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Language school software development

For directors of studies, registrars and owners of language schools and exam preparation centres who need placement, enrolment, class allocation, attendance, progress reporting and agent handling designed around rolling weekly starts rather than fixed terms.

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The problem

What goes wrong today

Where it usually starts

A language school is unlike almost any other kind of school because students arrive and leave every Monday.

  • A student books eight weeks of general English at intermediate level starting in three weeks; another extends by a fortnight; a third arrives having tested at a different level from the one her agent sold her.
  • The registrar keeps all of this in a spreadsheet with one row per student and one column per week, colour-coded by class, and every Friday afternoon the director of studies redraws the classes for Monday by hand because two classes have gone over capacity and one has shrunk to three students.

Where it gets harder

Placement tests are sent as a document and marked by a teacher on Sunday evening.

  • Attendance is on paper registers that matter a great deal for students on a visa, because the school's own policy requires it to warn and then report a student who falls below a threshold, and counting ticks across six weeks of registers is slow and error-prone.
  • Agents who refer students want a statement of commission per student per week, which the owner compiles from invoices.
  • Accommodation with host families is in another spreadsheet.
  • A student asks for a letter confirming enrolment for a visa application and the registrar types it from scratch.
  • Every piece of this works, slowly, until the summer peak.

Scope of the service

What the build covers

A custom language-school build normally covers:

  • An online placement test With sections per skill that scores and suggests a level, reviewed by a teacher before it is confirmed
  • Courses defined by language Level, intensity and weekly start dates, with prices per week set by you
  • Enrolment for a number of weeks with extensions and level moves recorded
  • Classes with capacity and a waiting list And a weekly class-allocation board for the director of studies
  • An attendance register per lesson With thresholds that trigger a warning and then an escalation on the schedule the school sets
  • Progress reports per level with teacher comments Issued at intervals and at completion
  • Accommodation requests matched to host families or residences With arrival and departure dates
  • Enrolment and attendance letters generated From the student's record for the student to use in their own applications
  • Agent accounts where each agent sees their own students Bookings and commission statements

We start by following a typical week: Friday's reallocation, Monday's arrivals and placement, a mid-week attendance warning, a student extension and an agent's month-end statement. Each becomes a named stage in the scope document: test and place, enrol, allocate, attend, report, extend or move, and pay agents.

Deliberately out of scope

  • The school's accounting ledger, host-family payments beyond recording what is owed, and any assessment of a student's immigration status. Letters are generated from the school's own records
  • What a student does with them is their own application

When the scope grows

Scoping scenario

A school with two centres, twelve classrooms, rolling Monday starts and forty agents wants placement tests scored online before arrival, a reallocation board that proposes Monday's classes from capacity and level, attendance thresholds that differ by visa type the school records, and commission statements per agent per week with different rates per agent. The reallocation proposal and per-agent rates are what make it a custom project.

Deliverables

What you receive

  • Discovery notes from following a full week including Friday reallocation and Monday arrivals
  • A scope document naming each stage from placement to agent statement and what is out of scope
  • Design of the class-allocation board, the register, the student record and the agent portal on desktop and tablet
  • The build, deployed to your hosting or ours, with role permissions and an audit of level moves, attendance edits and letters issued
  • Migration of students, current enrolments, class lists, agent records and accommodation bookings, where relevant
  • Training for the registrar, director of studies, teachers and accommodation officer, with a written guide per role
  • Handover material and full ownership of the source code and your data

Process

How a project runs

Each stage maps onto the project view in your client panel. Durations are set in your proposal, never on this page.

  1. Onboarding

    Access to the enrolment spreadsheet, the placement test documents, the paper registers, the agent list and the accommodation sheet, with the registrar as day-to-day contact.

    Project stage: Onboarding

  2. Planning

    A week walk-through with the registrar, the director of studies, a teacher and the accommodation officer; the scope document and milestone plan are agreed.

    Project stage: Planning

  3. Design

    Clickable designs of the allocation board, the online placement test, the register and the agent statement, reviewed with the people who will use them.

