Post – Primary Digital Admissions Training
Part 2 ‘The School Journey’

Welcome to this training session for the digital Post Primary Admission for September 2021.
This is the second of two recordings.  The first training session showed the parents journey through the process and this second training session shows the school’s journey through the process. 
This year, as you’ll be aware, the process takes place entirely online, with schools receiving and processing the applications online.
During the current Covid pandemic, this will help schools to review applications and make decisions without having to handle paper applications. They will be able to view applications online and export details as an Excel file.
Schools will also be able to view or download any documents uploaded by a parent in support of their application, and again this will minimise the transfer of paper between schools.
Prior to the admissions window, EA will issue a registration link to each Principal or assigned user via their email.  The user then follows the information to verify their email address and set a secure password which will then enable them to log on to the system. 
Users can then log into the system and use it to view applications and make decisions about their applications, once the application window has closed.
When logged on, the user has access to several features and can view any applications and supporting documents that have been submitted to their school. They can see the current status of their applications and they will be able to search, sort, download or export documents as required.
So having successfully logged in, the user will see the screen as shown.  Along the top on the left hand side, the user will be able to see the official admissions number for the school as set by the Department of Education.
If at any stage during the process, a school receives a temporary variation in this number, that it can then be adjusted by EA to reflect the updated admissions number once it has been verified by the Department.

The numbers of applications currently selected or not selected by the school, with the number of applications still pending, can also be seen along the top of the screen and in this current example there are four applications with the school, so one has been selected and three are pending.
Users will also be able to search for information about an individual application.
They can do so using the application number or by using the pupil or child’s name.
Applications can also be sorted by using the drop-down menu at the top of each column, so it's possible to sort the applications by: application number, by child’s name, by date of birth or by status, as required.
The user can also access further details simply by clicking on the blue application number.
And it's in this detailed information page that schools are able to make their decisions about selecting or refusing an application by selecting as appropriate from the buttons at the top right of the screen.
All of the details that would normally have been on the paper application, are now available on this screen for schools to consider and use, to apply their criteria.
A list of all the supporting documents currently uploaded with the application is also available and as you can see, these documents may be viewed or downloaded by clicking on the appropriate icons on the screen.
The positioning of the information on the screen may change slightly in the final version, but the details shown and the functionality will be the same.
To access some further details, simply scroll down the screen.  And details of AQE or GL assessments and religious community will be available to those schools that require it.
It's important that this information is only displayed for those schools that actually require it for their admissions criteria. So that is, schools using information from the transfer test, or Integrated schools for religious community background.
Schools will also have the option to export any of the details that are included in the applications and they will export that as an Excel file which can then be saved and interrogated offline as necessary.
The user can identify if they want to export a single application by selecting the appropriate box alongside the application, clicking ‘Export as CSV’.
Or a user can select several applications and then export those.
Or by clicking on the box at the top of the column, the user can select all applications to export and this may be the most purposeful use of this particular function.
Using this export function will allow the school to sort their applications by the information provided in the application, although by adding additional columns as necessary, any other criteria that is needed by a school can be added and that will allow them to interrogate for use with applying their admissions criteria there.
Applications may be exported in this way at any time, but it may be more sensible to leave it until the application window closes.  However, it will all depend on a schools intended use for any exported documents.
Clicking on the ‘document’ tab at the top gives access to all the documents that have been uploaded by parents to the school.
Again, users will have functionality and features similar to the application screen that we've just seen.  So they will again be able to search by application number or by name.   
They will also be able to filter by document type so that they're only considering one type of document at a time, and this is a feature which is likely to be very useful for all schools, particularly to download birth certificates for their records, and I'll take a closer look at that later.
Documents can also be sorted on screen by using the drop-down menu at the top of each column, so again it's possible to sort the documents by: their application number, by child’s name, by date of birth, or by document type as required.
A document can be downloaded by clicking on the download icon alongside the appropriate application. So in this example, a birth certificate for application #5 can be downloaded by just simply clicking the icon that's been circled.
Again, a user has the option of choosing one document or multiple documents or all documents by ticking the appropriate boxes on the left and downloading all selected, as shown.
Or, if a user wants to, they can view the information on the screen, perhaps before deciding to download, they want to view the information before making that decision. So click on the view icon, allows the view to be seen on the screen, but obviously only one document can be viewed at a time in that way.
So as mentioned, if a user wants to view perhaps all of its birth certificates , or download all of its birth certificates, then the school users will select ‘birth certificate’ from the document type filter as shown.
Having selected birth certificate, then only birth certificates will then be available to the user and clicking the top box of the selection panel selects all of these birth certificates.
Then clicking ‘download the selected items’, will download all of the birth certificates so that the school can retain them for its records.
And a similar process could be followed for any other document types if that was required.
I've been talking a lot about downloading information from the online system and so at this time it's appropriate just to remind schools that they will be acting as data processors throughout this process, and so all of their usual data protection systems must be up-to-date and must be compliant.
We all have a duty to ensure that the personal information that we’re handling is processed securely.
So hopefully you will now have seen that a school can use the online system to view its applications online, to make decisions about selecting pupils, as required and the user can change the status of applications to selected or not selected.
They can export information from applications as an Excel file, which can then be edited if required and the online system allows users to view or download supporting documents relevant to their applications.
In practical terms, during the period when the application window is open, all first preference applications will show as ‘pending’.  Following the closing date schools will then amend the status of 1st preferences to be selected or not selected as appropriate.
Any 2nd and subsequent preferences will only become viewable once refused by another school.
As usual, a clearing process continues right until the end of the admissions procedure and during the clearing process, applications will move up and down between schools as they apply their criteria. The EA Admissions Office will obviously be there to support the parents of children that remain unplaced at the end. The full process and results of the final process will be made available to parents online right at the end as well. 
Throughout the process it will be business as usual for the Admissions Office, so if schools require any further help, they can contact the EA Admissions team by either phone or email using the information shown on the screen now.
During the current pandemic, email contact is preferable.
So finally, it just remains for me to thank you for taking the time to view this presentation. Hopefully it has been helpful to explain the new digital process and how it will be used by schools to make admissions decisions.
Further information will be available on the EA website if you should need it.
Thank you.