How 3A Tutors Replaced Manual Exam Board Logins with One Connected System
Before choosing the SchoolBase MIS, 3A Tutors ran exam administration manually across each exam board's own website, pulling timetables, building seating plans and entering candidates separately for each board. It worked, but it consumed weeks of staff time every exam series. The team decided there must be a better way, and that’s how they became acquainted with the Furlong team. We caught up with the Paul Turner, Exams Officer at 3A Tutors, to understand what their new process consists of and to understand how SchoolBase is making a difference.
3A Tutors, Private Examination Centre & Tutorial College
SchoolBase MIS Exams Module
Manual processes run separately across each exam board's own website, plus manual collation for seating plans, entries, results slips and timetables.,
The Shift to SchoolBase
Before SchoolBase, 3A Tutors had no dedicated exams software. Exam timetables were pulled manually from each exam board’s own website, then collated by hand. Every candidate with entries across multiple boards had to be entered separately, board by board, and seating plans, results slips and student timetables all had to be built manually from scattered sources.
As Paul puts it: “Our processes before were time-consuming, particularly when it came to managing things like the seating plans.”
When searching for an exams tool, 3A Tutors needed a provider that streamlined data collation, sped up admin such as assigning seating, and offer intuitive features. The experience offered by SchoolBase’s exams module appealed to the team as it looked simple to use and operate.
Challenges and Outcomes
Seating plans
Challenge: These took weeks and left no margin for error. Building seating plans manually was so labour-intensive that normally, staff members would spend the better part of the second half of April and most of May on the task. Even then, the team were often only a few days ahead of the exams they were planning for.
Outcome with SchoolBase: Seating plans completed weeks ahead of schedule
With SchoolBase, seating plans are built by dragging students into spaces the system manages. In the most recent exam series, the team had every seating plan finished by the first week of May, comfortably ahead of the exam series, rather than days ahead of individual exams.
Adding Candidates
Challenge: Entering candidates was time-consuming 3A Tutors had to cross-reference multiple exam boards for a view of where students needed to be. This meant that a student sitting exams with multiple boards, say AQA, Pearson Edexcel and OCR, required the team to visit each board’s website separately and re-entering the same candidate details from scratch each time.
Outcome with SchoolBase: Candidates are now created once in SchoolBase, with entries then made for each board from the same record. Paul describes the difference directly: ” In terms of making the entries, it saved me a significant number of hours.”
Results Day Planning
Challenge: Previously results day meant a full day of manual collation. On the day results arrived, staff had to pull results from every exam board separately, then manually group and collate them by student before results slips could be issued, a process that previously ran from early morning into mid-afternoon.
Outcome with SchoolBase: Candidate results slips are now created in SchoolBase and the process of getting everything ready for results day now only takes a matter of hours.
Access Arrangements
Challenge: Access arrangements (such as extra time or rest breaks) had to be typed manually onto seating plans alongside each student’s exam, start time and end time. Despite thorough checking, arrangements occasionally slipped through and were only caught when a student queried their seating plan on the day.
Outcome with SchoolBase: Access arrangements are built into every seating plan automatically. Arrangements entered SchoolBase now appear automatically wherever a student is placed on a seating plan, removing the manual step, and the risk, entirely. Paul says this gives the team “peace of mind knowing if a student’s got an access arrangement, it’s there, it’s listed and there is no way it can be missed.”
Exam Timetables
Challenge: Sharing exam timetables with students meant manually pulling dates and times from each exam board separately before they could be issued.
Outcome with SchoolBase: Students now receive a single, consolidated document listing every exam, date and time in order, removing a manual step for staff at a time of year when their attention is needed elsewhere.
Seamless Onboarding and Training
3A Tutors were supported through three three-hour training sessions, each recorded for reference while the team learned the system. Since then, if the team have needed occasional support, they have been able to reach the Furlong team via email and Furlong’s self-help articles.
For a team managing exam entries, seating plans and results across multiple exam boards, the value isn’t a single feature. It’s having one record per candidate that feeds every downstream task. That’s what turned weeks of manual collation into a process the team can finish comfortably ahead of the exam series, with fewer places for detail to be missed.
For 3A Tutors, we were able to strengthen existing processes while adding peace of mind. At this busy time of year, teams are under enough pressure. We believe your MIS shouldn’t make things tougher.
“Instead of being stressed and finding time to manage lengthy admin tasks, with SchoolBase, those tasks can be sorted quickly. Instead, we could focus on the exams themselves, and other things. School Base has delivered what was promised. It's been nice and easy the team have been super friendly throughout. ”
Paul Turner, Exams Officer, 3A Tutors
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