How to... make the most out of Unifrog (international schools)

Here are the 4 things every international school should do to make the most out of Unifrog.

Over the last 10 years we've learnt that if you do these 4 simple things we've laid out below, you will fly!
 

Before you get started: complete the onboarding checklist

First things first: to get yourself properly set up on Unifrog, complete the onboarding checklist.

1. Identifying your goals

After you've completed the onboarding checklist, the first step in making the most out of Unifrog is to identify the goals you want to accomplish using the platform. We’ll then work with you throughout the year to help you achieve these goals.

Some popular goals across our network of 2,800+ schools include:

• Getting your students thinking about their futures from a younger age
  Unifrog has brilliant tools to get students in younger year groups engaged in subject and career exploration and self discovery. This is key in ensuring students are reaching well thought through decisions and creating strong applications further down the line.
   
• Centralising your school’s reference writing process
  We consistently hear from our partner school contacts that our reference and letter of recommendation writing tools have saved them and their colleagues buckets of time and effort. With Unifrog, everything is written in one place, providing a full trail of accountability so you’re able to keep track of everyone’s progress every step of the way.
   
• Creating an archive of student application materials and destinations
  Unifrog helps you store and analyze student destinations to help you assess your school’s guidance programme year on year. It also creates an archive of all student work related to applications so that it can be used to help future students with their applications.

Pro tip: For many popular Goals (including these 3 above) you can track your progress using relevant Charts, which you can access at the top of your teacher/counselor account homepage.

2. Developing your plan 

The second step in making the most out of Unifrog is to create a Year Plan: an annual plan of important sessions to deliver to students, divided by year group or grade. 

We've created one that you can adapt for your school. You can find it close to the top of the Resources library. Running the sessions featured in our off-the-shelf Year Plan will help you make the most of the platform and mean that you deliver a brilliant careers programme for your school. 

All the sessions are plug-and-play teaching resources, also taken from the Resources library (where you can find hundreds of other teaching resources - keep going back for more!).

Our Year Plan is completely customisable: you can tailor it to fit your students’ needs. You can access it as a Google Sheet, or download it as an Excel spreadsheet. 

Pro tip: to save your own editable version of the Google Sheet version to your Google account, click File --> Make a copy

3. Tracking your progress

After you’ve set your goals, and you have a Year Plan to achieve them, the third step is to use our Charts to track students' progress.

You can use the Charts to help you: 

• Identify strengths and weaknesses in your Unifrog usage and guidance programme
• Analyse your students’ destinations year on year
• Evidence what you are delivering to parents, governors, SLT, your colleagues, and anyone else.

Access Charts here or at the top of your homepage. And here’s a Charts how-to guide.

Here’s how charts look when they are pinned on your homepage:

Pro tip: Save students’ destinations on Unifrog. Then, using the destinations Charts, you can analyze where students have ended up, share successes and identify areas for development. 

Here’s a video on how to record students’ destinations, and here’s a How-to guide.

4. Join the community

The fourth step is to become a member of our awesome Unifrog community. There are several ways you can do this: 

• Webinars: Keep learning how to make the most out of the platform using our teacher webinars; we run them live all the time, and we also save the best past sessions so you can watch them whenever you like.
   
• Gazette: Stay up to date by signing up to our lovingly-produced weekly Gazette (from your homepage, scroll down until you see ‘Newsletters & Social’), made up of news and free resources.
   
• Facebook group: Join the Unifrog Network: International Facebook group to connect with our awesome global community of teachers, university admissions staff, and employers. If you’ve got a question, someone will be able to answer it.
   
• And of course: follow us on social media to be the first to hear about upcoming events, platform updates and new teaching resources:
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Instagram
  • Facebook