Introduction

The Admissions Module greatly simplifies the entire learner admissions process. It features application forms, success and failure letters, confirmation letters and links to entering learner particulars and assigning learners to form and subject classes.

Features

• Print application forms
• Links to enter the new learners
• Assign learners to subject classes
• Assign learners to form classes
• Print confirmation letters
• Print letters of approval/declination
• Print envelopes/labels

Contents

The Admissions module consists of the following:

• Admissions Criteria
• Application Form
• Learner Pool
• Acceptance Letter
• Confirmation Letter
• Other Documents
• Envelopes
• Declination Letter

Admissions Criteria

The Criteria screen is needed in order to prioritize which of a pool of prospective learners takes preference in the admissions process (see the Learner Pool chapter for details on the prospective learner pool itself). A number of factors influence how learners are to be prioritized. The factors are each ranked with one of the following levels of importance:

1. Hardly important
2. Somewhat important
3. Important
4. Very important
5. Exceptionally important

TS School ships with its own set of defaults, which you can change for your own purposes. For example, if your school is highly academically oriented (as most schools are) then academic performance will have a high weight and sporting performance a lower one; but if your school is a sports-oriented school then sporting performance will have a high weight and perhaps academic performance a somewhat lower one.

The factors influencing the value to the school of prospective learners are as follows:

• Sibling Status - Is there or has there been a sibling at the school? Schools often extend this notion to immediate family and even relatives (e.g. the prospective learner’s father or cousin used to attend the school). Many schools make this their highest factor in accepting a learner.

• Application Date - The notion of first-come first-served is very popular for obvious reasons.

• Proximity - Proximity issues are also quite important. For example, if two learners are equal save that one lives right next to your school and another right next to another one, then the system will put the former learner higher up in the pool list.

• School - The previous school of the learner can also be an issue. Certain schools have much higher standards (both academic and sporting) than other ones and so these have to be weighted. If two learners are equal expect for the school from which they come then the learner from the school with the highest standard will take preference.

• Academic Performance - Academic performance (for academically-oriented schools) is of high priority. If two learners are equal except that one has a higher overall-year mark than the other one, then TS School will put the one with the higher mark higher up in the pool list.

• Sporting Performance - Sporting performance (for sports-oriented schools) is of high priority. If two learners are equal except that one is better at sports than the other one, then TS School will put the sporty one higher up in the pool list.

• Full %
  This percentage is needed to tell TS School at what point a class (form or subject class) is deemed "full". This is done because it is prudent to leave some percentage of space for the potential arrival of learners that the school really needs (like the mayor’s son, for example)

Application Form

TS School provides you with your own application form, Admissions – Application Form^. This form needs to be filled in by the guardians of prospective learners. The MS Word document is Admissions.doc found in folder \Documentation\Admissions located wherever you chose to install TS School’s default documents when installing TS School on a PC.

The application form has the following sections:

• Learner Details
• Medical Details
• Guardian Details
• Spouse of Guardian Details
• Previous Schooling
• Sporting History
• Awards & Achievements
• Academic and Sporting Performance
• Disciplinary Action
• Subjects
• Sports
• Additional Services
• School Fees
• Objections
• Pertinent Information
• Signature

Learner Details

• Name - First name, Second name, Surname
• I.D. Number
• Sex (M/F)
• D.O.B.
• Address – street and postal addresses
• Contact numbers - Home and cell
• Email

Medical Details

• Emergency Company
• Doctor’s Details
• Medical Aid Company
• Other Details

Guardian Details

• Name – Title, First name, Second name, Surname
• Relationship of learner to guardian
• I.D. Number
• Occupation
• Religion
• Monthly Income – Various ranges
• Address – Street and postal
• Contact numbers – Home, work, cell
• Email

Spouse of Guardian Details

• Name – Title, First name, Second name, Surname
• Relationship of learner to guardian
• I.D. Number
• Occupation
• Religion
• Monthly Income – Various ranges
• Address – Street and postal
• Contact numbers – Home, work, cell
• Email

Previous Schooling

This section contains the basic details of current and five other previous schools:

Sporting History

This section holds all the sports previously taken:

• Sport – The name of the sport
• Level – The level the sport was taken on (e.g. B-Team)
• Age – The age of the learner (e.g. 11)

Awards & Achievements

• Award
• Institution
• Age

Academic and Sporting Performance

• Feat
• Measurement
• Age
• Pos
• Record

Disciplinary Action

• Suspensions
• Expulsions

Subjects

• Grade
• Subject
• Level

Sports

• Age
• Sport
  

Additional Services

• Service
• From Date
• To Date
• Cost

School Fees

• Payment options
• 12 monthly payments
• Full amount in 6 months
• Full amount in 3 months
• Lump sum payment
• Debit order instruction

Objections

Please voice any objections, special conditions or exclusions that you would like to apply for concerning your child. Please note that the school must first approve of these in writing before they are in affect.

Pertinent Information

Please state any pertinent information that the school should known about concerning anything to do with admitting your child to the school.

Signature

This is the final page where the application form must be signed.

• Terminology - This section holds the terminology of the application form.
• Statements - This section holds the various declarations made by the guardian by signing the application form.
• Signature - This is the section at the end of the application form where the signature itself must be made.

