Features
Six things a school feels on the first day.
No module you have to configure before it is useful, and no report only one person knows how to produce. These are the six, in the order a school notices them, each with the part of the record it keeps honest.
One academic spine
Years, terms, classes and subjects stated once and referenced everywhere — no spreadsheet per term, no list that disagrees with another.
Students who move
Admit, place, move and withdraw through recorded facts. Each placement is dated, so a past term still names everyone who was in it.
Teachers and their load
A teacher sees the classes and subjects they are assigned to, and nothing they are not. A change of staff is a record, not a rewrite.
Grading you can defend
Weights, categories, precision and rounding are configuration, not code. Every mark is versioned, and a correction leaves the previous value visible.
Results that are calculated
A result is derived from the marks and the configuration, ranked within its scope, and published as an immutable snapshot.
Isolation you do not have to trust
Each school's information stays its own, enforced by the platform rather than by convention. One platform serves every school; none sees another.
One at a time
The same six, taken slowly.
What each capability means for the term you are running, and the part of the record it keeps honest.
One academic spine
A school's year is not a folder of files. It is a structure the rest of the product points at, so a term, a class, a placement and a mark all agree about what they belong to.
- The year and its terms are stated once, and every screen reads them from that statement.
- A class belongs to a year, a subject belongs to a year, and a placement points at both.
- Renaming a class does not orphan a mark, and adding a term does not require a second spreadsheet.
Students who move
A student's record is a history rather than a row that gets rewritten. Admission, placement, a move between classes and a withdrawal are recorded facts with dates, so a past term can still name everyone who was in it.
- Each placement is dated, and the previous one is not deleted when the next begins.
- A student who leaves keeps their marks, and a student who returns keeps their record.
- A class list for a past term is a question with an answer, not an archaeology exercise.
Teachers and their load
Assignments are records, so a teacher sees the classes and subjects they are assigned to and nothing else. A change of staff is a new assignment rather than a rewrite of the term.
- Each assignment names a teacher, a class and a subject for a year.
- A teacher's own screens are scoped to what they hold, which is also how the interface stays short.
- Reassigning a subject at mid-term leaves the earlier assignment visible for the term it covered.
Grading you can defend
Weights, categories, precision and rounding are configuration rather than code, so a result can be explained to a parent, an inspector or a board from the school's own settings.
- Each subject and term states its categories and what each one weighs.
- Precision and rounding are decisions the school records, and the result follows them.
- A result can be recomputed from the marks and the settings at any later date, and it will agree.
Results that are calculated
A result is derived rather than typed. It is calculated from the marks and the configuration, ranked within its scope, and published as an immutable snapshot, so what a parent was shown stays what was issued.
- Ranking is computed within the scope the school defines: the class, the year group, the school.
- Publishing freezes the result set; a later change becomes a new version rather than an edit.
- A promotion decision reads from the published record rather than from a re-opened term.
Isolation you do not have to trust
One platform serves every school, and a school's information stays its own by how the platform is built rather than by a setting somebody remembers to switch on.
- A school's records are its own, and no school's screens can reach another's.
- Support access is begun on purpose, for a stated reason, and recorded.
- The console that administers the platform is a separate application with its own sign-in.
How a term works
Six steps, then it is data entry
The order the application asks for. Follow it once and the rest of the year is repetition, which is exactly what a school office wants.
Every step below is a screen, and each one records something the next step depends on. Nothing is re-entered and nothing is recomputed by hand.
Open the academic year
Name the year and its terms — three for basic schools, two semesters for colleges. Everything else hangs from them.
Shape the school
Add the classes and subjects the year offers, then join them. That pair is what a placement, an assessment and an assignment all point at.
Register people
Enrol students and place them in a class. Register teachers and record which class and subject each one teaches.
Set how marks become results
Per subject and term: the categories, their weights, the precision and the rounding. The school decides; the system computes.
Record the marks
Enter marks per student. A correction appends a version rather than overwriting, and a change can be requested and reviewed.
Publish the results
Results are calculated, ranked within their scope, and published as an immutable snapshot a parent can be shown.
How that compares
Four ways to hold a school year.
A spreadsheet, a legacy system, a learning platform and a record built for the year. The differences that matter are the ones a school feels in the third week of a term.
| What a year needs | A spreadsheet | A legacy school system | A generic learning platform | Ashee SMS |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The academic year | Rebuilt each term | A fixed structure | Courses, not a school year | Stated once, referenced everywhere |
| A student's history | A cell, overwritten | A row, sometimes dated | Enrolment only | Dated placements, kept |
| Grading | Formulas in a file | Hard-coded per report | One scale for everyone | Categories, weights and precision, per subject |
| The result | Typed in | Computed by a report | Usually not calculated | Derived, ranked, and frozen on publication |
| A correction | The old value is gone | An edit log at best | Overwrite | Previous value, who, when, and a review step |
| Between schools | A file per school, if remembered | One database per installation | Varies by vendor | Its own record, by construction |
The first three columns describe how those ways of working usually behave, not a particular product. Ashee SMS is compared against a way of holding a year, not against a competitor.
Start here
Bring your next term onto Ashee
Start with one school. If the year closes cleanly, the rest of the group follows.