School management

Current and complete information about the children and their parents (caregivers) have a major impact on the efficient and effective functioning of all outcomes of activities of the school.

To posses such data depends on the contributing work at school, including the Headteacher of the school and chairman of the board to the treasurer, teachers and nurses:

How does data collection look in the average Polish Saturday school?

• Subscription data rarely deal with people having to vocational training (IT specialists, administrative staff, etc.).
• The task is usually handled by one parent (often the treasurer or chairman), leading registry at home on their own computer.
• Data is recorded on paper or via electronic spreadsheet Excel type.
• The data structure is simple and not susceptible to further processing.
• Data entry is very time-consuming and prone to errors.
• There is no developed procedures for regularly updating the data.

The result is a low level of completeness and validity of data

• Degree of validity depends on the person’s free time.  They have access to the most current data. The others get less accurate copies.
• Updating data can not be divided between more people. In periods of intense admissions of children to school there are significant delays.
• The data format is not designed to support the work of the different teams (accounting, duty, etc.), thereby reducing their usefulness and effectiveness.
• The distribution of data among stakeholders is done by hand – they get their copies at different times.
• Uncertainty as to the validity of data makes the need of creating its own list – this leads to clutter and non-uniformity of data.
• No back-up copies increases the risk of data loss.

Why over the years the situation has not improved?

There are many reasons why Polish Saturday Schools can not be managed efficiently and effectively. Most of them are the result of circumstances in which there are:

• Schools do not have office space and financial means to use better tools (software, etc.).
• A lot of the work handled by parents are  held in the evenings at home, which excludes the use of office systems.
• Lack of qualified, boast free time parents-It technicians, and too high cost of hiring experts in the field.
• Commercially available systems such as Contact Management, Club Management, and others, do not meet the specific needs of schools on Saturdays.
• Lack of proven, best management practices in this area.