Introduction

The Learner Module handles the entering of learner particulars and the configuration of learner settings and aptitudes. An extensive amount of information, both past and present, can be captured.

Features

• Learner settings (student body settings and how student numbers are generated)
• Learner aptitudes and their degree of association with subjects (includes chart)
• Personal details, including personality profile and nature of learner
• Individual learner aptitudes and the degree of talent (includes chart)
• Medical details (both public and confidential)
• The details of emergency and medical aid companies and medical practitioners
• Subjects currently taken, previously taken and subject wish list
• Sports currently taken, previously taken and sports wish list
• Awards received from this school and externally
• Learner misdemeanors
• Guardian and spouse of guardian details
• Can make a responsible learner a user of TS School
• Learner personal timetable

Learner Settings

Set up the various aspects of the student body. These settings are needed when adding learners. They are:

• Student Body Sex
• Student # Generation
• Automatic # Generator
• Student # Examples

Student Body Sex

Set the gender of the student body. To change the status of the sex, there must not be any current learners in the school of that same sex. So an all-boys or all-girls school can be converted into a co-ed school, but not the other way around as long as there are still learners in the school of both sexes.

Later, when adding learners:

• If only a single sex is chosen, then all learners will automatically have that sex, and the option to even choose the sex will not even be displayed.
• If the school is a co-ed school, then the option to choose the sex of an added learner is of course displayed, and you must choose which sex.
  

Student # Generation

Select just how student numbers are to be generated – automatically or manually. We strongly recommend you stick with the default of Automatic.

There must not be any learners in the system at all in order to change the generation of student numbers.

Automatic # Generator

If student numbers are to be automatically generated, set up exactly how you would like this done:

• Year + Sequence – Choose this option if you want to include the year of registration as part of the student number.
• Year Format - The year can be either yyyy (e.g. 1997) or yy (e.g. 97)
• Separator – If you want the rest of the number separated from the year with a separator then chose your separator here.
• Sequential - If you want the student number to simply start at 1 and count up, then select this option. Be sure, though, to choose a large enough number!

Student # Examples

This simply shows examples of the student numbers to be generated, along with the number that the next added learner will receive.

Learner Aptitudes

Use this to set up all possible learner aptitudes.

Aptitudes have the following details:

• Name – The aptitude’s name (e.g. Mathematics).
• Description – The aptitude’s description (e.g. A way with numbers)
• Subject Association – The subjects this aptitude is associated with. This is useful in determining what subjects a learner should be taking.
  

These aptitudes will then be available when choosing the aptitudes of any particular learner.

The Learner Screen

The Learner screen bundles everything to do with a learner into the following sections:

• Personal Details
• Contact Details
• Guardian Details
• Guardian Spouse Details
• Aptitudes
• Medical Details
• Subjects
• Sports
• Awards
• Misdemeanors
• User Details
• Prior Schooling

Personal Details

Holds the personal details of the learner. These are:

• Student number – Every student must have a unique student number. TS School can, under the Settings screen, be set to automatically generate student numbers (for more details on this see the Learner Settings chapter in this manual). If the system does not automatically generate the student numbers then these of course have to be manually entered.

• Name – The learner’s surname, first and second name.

• Date of Birth – The format must always be yymmdd (the last two digits of the year followed by the month and date of birth). E.g. if a learner was born on the 8th of January 1997, then the date of birth would be 970108. If the learner was born on the 19th of November 2001, then the date of birth would be 011119. TS School uses this to calculate age.

• I.D. Number – The school would need this for positive identification and security and legal reasons.

• Left School – If the learner has left the school, then check the Left School radio button.

• Personality Profile / Comments - The learner’s personality profile along with any comments on good or problem areas, etc.

• Nature – The general nature of the learner (whether good, average or bad). This is used to see at a glance what type of learner you are dealing with.

• Sex – the sex of the learner. If the student body is of a single sex, then this option does not appear. The overall sex of the student body can be set under the Settings screen (for more details on this see the Student Body Settings chapter in this manual).

Contact Details

Learners have their own contact details. These are as follows:

• Street Address – Learners may not necessarily live with their legal guardians and so there is the option to enter these details. If the learner does indeed live with the guardian, then simply click the Same as Guardian button. This will make both street and postal addresses the same as those of the guardian.

• Postal Address – Letters of correspondence to the learner are posted off to this address.

• Telephone numbers – Home and cell. All messages to learners via SMS are sent to this cell number (see the Messaging Manual for details).

• Email Address – All messages to the learner via email are sent to this email address (see the Messaging Manual for details). Emails sent to the learner can also be done via clicking on the Email button (next to the email address).

