The problem
Paper registers sit in a folder, and emergency contacts and allergy notes live on a spreadsheet at home, so a teacher covering a church-hall class may not have them. A school with 12 classes a week that prints registers and types attendance into a spreadsheet spends about an hour a week on it, 4.3 hours a month, plus an hour a month updating contact sheets.
What the AI does
Class Manager is class management software for dance studios and other class businesses. Its pricing page says there is no monthly subscription, with a service charge only on payments taken online, and lists digital attendance tracking, student profiles with medical and consent tracking, staff roles and permissions, and a parent portal. Its feature pages say teachers tap through the register on a tablet or phone, staff can see emergency contacts, photo consent and medical information at a glance, and parents can update their own details through the portal. Attendance reports show which pupils are at risk of dropping out.
A worked example
A dance school in Northampton runs 12 classes a week at its studio and a church hall. The owner sets up each class in Class Manager, invites parents to fill in their child's details through the portal, and gives each teacher access to their own classes.
Before
Printed registers, attendance typed up weekly and contact sheets on a home spreadsheet; about 5.3 hours a month
After
Registers taken on teachers' phones and details kept by parents; about 1 hour a month checking
What it's worth
About $144£108€129A$207C$203 a month in time saved: 4.3 hours a month at an assumed $33£25€30A$48C$47 an hour, from 5.3 hours of registers and contact sheets down to about 1. Class Manager has no monthly fee if you don't take payments through it.
How to set it up
- Open a free Class Manager account and set up your classes, venues and teachers.
- Invite parents to the portal to enter emergency contacts, medical information and photo consent for their child.
- Give each teacher a staff login that shows only the classes and details they need.
- Ask teachers to take the register on their phone at the start of every class.
- Check the attendance report each month and contact families whose child has missed several classes.
What goes wrong
- Medical information about children is special-category data under UK GDPR. Read Class Manager's terms and privacy information, limit staff access, and record why you hold it.
- Keep a printed emergency sheet for venues with no phone signal, and update it whenever details change.
- The pricing page doesn't state the rate of its online payment charge, so check it before moving fee collection into Class Manager.
- Parents may not fill in the portal. Chase missing details before a child's first class, not after an incident.