    Project stage: Design

  4. Development

    Built in stages: courses, enrolment and placement first, then classes and allocation, then attendance and reports, then accommodation, letters and agents.

    Project stage: Development

  5. Client review

    The school runs a test fortnight on sample students including a level move, an extension, an attendance escalation and an agent statement run.

    Project stage: Client review

  6. Revisions

    Changes from the review, particularly to allocation rules, threshold schedules and letter wording, are made and re-checked against the scope document.

    Project stage: Revisions

  7. Ready for launch

    Current students and classes migrated, agent balances agreed, cut-over planned for a quieter Monday outside the summer peak.

    Project stage: Ready for launch

  8. Delivered

    The school runs on the new system; optional maintenance and hosting continue under their own agreement.

    Project stage: Delivered

Integrations

Commonly integrated

Systems this kind of business usually asks us to connect. Each integration is confirmed during discovery; none is assumed.

  • Card and bank payment providers for course fees, deposits and accommodation
  • Accounting software for fee allocation and agent commission postings
  • Email and SMS providers for arrival information, attendance warnings and report notifications
  • Calendar feeds so teachers see their classes on their own devices
  • Online testing or exam-board platforms the school already uses for external exams
  • Document signing tools for enrolment agreements and host-family agreements

How we would approach it

Worked example

Concept demo

A two-centre school with forty agents and Monday reallocation

In this scoping scenario, a school with two centres and twelve classrooms took new students every Monday and worked with forty agents on different commission rates. It wanted students to sit the placement test online before arrival with a teacher confirming the level, the director of studies to receive a proposed Monday allocation built from level, intensity and class capacity that she could adjust by dragging, attendance thresholds that varied by the visa category the school recorded on the student, and weekly commission statements per agent at that agent's rate.

The scope we would propose: a scored online placement test with teacher confirmation, an allocation board that proposes classes and flags over-capacity and under-size groups, threshold rules keyed to a student attribute with warning and escalation steps, and an agent module with per-agent rates and weekly statements. The reason this needs a custom build is the allocation proposal: enrolment tools record who is in which class but do not propose next week's classes, which was the task eating the director's every Friday afternoon.

Concept demo: a scoping scenario written to show how we would approach the work. It is not a delivered client project.

Pricing

What affects the price

Every proposal is priced on scope. These are the factors that move it most for this kind of build.

  • Number of centres, classrooms and languages offered
  • Weekly starts, intensities and how far the allocation board must go in proposing classes
  • Online placement test design and the skills it covers
  • Attendance threshold rules and escalation schedule
  • Accommodation module and letter templates in scope
  • Number of agents and how commission rates and statements vary
  • Volume of student, enrolment, class and agent history to migrate
  • Hosting choice: your own hosting or ours

Start from a package

Language school package

Online placement tests, courses by language, level and intensity with weekly starts, class capacity and waiting lists, attendance thresholds, progress reports, accommodation requests and agent accounts for language schools.

Custom build
View the package

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

When is a custom build the right choice rather than the package?

When your allocation, threshold or agent arrangements break the assumptions of the language school package. During discovery we lay your week walk-through against the package and say plainly whether configuration covers it or whether, for example, your allocation proposals need custom work.

Does the system handle visa compliance for us?

No. It records the attributes you choose, such as a visa category, applies the attendance rules you configure and generates letters from your own records. What the school must do about attendance or sponsorship comes from its own obligations and advisers; the build gives you the records and reminders to act on them.

Can the placement test be taken before the student arrives?

Yes. The test is online, scored automatically for objective sections and marked by a teacher for writing or speaking samples, and the suggested level is confirmed by the director of studies before the student is placed. The student can be re-tested on arrival if needed.

Can we migrate current students mid-course?

Usually yes. We import students, their remaining weeks, class assignments, attendance to date and agent links, reconcile balances and plan cut-over for a Monday outside your peak. The scope document states what can be carried over once we have seen the spreadsheets.

Who owns the system afterwards?

The school does. Source code and data are handed over at delivery; hosting and maintenance are optional, separately agreed and movable to another provider.

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