Tip of the Month #10 - Ending the School Year!
Summers on it's way! For this months Tip of the Month, we're going to have a look at some of the features on the software that you might find useful now we have reached the end of the school year!
Child Leavers Report
The Child Leaver's Report will show you which children have an "Actual Leave Date" within the date range that you selected. You can run the report for dates around the last day of term to make sure that all of the appropriate children are on the list! You can run this report for the whole setting on you can choose a room that you would like to take a look at. This report can be sorted by room or by Actual Leave Date.
Find the Child Leaver's Report in Abacus > Reports > Children!
Starters and Leavers Detailed Report
Run the Starters and Leavers Detailed Report see which children are starting with you at the setting or leaving you within the dates that you have selected! This report will also give you details as to what sessions that the children have been booked into. This report can also be filtered into rooms, starters, leavers or key person!
Find the Starters and Leavers Detailed Report in Abacus > Reports > Children!
Changing your Children's Status
When a child has reached their Actual Leave Date, their sessions will stop and they will no longer appear on your registers. When you're ready to do so, you will need change the child's status from "Registered" to "Left".
Don't worry! You'll still have access to this child's details, they will just be moved to your left list. To change a child's status, head to their Child Summary page. Click on the Yellow Edit Pencil 
and then select the drop-down menu under "Status". Change their status to "Left" and click "Save".
To access the Left list, just select the drop-down box at the top of your Registered Children's List.
Deposit Details Report
If you take a deposit from your parents, it's time to get these paid back! You can use the Deposit Details Report to see the status of the children that have left a deposit with you.
You can run this report by Date, Room or Deposit Status. So, if you would like to see a list of Children that are due their deposit returned, you can run the report with the Status of "Deposit Due" so you know exactly where you are with the deposit!
For a handy help guide on adding and repaying deposits among other helpful info, click here!
Mail Merge
Using the Mail Merge recipients filter, you can choose to send a email just to the parents of the children that are set to leave your setting within a given time frame! You may want to remind them that all invoices must be paid before a certain date or even just wish them luck and all the best in the future!
Head to Reports > Mail Merge and select "Recipients" at the top of the screen. You can then pop in the dates in the "Leaving Date" section and Abacus will filter just the emails of the Parents whose children are due to leave the setting in that time!
Then, just head back to "Letter details", write your message and click "Email". Don't forget that you can also use the Custom Fields so that each email is personalised to every child!
Footsteps
If you are a user of our Footsteps system, there is also a things that you can do now that the child has come to the end of their EYFS journey with you!
Assessments
In Footsteps, head to the "Assessments" tab. Here you can create an assessment for the children and give details of how they have progressed in each EYFS area and what they might need some extra support in moving forward. This might be something that you would like to send along to the parent or to the child's new school!
Select the assessment that you will like to create and enter the details for each area. Remember, areas marked with an asterisk (*) are mandatory for the EYFS and must be complete before you can continue.
To find our more about Assessments, click here for our Helpfile!
Learning Journey
Sending Parents/Carers their childs Learning Journey is a great way to end their time at the setting! The Learning Journey complies all of the observations that you have made for a child including any pictures or videos that have been attached to them. The Learning Journey can be exported or emailed to the parent straight from Footsteps!
Head to the Reports tab in Footsteps, then click on the Learning Journey tile. Once you have found the Learning Journey that you are looking for, click/tap the export icon 
at the top of the screen. You'll be given the options of email, saving and printing your learning journey!
For a helpfile on this, click here!
Certificates
You might want to use the Footsteps certificate feature to send the leaving children a certificate to congratulate them on leaving the setting and to wish them luck in the future!
Just head to the Achievements tab and click on the plus button to create a new certificate! You can tick the children's names and create the certificates all at once too if you like!
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