Rydal Penrhos cuts admissions admin by an estimated five hours per student with iSAMS by IRIS
With almost a third of its students joining in a single year, and a fairly small admissions team to manage the load, Rydal Penrhos needed a smart and efficient admissions process that could scale without creating more work for its staff.
The independent through-school in North Wales relied on paper files, printed offer packs and wet-signature forms, creating manual work for staff and delays for families.
By digitising its entire admissions journey with the iSAMS Admissions Module and Admissions Portal, the school turned enquiry-to-enrolment into a single digital process. Enquiries, registrations, document uploads and admissions tracking now sit within one system, helping staff save time, gain visibility, and give parents the digital experience they expect.
Key results
The challenge
When Maria Mclean took responsibility for admissions, she inherited a process built almost entirely on paper. Enquiries submitted through the website had to be typed into the system by hand, registration forms were completed on paper, and supporting documents such as passports and birth certificates were photocopied and filed by hand.
Offer packs contained around 20 printed pages and were posted to families for wet signatures. Staff then had to wait for paperwork to be returned, update records manually and maintain extensive physical filing systems. Admissions knowledge was often dependent on one individual, making it difficult for colleagues to step in when required. It wouldn’t be long before the school started to grow, so Maria decided to implement the Admissions portal in 2023, giving the team the support it needed to revolutionise the whole admissions process.
In September 2026, Rydal Penrhos welcomed 97 new students, around a third of its total population, in a single year. The paper process would never have kept up and staff are now able to spend time with prospective families and not with buried under mountains of paperwork.
The solution
iSAMS was already Rydal Penrhos’s school management system, so extending it through the Admissions Portal was the obvious next step. Rather than investing in a separate admissions platform, the school built a fully digital admissions journey inside a system staff already knew and trusted.
Online enquiry forms now feed directly into iSAMS and notify the admissions team the moment a new enquiry arrives. Registration forms adapt to the applicant, so nursery, senior school, and sixth form students each provide the right information.
Parents upload documents securely through the portal instead of posting them.
Staff can see every student’s progress through a clear admissions pipeline, from enquiry and registration through to offer and placement. Offer letters and acceptance forms are managed digitally through DocuSign and stored within iSAMS, cutting paper handling for staff and parents alike.
“I would say it has revolutionised our admissions process.”
Maria Mclean, Admissions and Marketing Lead, Rydal Penrhos
The impact
Digital admissions has changed how Rydal Penrhos manages student recruitment. The school no longer keeps physical student files, with admissions information stored digitally and accessible whenever staff need it. That’s made the process both faster and more resilient, since admissions no longer depends on one person holding all the knowledge.
Maria Mclean estimates the school saves five hours of admin per student compared with its previous paper-based process. Across the 97 students who joined in September 2026, that’s around 485 hours of staff time freed up for something other than paperwork.
Staff now spend that time talking to prospective families, following up enquiries and running recruitment events instead of processing forms. Open day attendance has doubled since admissions went digital, and the admissions team has absorbed higher enrolment with fewer staff, proof that a better process can create capacity without adding headcount.
Parents benefit too. Registration feels as straightforward as the other digital services they use every day. The result is a smoother admissions journey, better visibility across the team, and a system built to handle future growth