School modules
Add the parts of a school information system you need, when you need them: student records, attendance, behaviour, timetables, homework, seating plans, assessment, SEN, the school census and a parent portal. They sit inside PMC People, so staff use one system with one sign-in, on your own server.
The modules
Each one is a separate file, signed by us, that you install in Admin > Modules. Your licence says which ones you have, and each is ready to use as soon as it’s installed, with no restart.
Students
Student records, contacts with parental responsibility and court orders, medical needs, SEN, free school meals, year groups, forms and houses. Spreadsheet imports, and CTFs in and out.
Attendance
Morning and afternoon registers with the DfE codes, an attendance office for reasons and late marks, the school calendar, and attendance reports and percentages.
Behaviour and wellbeing
Achievements and incidents with points, actions and detentions, behaviour reports, and a safeguarding log that only the designated safeguarding leads can see, emailed to them as each concern is logged.
Timetable and cover
The school day, rooms, subjects and classes over a one- or two-week cycle, imported from your timetabling software. Timetables for every member of staff, student, class and room, daily cover for absent staff, and lesson registers.
Homework
Teachers set homework for their classes with worksheets and files. Students see it and hand it in through the portal, signing in with their school Microsoft 365 account or a password. See who has handed in, who is late and who hasn’t, give feedback and marks, return work to be redone, and log missing homework in Behaviour. Parents see it too.
Seating plans
Draw each room once, then plan every class in it by drag and drop, or let auto-arrange do it: seating needs, keep-apart rules and behaviour taken into account, and the reason for every seat shown. A names-only view for the board, the lesson register from the plan, and only what each teacher may already see.
Assessment and reports
Grade scales and data drops, grades and comments from class teachers and tutors, markbooks, targets, analysis by subject and student group, and reports to parents, printed or published to the parent portal.
SEN
The SEN register with each student’s needs and its history, one-page profiles of what helps, support plans with outcomes and reviews, EHC plans and annual reviews, and a provision map of interventions with their time and cost. Teachers see what helps the students they teach.
School census
The termly school census from the records you already keep: pupils, free school meals, SEN, attendance, suspensions and exclusions. The DfE’s own checks, with their rule numbers and what to fix, a summary to compare with COLLECT, and the file to upload.
Parent portal
A website for parents on their phone: their child’s day, timetable, homework, attendance, behaviour and reports, messages and consent forms from school, and reporting an absence, which the office records in the register. Students sign in to it too, for their homework and timetable.
Together, the school modules make PMC People a complete school MIS, with HR built in. New to the term, or choosing a new one? Read what a school MIS is, and what to look for when choosing one.
What each module needs
Every module builds on Students, so it goes in first. A filled dot is a module that has to be installed first. An open dot is one that adds more when both are installed: the parent portal only shows timetables, for example, when the Timetable module is there too.
| Module | Students | Attendance | Behaviour | Timetable | Assessment | SEN |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| StudentsNeeds only PMC People | No | No | No | No | No | No |
| Attendance | Needs it installed first | No | No | No | No | No |
| Behaviour and wellbeing | Needs it installed first | No | No | No | No | No |
| Timetable and coverLesson registers use the attendance codes | Needs it installed first | Works with it: adds more when both are installed | No | No | No | No |
| HomeworkStudents hand it in through the parent portal | Needs it installed first | No | Works with it: adds more when both are installed | Needs it installed first | No | No |
| Seating plansSeats follow SEN needs and behaviour | Needs it installed first | No | Works with it: adds more when both are installed | Needs it installed first | No | Works with it: adds more when both are installed |
| Assessment and reportsReports show attendance and behaviour points | Needs it installed first | Works with it: adds more when both are installed | Works with it: adds more when both are installed | Needs it installed first | No | No |
| SEN“My students’ needs” uses teachers’ classes | Needs it installed first | No | No | Works with it: adds more when both are installed | No | No |
| School censusTakes attendance, exclusions and SEN history | Needs it installed first | Works with it: adds more when both are installed | Works with it: adds more when both are installed | No | No | Works with it: adds more when both are installed |
| Parent portalShows parents whatever is installed | Needs it installed first | Works with it: adds more when both are installed | Works with it: adds more when both are installed | Works with it: adds more when both are installed | Works with it: adds more when both are installed | No |
Needs it installed first Works with it: adds more when both are installed
Every module needs the school edition of PMC People, kept up to date. The portal gateway is a separate small program for the parent portal (see below), not a module.
A parent portal without opening up your server
Parents use the portal from home, so it has to be on the internet. The PMC Portal gateway puts it there without putting your PMC People server there too.
- Your server stays private
- The gateway goes on a small server of its own, in your DMZ or the cloud. Your PMC People server connects out to it, so you don’t open any way in from the internet.
- Only the parent portal
- The gateway passes on parents’ requests and nothing else. Staff pages and the staff sign-in can’t be reached through it, and your server checks every request again itself.
- Nothing stored on it
- The gateway keeps no records. Parents’ passwords are checked by your own server, and every message between the two is signed with keys swapped when you link them.
- Simple to set up
- An installer sets up the gateway, its certificate and a locked-down service, and shows a pairing code. Enter the code in PMC People and the portal is live.
Adding a module
Add it to your licence
Tell us which modules you want. We add them to your licence, and your system picks up the change within a day.
Install the file
Upload the module’s file in Admin > Modules. It’s checked first: it must be signed by us, unchanged and meant for your version.
Give staff access
Each module adds its own permissions, and the built-in school roles get them straight away. Admin > Modules shows who can use each one.
Use the demo data
On a demo system, each module fills in a fictional school, so you can see it working before you add your own data.
Coming next: multi-academy trusts
Several schools in one installation, with trust-wide reporting.