Guardian Details

Checking for a Guardian:

Learners that have the same guardian MUST also share that same guardian in the system. If this is not done, then the following will result:

• Time will be wasted in having to retype out the same guardian and spouse information for each child under the care of the guardian.
• System storage wastage since information is repeated unnecessarily.
• Potential data inconsistencies where something is spelt one way the first time and then another way another time.
• Guardians will receive multiple notifications (one per learner) where only one is needed (e.g. each guardian only has to receive one invitation to the annual school gala).

So, with every new learner you enter into the system, you need to first check to see if the learner’s guardian is already in the system (the guardian could already be in the system if the learner already has a relative currently or previously in the school). To help you identify the guardian, the photographs of all learners that were ever under the guardian’s care, are shown.

Guardian:

This section holds the personal details of the learner’s guardian. These are:

• Relationship to Guardian – This is the relationship of the learner to the guardian (e.g. the learner is the son of the guardian). This can go onto letters of correspondence (e.g. you can say: Your son Timothy has…).

• Name - Title, surname, first name, second Name

• I.D. number - The school would need this for positive identification and legal reasons (such as defaults on school fees).

• Occupation

• Annual Income – Very useful for ascertaining just what a guardian can pay in terms of school and other fees, donations, and so on.

• Religion – Often a school is religion-based, and other times they need to be sensitive to the religious demands of certain learners (e.g. what goes on the menu in the school cafeteria).

• Street Address – Obviously guardians may need to be physically located for any number of reasons (e.g. because a learner lives very far from school, he or she may be exempt from certain school functions over the weekends).

• Postal Address – Letters of correspondence to guardians are posted off to this address.

• Telephone numbers – Home, work and cell. All messages to guardians via SMS are sent to this cell number (see the Messaging Manual for details).

• Email Address – All messages to guardians via email are sent to this email address (see the Messaging Manual for details). Emails sent to guardians can also be done via clicking on the Email button (next to the email address).

Spouse of Guardian Details

In the same way, the personal details of the guardian’s spouse can also be recorded. These are:

• Relationship to Spouse – This is the relationship of the spouse to the guardian (e.g. the spouse is the wife of the guardian).

• Name - Title, surname, first name, second Name

• I.D. number - The school would need this for positive identification and legal reasons (such as defaults on school fees).

• Occupation

• Annual Income – Very useful for ascertaining just what a guardian (and spouse) can pay in terms of school and other fees, donations, and so on.

• Religion

• Street Address – The spouse may not be living at the same address as the guardian and spouses may need to be physically located for any number of reasons (e.g. if a learner is living with the spouse and not the legal guardian and if that spouse lives very far from school, then the learner may be exempt from certain school functions over the weekends). If the spouse does indeed live with the guardian, then simply click the Same as Guardian button. This will make both street and postal addresses the same as those of the guardian.

• Postal Address – Letters of correspondence may also be posted off to spouses under certain circumstances (e.g. if they have a different street and postal address than those of the guardian).

• Telephone numbers – Home, work and cell. Messages to guardians via SMS can also be sent to the spouse’s cell number (see the Messaging Manual for details).

• Email Address – Messages to guardians via email can also be sent to the spouse’s email address (see the Messaging Manual for details). Emails sent to the spouses of guardians can also be done via clicking on the Email button (next to the email address).

Aptitudes

Shows the talents of the learner in numerical and graphical form. The aptitudes themselves need to first be set up using the Aptitudes screen.

The following items need to be selected with regard to any aptitude:

• Year - This is the year to which the aptitude applies (the year when the aptitude test was done). Aptitudes can change over time and so the year is required here.

• Aptitude - This is the aptitude itself, taken from the list of general aptitudes that were set up using the Aptitudes screen.

• Level - This sets the level of talent (i.e. to what extent does the learner possess this aptitude?). This also helps determine if a learner is under- or over- achieving. If the latter is the case, then perhaps the aptitudes need to be revised.

Medical Details

Learners have the following medical details:

• Emergency Company
• Family Doctor
• Medical Aid
• Other

Since learners (and staff) all share medical details, such as family doctors and medical aid and emergency companies, these have to first be set up.

