School excursions are fun, but to organize one is a challenging task.
Managing children during a school excursion is not easy either.
However, school excursion software can make things much easier for schools.
The software enables the transportation manager to form a students’ team and schedule an excursion with the start and end points.
And also designate a contact person, assign driver and assistant, and allocate a vehicle for the trip.
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For additional safety, smart bands can also be employed.
The software also makes carrying paperwork everywhere redundant.
However, the best school excursion management software will have the following interesting features:
1. Student Safety
The excursion management software is very helpful in not only ensuring but also in managing the safety of the students on an excursion trip.
Student safety is dealt with by giving staff members instant access to certain things such as student medical conditions, personalized care instructions, etc.
And also provides access to emergency contacts even when there is no connectivity or the mobile devices are offline.
All that the schools have to do is train their staff on what they are supposed to do in an emergency.
2. Management of Transportation
There is a module incorporated into the excursion management software helping schools to plan routes in an efficient manner.
The software helps in the management of trips with a focus on student safety.
The vehicle and driver details, including the exact location of the school bus, are tracked to improve safety.
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3. Data Safety and Security
Medical records of students contain their personal information.
As in paper forms, there is a chance of getting lost, stolen, read by someone, or photographed.
Access can be restricted, ensuring the utmost security and safety of data, when school excursion software is used.
Only specified staff members get instant access through password, fingerprint, or code to comprehensive student records, including medical records, and their access can be cut off on completion of the event.
This is because data automatically expires after the excursion so as to keep the information secure.
Even when authorized staff access information, they are tracked.
Therefore, it is easier, more secure, and more practical in all respects.
4. Unplanned or Unexpected Trips
Sometimes, the need to take a child or children to a nearby place either for educational purposes or any medical emergency.
In such kind of situations, the staff members need not to have panic at all.
A unique feature of the school excursion management software called “Instant Trip” can be made use of to handle all unplanned or unexpected trips.
5. Student Attendance Management
Keeping track of the students as the excursion progresses is a challenging task, especially when it has to be done manually.
The excursion management software leverages the mobile technology to ensure 100 percent accurate attendance marking.
The mobile linked excursion student attendance module enables staff to mark off their presence at several checkpoints throughout the excursion (for example, on the bus, at the bus stops, etc.).
6. Smart Wristbands
In some situations, there might be a need for additional safety when taking school children on an excursion.
The school excursion management software comes with a provision for that too- smart watch technology.
This is integrated into the student attendance management module ensuring additional safety for the children.
7. Parent App
This is one of the unique features of the school excursion management software.
It is linked with the parent app.
This enables the school to keep the parents in the loop and provide them with relevant information in real time.
8. Auto Routing
This is another interesting feature of the excursion management software.
It makes navigation easy.
The auto-routing module works on the basis of the start point or the source and the endpoint or the destination.
The auto-routing feature helps to reduce the running time of the vehicle, fuel usage, efforts of the transport manager and driver, and saves fuel, among other things.
It makes use of the algorithm ‘Smart Routing’ to find solutions automatically.
9. Smart Notifications
The Smart Notifications feature is helpful in many ways and mainly in case of emergencies.
This features school administrators and authorized teachers or staff members to send messages or notify all concerned profiles instantaneously about an emergency situation or changes in plans.
This is normally a helpful feature when school children are taken out on an excursion.
The fact that if the school is using excursion management software, then it provides a great deal of confidence in parents.
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10. Geofencing
A geofence refers to a perimeter or a virtual fence around a physical location.
The school excursion management software employs this technology to keep track of students during excursions and manage proximity risk.
This technique does not make use of satellite communication to find the coordinates of the student(s) that has gone astray.
Instead, it keeps checking whether the students in a group are staying close to one another.
The proximity risk management program works by creating a beacon.
Typically, the instructor or the teacher accompanying the students is defined as the beacon.
A random student could also be made a beacon.
The software keeps checking whether each student in the group is close to their beacon or not.
An alarm is initiated or an alert message is sent if a student moves out of the geofence.