The Learner Pool

The purpose of the learner admissions pool is to have a temporary short-list of prospective learners. The idea is to get TS School to sort this list from the most ideal learner to the least. The sorting is based on the criteria set up for learner admittance. (See the Admissions Criteria chapter for details).

Adding Learners
As you receive an application, add the learner to the learner pool. The following information is needed:

• Personal Information
• Application Information
• School Information
• Subjects
• Sports

Personal Information

• Name – Surname and first name
• Relative – Check this checkbox if the prospective learner has/had a relative at this school
• Proximity Issues – Check this checkbox if the prospective learner’s proximity to the school is an issue (e.g. if the learner lives right next to the school)

Application Information

• App Date – The date of application
• Target Grade – The grade the learner should be going into when joining the school

School Information

• School Name – The school the learner is currently at

Subjects

• Level – General level on which subjects where taken
• Mark – The overall year mark as a percentage
• Performance – Those subjects offered by your school that the learner excelled in at the learner’s current school.

Sports

• Performance – Those sports (sports in general, athletics, gymnastics and swimming) offered by your school that the learner excelled in at the learner’s current school.

As the learners are added, TS School continuously sorts the shortlist as per the admissions criteria. Over time you will see the overall learner body picture stabilizing as it evolves less and less.

Accepting a Learner
Once there is a sufficient, stabilized pool, you can start actually accepting learners into your school. Once you are certain that you want a particular learner in your school, simply highlight the learner and click the Accept Learner button. This will bring up the Learner Screen in edit-mode and pull through information that you have already typed in (such as the learner's surname and first name, amongst other information).

Acceptance Letter

TS School provides you with a letter of acceptance, Admissions – Acceptance Letter^. This letter is posted off to those guardians whose children have actually been formally accepted into the school. The MS Word document is Admissions.doc found in folder \Documentation\Admissions located wherever you chose to install TS School’s default documents when installing TS School on a PC. The letter is a brief congratulatory statement and should be signed by the school principal.

Confirmation Form

Once all of a learner’s information is entered into the system, guardians and learners alike need to confirm that the information entered is indeed correct. The learner confirmation form is used for this purpose.

The learner confirmation form is called Admissions – Confirmation Form^. The MS Word document, Confirmation.doc is found in folder \Documentation\Admissions located wherever you chose to install TS School’s default documents when installing TS School on a PC. The confirmation form has the following sections:

Personal Details

• Name – Surname, First name, Second name
• Relationship to guardian
• I.D. number
• Sex (M/F)
• Address - Street and postal
• Telephone numbers (home and cell)
• Email address

Medical Details
This section holds all medical information, namely:

• Emergency Company
• Doctor’s Details
• Medical Aid Company
• Other Details

Guardian Details

• Name – Title, First name, Second name, Surname
• I.D. Number
• Occupation
• Religion
• Monthly Income – Various ranges
• Address – Street and postal
• Contact numbers – Home, work, cell
• Email

Spouse of Guardian Details

• Name – Title, First name, Second name, Surname
• Relationship of learner to guardian
• I.D. Number
• Occupation
• Religion
• Monthly Income – Various ranges
• Address – Street and postal
• Contact numbers – Home, work, cell
• Email

Errors
This section contains all error corrections.

Signature
This is the section where the responsible guardian signs the form, declaring all information true and correct.

Other Documents

For your convenience, there is a link to the Batch Run screen of the Documentations Module where all user-defined admissions documents are immediately accessible.

(For details on setting up your own user-defined documents, see the Documentation manual).

Envelopes

Once all relevant documentation has been gathered, these need to be posted off to the guardians. Typically, the envelopes contain the following:

• Letter of Acceptance
• Confirmation Letter
• Other User-Defined Documentation
• Various School Pamphlets - Containing rules, information and event advertisements.

TS School allows for the generation of guardian addresses to be printed on envelopes. This is done by the guardian envelopes document, Learner – Guardian Envelopes^. The MS Word document is Envelopes.doc found in folder \Documentation\Guardians located wherever you chose to install TS School’s default documents when installing TS School on a PC.

Declination Letter

TS School provides you with a declination letter, Admissions – Declination Letter^. This letter is posted off to those guardians whose children have unfortunately not been accepted into the school. The MS Word document is Declination Letter.doc found in folder \Documentation\Admissions located wherever you chose to install TS School’s default documents when installing TS School on a PC. The letter is a brief statement of regret and should be signed by the school principal.

Cloning Documents

Most likely, you would want to customize any MS Word document (for example the default ones) to suit your needs – both in terms of content and look and feel. Since TS School can override its default documents whenever a PC installs TS School (if the override option is chosen), you stand the risk of loosing all your changes to the original documents that ship with TS School. Furthermore, you might have been quite happy with the way a particular default document was in one version only to find that TS School’s improvements in subsequent versions do not suit you. It is therefore strongly recommended that should you wish to alter a default document in any way (to suit your own requirements), rather clone from the default document and then change the clone.

(See the chapter on Cloning in the Documentations manual)

Default documents all end with a “^”, which cannot be typed out when you yourself give a document a name. We recommend that you simply give your cloned document the same name as its default minus the “^”.