Online schools application system beats targets

Parents in East Riding adopt online system

Parents in East Ridings, Yorkshire, are making use of a new online school application system.

The Admissions and Transfers Online system - supplied by Capita Education Services - is intended to save parents time and effort when applying for primary and secondary school places for their children.

Allison Brown, ICT development manager for East Riding of Yorkshire Council says in spite of some technical problems and usability mishaps, the system has been very successful.

'We were using a system that had been developed in-house, which had no online facilities, it was purely a means of recording paper applications as they came in,' she said.

'Parents are actually keying in the information themselves, which goes into our front-end system. If they have the right security passes they can also pull back ther details of their child, so it minimises the input for them.'

East Ridings has now received over 2,000 online applications, out of a total of 7,900 potential applicants, outstripping its initial target of 20 per cent take-up for the new service.

'We did an awful lot of promotion for this, leaflets were targeted at every parent that was known to us, and there was also posters put up, cinema advertising and promotional gifts such as magnetic pens with the web address on,' she said.