Thereafter, all that’s required is to select which emergency company, family doctor and medical aid company the learner belongs to. Once this is done, the following information is shown:

Emergency Company Details:

• Company Name
• Telephone Numbers – Telephone and fax
• Addresses – Street & postal
• Email Address - You can email directly to this address

Family Doctor Details:

• Name – Title, first name, second name, surname
• Practice Description – E.g. General Practitioner
• Telephone Numbers – Telephone fax and cell
• Offices
• Addresses – Street & postal
• Email Address - You can email directly to this address

Medical Aid Details:

• Company Name
• Telephone Numbers – Telephone and fax
• Addresses – Street & postal
• Email Address - You can email directly to this address
• Medical Aid Number – The learner’s medical aid number

Other Details:

• Public Info – E.g. allergies and other important information that must be publicly known. All public information is accessible to every user (staff or learner) of TS School and can quickly be obtained under the Medical Details item of the Info Menu of the Main Screen.

• Confidential Information – This medical information (such as HIV status) is extremely confidential and only for the eyes of the school principal.

Subjects

The Subjects section has the following details:

• Grade - Indicate the grade the learner is currently in.

• Subjects Taken - Shows the subjects currently being taken by the learner.

• Previous Subjects - Shows the subjects previously taken at your school by the learner.

• Wish List - The subject wish list shows which subjects learners would like to take when they get to a certain grade. Certainly all subjects for the next grade need to be timeously furnished, because this info is needed when assigning learners to subject classes (the system needs to already know who wants to take which subject). If any learner does not have a wish list for the year in question, then this is reflected in the Subject Wish List statistic of the System Health Module. In addition to having a wish list for just the next year, learners, guardians and staff can also plan well ahead. So a learner’s academic path can be clearly laid out. To add a “wish” subject, the target grade needs to first be selected, then all the subjects in preferential order. If a subject does not belong to the learner’s grade, the user is immediately informed; but TS School allows for this mismatch. Because of this, schools are given Carte Blanche as to who can take what subject on which grade. So this allows schools to have learners on one grade, taking subjects belonging to another. This means that learners can carry forward failed subjects, just like Universities and Colleges allow. Furthermore, talented learners can take certain subjects belonging to a higher grade. E.g. a grade 8 learner with a remarkable aptitude for Science might be given permission to take grade 10 Science.

Sports

The Sports section has the following aspects:

• Schoolhouse - Indicate which schoolhouse the learner is a member of. Schoolhouse membership is needed for sporting and even academic competition.

• Sports Taken - Shows the sports currently being taken by the learner.

• Previous Sports - Shows the sports previously taken at your school by the learner.

• Wish List - The sport wish list shows which sports learners would like to take when they get to a certain age group. Certainly all sports for the next age group need to be timeously furnished, because this info is needed when assigning learners to teams (the system needs to already know who wants to participate in which sport). If any learner does not have a wish list for the year in question, then this is reflected in the Sport Wish List statistic of the System Health Module. In addition to having a wish list for just the next year, learners, guardians and staff can also plan well ahead. So a learner’s sporting career path can be clearly laid out. To add a “wish” sport, the target age group needs to first be selected, then all the sports in preferential order. If a sport does not belong to the learner’s age group, the user is immediately informed; but TS School allows for this mismatch, giving the school carte blanche as to who can be team members.

Awards / Achievements

Awards given to the learner are show in this section. They are:

• School Awards - These are the awards given to the learner by your school.

• External Awards - These are the awards given to the learner from external organizations. The following information is needed:

Misdemeanors

Shows a list of all misdemeanors committed by the learner at this school. Required are the following:

The Offence:

• Date & time of the offence
• Category – the category that this offence falls under (e.g. smoking)
• Details – the specifics of the offence committed (e.g. smoking in the toilets)
• Reported By – Who reported the offence (e.g. Prefect Tom Edwards)

The Action Taken:

• Actual Disciplinary Action Taken – Select the appropriate action that is to be taken. Click the Same as Guideline button if you choose the default action to be taken for the offence.
• Demerits – If the disciplinary action taken involves demerits, then indicate the number of demerits.
• Comments – Enter any pertinent comments. This might be how the punishment was executed, what happened during the punishment and what the outcome was.

User Details

If the learner is to be a system user, then click the Is a User checkbox. If this is done, then the following are needed:

• Username - If the system is set to automatically generate its own usernames then the username will be shown. You can change this generated username, though it’s highly recommended that you don’t (for consistency’s sake).

• User Groups - Indicate which of the user groups the learner is to be a member of. The available user groups are determined from when the user groups themselves are set up to allow learner membership.

• Reset Password - If the learner has forgotten his or her password, click the Reset Password button. This will set the staff member’s password to blank. The next time the staff member logs in, he or she has to then submit and confirm a new password.

Prior Schooling

This section shows which schools the learner previously attended. Show are the following:

• School Name
• From date
• To date
• Subjects taken
• Sports taken