One System for Every Child's Journey, from First Visit to IEP Goals, Fees and Zakat
We designed and built the School Management Information System for ACELP Institute of Child Development, a special-needs school in Karachi. Every child's record now runs through one system, from intake and multi-disciplinary assessment to IEP goals, attendance, fees and Zakat, and the school's own administrators change its forms, workflows and permissions from the screen.
ACELP Institute of Child Development, Karachi
Education · Special needs
Product Design, Web Application Development, Workflow Automation, Deployment
Reception, therapists, teachers, accounts & management
ACELP Institute of Child Development serves children with special needs through a morning school, an afternoon shift, out-patient therapy programs and a diploma track. Each child is seen by a team of specialists (psychologist, occupational, physical, behaviour and speech therapists, sports and early-childhood staff), and the school decides on placement, therapy and fees from what that team finds.
The system follows each child through that whole lifecycle. Reception registers the child and issues an ACELP ID, then books assessments with each specialist. Management records the enrollment decision on one screen, and the system creates the class and therapy placement, the first fee invoice and an IEP in one step. From there teachers mark attendance, therapists track IEP goals quarter by quarter, and accounts manages fees, concessions and Zakat, all recorded on the child's 360° profile.
The AI Builder turning a one-line request into a Zakat concession form and approval flow, one-tap attendance, and a child's journey from intake to exit.
Role profiles: reception, eight therapy disciplines, class teacher, accountant, management and system administrator
Lifecycle stages: intake, assessment, enrollment, IEP, attendance, fees and Zakat, exit and rejoin
Assessment streams, from psychological, OT, PT, BT and speech to sports, class observation and early childhood
Ready-made form and workflow templates, plus an AI Builder that drafts new ones from a sentence
Names, IDs and figures in the screenshots are sample data created for this case study. They are not real students or production volumes.
A single child at ACELP may be assessed by eight specialists, placed in a class, given several weekly therapy sessions, reviewed against IEP goals every quarter and billed every month, often with a Zakat or other concession. Kept on paper files and spreadsheets, that history was spread across rooms and people. It was hard to see which assessments were still pending, whether an IEP review was overdue, or what a family owed after concessions.
The people using the system are therapists, teachers, receptionists and accountants, not technical users, and the school keeps changing how it works: new assessment forms, new approval steps, new fee rules. The priority was one system of record for every child, simple enough to use without a training manual, that the school could reshape itself as its processes change.
Every step of a child's journey lives in one record that every team works from.
A five-step intake wizard captures the child's details, family and school, presenting complaint and parents, then closes with a review. Assessments are booked with each specialist on a shared calendar that catches clashes, each stream has its own form that saves as the therapist works, and a board shows every child's assessments from Pending through Submitted to Reviewed.
The enrollment decision is taken on one screen: the child's profile and every assessment summary on the left, and program, class (with remaining capacity) and fee concession on the right. Confirming it books the class and therapy slots, raises the first invoice and opens a draft IEP, which then runs in quarterly periods with goals, a baseline, a target and progress.
Teachers mark class attendance on a card grid with Present, Absent, Late and Leave toggles and a one-tap "Mark All Present", on a phone or a desktop. Repeated absences raise an alert automatically.
Fees are kept in separate books for the morning, afternoon, OPD and diploma programs, each showing billed, collected, outstanding and Zakat-funded amounts. Monthly invoices are generated automatically, part or full payments get a printable receipt, and a Zakat application goes to the principal for approval; once approved, the concession applies to the following invoices and every change is kept on record.
Administrators reshape the system themselves:
The dashboard shows enrollment, attendance and fee collection at a glance. Ready-made reports cover attendance, fee collection, Zakat distribution, therapist caseload, IEP progress, the intake-to-enrollment funnel and outstanding fees, and each child's 360° profile brings their timeline, assessments, IEP, attendance, fees and documents onto one page.
The system holds sensitive information about children and families, so privacy was designed in from the start. Each role sees only what it has been granted, sign-in and sensitive details are protected, documents are shared only through expiring links, and every create, update, export and permission change is written to an audit trail.
Names, IDs and figures in these screens are sample data.
Every child has one record, from first visit to exit, that reception, therapists, teachers, accounts and management all work from.
One enrollment decision sets up the class, therapy slots, first invoice and IEP together, so nothing is set up twice or forgotten.
The school changes its own forms, workflows, permissions and fee rules from the screen, without waiting for a release.
Zakat and concessions follow an approval trail that the school can show to donors and auditors.
