Attendance Tracking Made Easy With School ERP Software

Check attendance tracking off your to-do list today

No school day starts without the sonorous voice of your class teacher taking attendance. With name after name being called, taking roll call is an inextricable part of the school experience. But what is its purpose? Roll call – or attendance tracking as education technologists are starting to call it – isn’t just another mindless exercise in futility. Beyond the practicalities of student discipline, attendance tracking gives educators a better picture of how their student is doing in class.

Attendance tracking allows schools and educational institutions to make better administrative and financial decisions. It also allows schools to have a good gauge on that ephemeral thing – student interest. Are students interested in a particular class? Why or why not? Do we see
better attendance for certain teachers versus others?

How do class timings affect attendance?

These are all questions that are easily answered by data emerging from student tracking. Showing up is the first step to success. This oft-quoted management maxim holds true even in the classroom. Attendance tracking helps assign a number and make it a metric. An important step in an increasingly digitized world.

What is the role of education technology in attendance tracking?

Education technology has essentially automated the process of roll call. Attendance tracking modules or products allow teachers to swiftly and efficiently track student attendance to classrooms with dramatically reduced time and effort investment.

Attendance tracking becomes an automated task where students are marked as present by the system with minimal human interference. The right technology also allows the appropriate checks to remain in place. No more bunking off with the guarantee of proxy attendance!

A simple parallel familiar to most professionals would be the swipe cards used to get into a secure office. The data collected from these swipes helps administration track your whereabouts and keep track of how many leaves you take a year in an unobtrusive manner.

Read more: How data security can be achieved by school management software

Most of us swipe through to our offices without a second thought.
Attendance tracking is similar, with the appropriate checks and balances in place. It is a now an intrinsic part of the education technology ecosystem. Are you ready to get on board?

But why do we need attendance tracking software?

As is the case with many process driven tasks, attendance tracking is prone to human error. Lack of attention from a student, lackadaisical attitudes in the classroom, and even something as benign as not being able to shout over a noisy classroom can result in improper tracking and inaccurate attendance data.

A human error affects other aspects also. Maintenance of credible logs, an accuracy of records, and keeping track of transferring students is a dull and time-consuming task – one that teachers should not be burdened with when they have the vital job of teaching to get to.

A third thing to consider is the feasibility of attendance tracking in an increasingly virtual world. How would the traditional method work for online classrooms and MOOCs? It is wasteful and confusing to spend valuable class hours across different schedules taking roll call via chat or voice.

Attendance tracking software nearly eliminates these issues. We are no longer reliant on humans and their fallible to track something like attendance. This not only ensures accurate data that aid in the making of financial and administrative decisions by management, but also frees up valuable teaching time for teachers.

In the case of students, it helps teachers and management focus on incentivizing attendance, rather than a system based on penalizing missing students. Data gleaned from attendance tracking could give rise to interesting trends – from one where students are delayed for a specific amount of time, thanks to an inefficient logistical set up perhaps or even if a teacher isn’t meeting teaching goals and keeping students engaged. Schools have a lot to learn from attendance tracking systems.

In this economy, where data is king, educational institutions would do well to capitalize on the wealth of information in hand. Fedena, for instance, empowers schools to create highly readable reports to give us insights into student behaviour.

So, how can a school ERP software come into play?

Despite its undeniable advantages, some administrators will still baulk? Do we really want to invest in another piece of technology when pen and paper seem to be doing the job?

To start with, examine whether it really is. What are the inaccuracies in reporting that is being overlooked? Are you really using the data gleaned from roll call in any meaningful way?

Attendance tracking eliminates many of these starting troubles, as we have discussed above. But the best part is that it is already a part of your school ERP system. If it is not or you are still considering options before taking the plunge, consider trying out Fedena – we promise a premium experience.

Attendance Tracking – The Fedena Difference

But why Fedena and not any other school ERP software? We have waxed eloquent about the distinct advantage using Fedena provides. But when it comes to attendance tracking, Fedena is not just efficient but also helps you capitalize on this data in new ways. No longer is this just a disciplinary tool wielded by hassled teachers, but a way to inspire teachers to improve their curriculum and spot student issues before they get out of hand. Be prepared is not just an old Boy Scout motto, but a code to live by, especially when it comes to education.

Still not completely convinced to give it a shot? Perhaps we should sweeten the deal. We recently launched some new features that allow for increasingly customized attendance reports and easy transfer of students on attendance rolls for more accurate tracking. With Fedena, you not only automate a time-consuming process, but we give you some pointers on how to use your new-found resources to best serve the people who need it the most – your students.

Fedena’s attendance tracking feature ensures that no student slips through the cracks. This seemingly mindless task gains new respect and importance through its elevation via the right platform. Attendance tracking will help students be more than just another face in the crowd.