Top prep school runs FileMaker database and Go systems

Posted by Justin Hesser on June 30, 2014

One of the hottest trends in the educational landscape is mobile devices. From school boards deploying tablets in every classroom to improving wireless networking so students can use their personal devices to using specialty applications to help special needs students, tablets and smartphones are finding a home in the education system. However, the learning institutes need to make sure that they are doing everything possible to optimize the mobile platform.

Recently, FileMaker profiled Cheltenham College Junior School, which has been educating young people between the ages of three and 18 since 1841. It is considered one of the foremost co-educational public boarding schools in the country with a sterling reputation for academic achievement, breadth of extracurricular opportunities and a strong community.

The organization has been a FileMaker customer for the past 15 years and has been active in how it uses the system. Over the time period, the solution, which started as a simple contact management system, has evolved to include everything from pupil assessments to e-registration. The College has taken full advantage of everything that FileMaker has to offer and continues to look for new ways to optimize how it runs with new systems.

The most recent evolution of the system that the school administration has spearheaded include a deploying a mobile system through FileMaker Go to better meet the demands of current trends.

Nicky Fortune, the Curriculum Director at Cheltenham Junior College, told the news source that by partnering with its FileMaker development firm, the school was able to create fill mobile access with the FileMaker databases that are already set up within the school network. This includes a significant amount of information that is now able to be accessed while on the go.

With the new system, professors are able to access the grade book, for example, and update grades and assessments during the actual lesson in real-time instead of making notes that need to be transferred at a later date. The success here has the administration considering expanding the programs to including management of extracurricular activities and sports teams.

The school also has a backend overhaul that included a major contact database for parents of students. With a simple search of the database, the school is able to find all the important and contact information for a student and make the call to a parent or guardian with the click of a button.

Fortune laid out an example where a an emergency arises and a student needs to be found and the parent contacted. By using the new FileMaker database, a quick search brings up all contact information, as well as the students schedule. Now, the administrator knows right where the student should be and can press the phone number to start a call.

He went to on talk about the security features, multiple standalone uses and plans for continued expansion of FileMaker in the coming years into curriculum systems and more.

"We're extremely proud of the system that we've created here at Cheltenham College, and even fifteen years on there's a real feeling that there's so much left for us to get from FileMaker," Fortune said. "With the addition of FileMaker Go, it's a very exciting time to be using the software."

With the help of a custom FileMaker development firm, any company can improve how it operates through the use of FileMaker and its many features.