Change the words used for pupils and schools

Written for: Alternative provision leaders.

Alternative provisions don’t all use the same words. You might call the young people you work with learners rather than pupils, or call the school that places a pupil with you their home school. Set your words once in your setting profile, and the alternative provision pages use them.

Change your words

1. In the sidebar, open Settings and choose Provision Settings.
2. Click the Setting Profile tab. You might need to scroll the row of tabs to see it.
3. Under Vocabulary, type your word in each box:
   • A child on roll is a…, for example pupil, learner or student.
   • A teaching grouping is a…, for example group or base.
   • A commissioning school is the…: the school that places a pupil with you, for example commissioning school or referring school.
   • The headteacher role is shown as…, for example Provision Lead or Centre Manager.
4. Click Save profile.

You’ll see “Setting profile saved”.

Type the words in lower case, as they’d appear in the middle of a sentence, unless they’re always written with capitals. Student Radar adds a capital letter where a word starts a heading or label. It also adds an s for plurals, so choose a word that makes its plural that way.

Where your words appear

Word	Standard word	Where you’ll see it
A child on roll is a…	pupil	The alternative provision pages, such as Today, Risk Assessments, Daily Check-ins and Progress Drivers. For example, Add pupil becomes Add learner.
A teaching grouping is a…	group	The group box when you add or edit a pupil.
A commissioning school is the…	commissioning school	The title of the Placements page, the column in the pupil list, the box in the placement form, and the grouping in attendance reports.
The headteacher role is shown as…	Provision Lead	It’s saved with your profile. Role lists in Staff and access still call this role Leader.

Some things keep the standard words:

• The sidebar. For example, the menus are still called Pupils and Commissioning Schools.
• Pages shared with schools, such as safeguarding and health.
• Some messages and help text.

Notes

• Your saved words stay as they are: Student Radar keeps the words you saved, even if its own standard words change later. If your provision set up its profile a while ago, it may still say home school. Change it here if you’d rather use commissioning school.
• Leave no box empty: if any of the four boxes is empty when you save, Student Radar uses the standard words for all four.
• Changing the establishment kind: choosing a different Establishment kind resets your words to that kind’s standard ones. Check them again before you save.
• Who can change the words: by default, your provision’s leader. The change must be made on this tab by a member of your provision’s staff. Other staff see “You can view this profile, but you do not have permission to change it.”
• Other profile settings: see Set up your provision profile and activate AP operations. Schools use the same tab. See Set your setting type, country and wording.

If something doesn’t work

What you see	What to do
“We could not save the setting profile. Your changes are still here. Check your access or connection, then try again.”	Check your connection and click Save profile again. If it keeps happening, ask your provision’s leader.
“You can view this profile, but you do not have permission to change it.”	Ask your provision’s leader to change the words.
A page still shows the old word	Reload the page. If it still shows the old word, it’s one of the places that keeps the standard words.