Student information system
The student record is the thing every other part of a school system hangs off, so Classbell treats it as a scoped, audited record rather than a form. Every pupil belongs to a campus, sensitive data is separated and permission-gated, and every change keeps what the value was before it.
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What belongs on a student record that most systems bury?
The primary guardian's phone number, at the top, because it is the single most common reason anyone opens the record. And a medical or safeguarding flag as an alert rather than a paragraph three tabs in — a nut allergy discovered by scrolling is a system that has technically stored the information and practically failed to communicate it.
- The primary guardian's phone surfaced on the identity header
- Medical and safeguarding data shown as a flagged alert, not body text
- That data is permission-gated and never appears on published documents
- Tabs for guardians, attendance, academic record, fees, documents and history
How is enrolment recorded for an international intake?
The enrolment record covers nationality, identity document and expiry, previous school, siblings already at the group, and transport arrangements — backed by 220 ISO country records with dial codes rather than a free-text country field that will eventually contain four spellings of the same place. Adding a pupil asks for campus and academic year first, because those two answers scope the class list, the fee plan and the currency for everything after them.
- 220 ISO country records with dial codes behind the identity fields
- Nationality, ID and expiry, previous school, siblings and transport
- Campus and academic year asked first, because they scope everything else
- A photo stored against the record, with an initials fallback
How does the system stop the same child being enrolled twice?
A group with several campuses creates duplicates that a single school never would — a family moves branch, a registrar at one campus does not know the record already exists at another. Classbell warns on a matching name and date of birth at any campus in the group before the record is created, and shows where the existing record is so the registrar can transfer rather than re-enter.
- Duplicate detection on matching name and date of birth, group-wide
- The warning names the campus the existing record is at
- A move between classes is an enrolment transfer, not a re-entry
- The previous enrolment is retired rather than overwritten
Who can see which pupils?
Scope is applied in the data-access layer, not in the interface, which is a distinction worth pressing any vendor on. A campus administrator asking for a pupil at another campus gets nothing back — not a filtered screen with the row hidden. Teachers see the pupils they teach, parents see only their own children, and pupils see themselves and no other pupil and no school finances at all.
- Group and campus scope applied in the data layer on every read
- An out-of-scope record is not found, rather than hidden
- Parents see only their own children
- Pupils see no other pupil and no school-wide finance
What does the audit trail actually record?
Who made the change, what changed, the value before and the value after, when, and at which campus. It is immutable — there is no update or delete path in the code, so a record cannot be tidied up after the fact — and it is retained for seven years. That is the specific thing worth asking any vendor to demonstrate, because "we log changes" is compatible with logging almost nothing useful.
- Who, what, before, after, when and which campus
- Immutable — no update or delete path exists in the code
- Retained for seven years
- Readable by administrators from the settings area
How do logins for pupils, guardians and staff get issued?
Every login in the system is created by accepting an invitation, and the role is bound to the invitation rather than chosen by the person accepting it. A teacher, pupil or guardian login is issued from that person's own record, so a login always has a record behind it. Administrative access is invited by email from the team settings, and an administrator can only ever invite at or below their own level — privilege narrows, never widens.
- Role is bound to the invitation, never self-selected
- Pupil, guardian and teacher logins are issued from the person's record
- Invitation and reset links last one hour and are single-use
- An administrator cannot reset another administrator's password
Common questions
Is this a student information system or a school management system?
Both, in the sense that matters: the student record is one module of Classbell alongside attendance, timetabling, exams, fees and communication, and they share one data model rather than being integrated after the fact.
Can we import our existing student records?
Not through a self-serve importer — that is not built. Records are created through the product, and a group moving several hundred pupils should talk to us about it rather than assume a spreadsheet upload exists.
Can one email address belong to two people?
No. An email is unique across staff, pupils and guardians within a group, which is what lets a login resolve to exactly one person and one role. A parent with two children at the school is one guardian record linked to both.
Does medical information appear on a report card?
No. Report cards carry no medical and no fee information at all, and say so on the document itself.