Useful Edge functionality during Lockdown

Two key features in Edge SM that are especially useful during lockdown are messaging your school community and managing your attendance en masse'.

There are a number of ways of keeping your community in touch with your school via Edge .. this includes announcements, emailing and notifications to the mobile app.

Please click this link to view a video on how to configure and use this functionality.

During lockdown most schools are adding the F code (The student is not in class but is on a legitimate off-site school-based course) to their students. Class teachers can add this to their own class if they have been given the F code as an option. 

To do this in bulk you need the Attendance Officer Role.

Go to Attendance>Attendance Records>Mark Attendance>Multiple Days

Alongside Mark for multiple: select Class

From the Room/Group dropdown choose Whole School (if you have created this as a Group), otherwise select your classes.

To learn how to create a whole school Group click here

Select From and To dates.

Alongside Sessions tick 'All'.

Choose Attendance code F from the dropdown.

Add a suitable Attendance Note and Save.

Our Helpdesk can be contacted on 0800 600 159 during business hours or email, support@edgelearning.co.nz 

All the best from the team at Edge Learning.

June Updates

 A nice time saving addition was added to Edge/Edge Mobile app last week. Schools can  now have caregivers send in an absence notification about their child, to the school, via the Edge Mobile app.

This is configured at the bottom of the Admin>Setup>School Settings page.

Schools can edit the text that caregivers would see on the app and can include the school phone number so the school can be phoned directly. If the school have the option to receive messages by text the 'Allow text message' box can be ticked.

When caregivers send an absence notification it is saved directly into Edge Attendance along with a suitable note that lets the school know that it was received from the caregiver app.

NB. the message is sent by data not as a text.

What the caregiver sees:

A now Family Roll list has also been added on the People>Student Lists page. This prints out the contact details for all students, grouped by family.

 

May Edge Updates

We are making a number of changes to Edge SM in May. Here's what we've released so far:

Changes to Purple Banner:

- Increased the font size of the student name.

- Included legal name.

- Added photo permission and internet permission.

- Moved the "Next" button to the right side of the name select box.

- Filter selections (Current Students, Pre-Enrols, Leavers) are now sticky when selecting students from the drop-down list .

- Added "Time at School" (YMD and weeks).

- Multiple Ethnicities are listed with a +# when more than three.

- Multiple Iwi are listed with a +# when more then two.

Other items:

- Added the option to fuzzy search for emails to help with matching when adding people  to Edge.

- Contact details for Independent Students now show in the app. (ticked as Independent Youth).

- Various minor bug fixes and performance improvements.

- Schools can now connect Edge to My Mahi to allow the relevant data to be accessed by My Mahi. The setting for this is found on the Admin>Setup>School Settings page.

End of term countdown

The End of Term Countdown widget in Edge is well into the single digits which will be a welcome sight to all. The Easter break gave us all a brief recharge, but two weeks sans students after another covid interrupted term will be very well received.

The term break will also give us the opportunity to release new functionality in two areas, both of which will be available on our mobile app.

The first is live reporting which will give school's the option of pushing assessment graphs to the caregiver mobile app and portal. These are the graphs found on the People>Student Details .. Assessment Summary page. Schools will have the option of which graphs to publish and when, as well as optionally including a comment.

 

The second is giving caregivers the option of reporting their child's absence via the mobile app. The notification is recorded directly into Attendance in Edge very similarly to the VisTab sign in/out via tablet system that many schools are using.

  

March 29 & 30 saw over 100 staff from dozens of schools attend our annual Edge User Conference at the Napier War Memorial Conference Centre. The event was kicked off with an extremely thought provoking hour delivered by guest speaker Henare O'Keefe. His singing, humour and inciteful commentary all spoken from the heart was very well received and set the stage for the following day and a half of workshop sessions. Feedback has been very positive and we are now looking ahead to our 2022 conference to be held in Queenstown.

Enjoy a well deserved term break.



  

Underway in a New Year

February 10 and all schools are underway for the new year .. which as usual nicely coincides with the best of the summer weather...

It's been good to hear from so many schools with a good number signing up to our Edge User Conference which is in Napier, March 29 & 30. If you haven't signed up or would like more information please click here.

Other events on the near horizon are March Returns. We'll be holding a number of webinars on this so keep an eye out for the link in Edge.

It's also nearly the time when some schools send out interim reports. If you need one creating or an existing one updated please contact your Account Manager or email services@edgelearning.co.nz

Finally a reminder about the Edge Mobile App. It's available for staff, caregivers and students from the App or Play Store. It's very secure and provides a convenient way to take attendance, view details, add pastoral notes, etc. Below are a two links that give more details.

Edge Mobile App

View Classes and Groups