To do this go to Config > Administration > Lookup Tables.
In the Admin Lookup dropdown, select Admission Criteria.
Select New in the top left.
In the Add Administration Lookup panel on the right, add a Lookup Name and Description. The Lookup Name is what will be displayed and is limited to 5 characters so you should choose something short and easily recognisable. Ensure that the Active box is ticked and once you’re happy click Create.
Repeat this process until you have created all required Admission Criteria.
Creating a New Admissions Policy
Go to Modules > Administration > Pre-Admission Groups.
Select New.
Next to the Admissions Policy drop down, click the + icon.
Enter a Policy Name and ensure the In Current Use box is ticked, then click Create.
You’ll see you now have a table in the Criteria section, click Add to add a new Criteria.
Select the Criteria to be added from the Criteria Name dropdown (Note: This is pulled from the Admission Criteria Lookup Table that we looked at in the Admission Criteria section of this guide). Then click Add
You’ll see the selected Criteria is now displayed in the table.
Keep adding new Criteria until you have added all Criteria that are relevant for this Admissions Policy. Once all required Admissions Criteria you can use the Priority dropdowns to select the Priority for each Criteria.
Note: The order will update according to the priority once you make a selection in the dropdown.
Once you’re happy, click Save.
The new Admission Policy will then be available to select in the Admission Policy dropdown when creating a new Pre-Admission Group, or editing an existing one. For more information on how to do this please see How to Create a Pre-admission Group and View Pre-Admission Students.
Admission Candidates Management
Once you’ve assigned the Admission Policy to a Pre-Admission Group and have added Pre-Admission Students to the Pre-Admission Group. You can then use the Admission Policy to Prioritise and Rank the candidates for Admission.
To do this go to Modules > Administration > Admission Candidate Management.
Select the correct Pre-Admission Group from the dropdown.
This will load a list of all of the Pre-admission Students in the selected Pre-admission Group.
If you have a lot of Pre-Admission Students and would like to view them in smaller groups you can refine the list using the Apply Filter option at the top of the page.
This allows you to filter by Reasons by selecting the value you would like to filter to using the dropdowns against each Reason Code and then clicking Apply. We’ll look at how you can add Reasons to Candidates in the Updating Candidate Profiles section of this guide.
Once you’ve filtered the list as required you can then use the Priority dropdown to give the Candidates a Priority based on the Criteria of your Admission Policy.
Once you’ve added a Priority to all of the Candidates you can then click Re-order at the top of the page.
This will update the table so that the Candidates are in order of Priority.
You can then use the Rank drop down to put the Candidates in order of who should receive an Admission place first.
Once you’ve added a Rank to all of your Candidates you can then press Reorder again.
It will then put the Candidates in order of Rank.
Once you’re happy click Save at the top of the page.
If the Planned Admission for the selected Pre-Admission Group is less than the number of Candidates in the Pre-Admission Group you will see a Green Line in the table at the cut off point.
In the example below the Planned Admission for the selected Pre-Admission Group is 5, so there is a line below the 5th Candidate.
You can then offer Candidates places at the School in order of their Rank.
Updating Candidate Profiles
As you offer places to Candidates you will need to record whether they have Accepted or Declined the offer. You can also use their Profiles to add useful information to help you make a decision on their Admission. To do this, go to Students.
Select Search Filters in the top right corner, then change the Status dropdown to Pre-Admission.
Select the Candidate you would like to add information to from the list and click View.
Navigate to the Pre-Admission Details panel, click the + button in the top right of the panel and then select Admission Details.
In the pop-up that appears, you can log the date you received their application in the App Received field, if the application was subsequently withdrawn you can record the date it was withdrawn in the App Withdrawn field. If you have a reference number for the application you can add that in either School App No. or LA App. No.. You can change the Admission Group that they are included in using the drop down, you also have tick boxes for Is Staff Child and Has Social Media Support.
Once you offer a place to the child, and record a date for this in the Place Offered field. You will then see that further fields become available for Place Accepted and Place Declined, once the place is either Accepted or Declined by the child use these fields to record the date that this happened.
In the Other Details tab you can add their Distance From School, Faith Verification details, Reason Details and LEA Details.
In the Reasons drop down, you can select any of the options that apply to the child that may impact your decision to offer them a place. For example, if they have a Sibling at the School and they live in the Catchment Area, select Sibling and Catchment Area. These will display on the Admission Candidates Management page to help you when making a decision on where to Rank them.
If they have an Aptitude in a particular area, you can also select this in the Select Aptitude section.
Click Save once you’ve made all required changes. The information will then display in the Pre-Admission Details panel.
Where you have selected Reasons within Other Details these will also appear on the Admission Candidate Management page as ticks in the relevant field within the table. In the below example we have selected Sibling and Catchment Area.
Finalising Admissions
Once you have filled all of your places for this intake, go to Modules > Administration > Finalise Admissions.
Select the required Pre-Admission Group from the Admission Group drop down.
In the Action dropdown, ensure Confirm Individuals is selected, check that the information in Admission Date, Enrolment Status and Attendance Mode is correct.
In the table, select any Students that you would like to Admit. You can use the Place Offered, Place Accepted and Place Declined columns on the left to see who you have offered a place to based on your Admission Policy and who has Accepted or Declined their place to help you see who should be admitted.
Once you’ve selected all the required Students click Admit at the top of the screen. The selected Students will then become On Roll Students as of the selected Admission Date.
