Add New Classes

Add New Classes

The setup area for classes is used in the following situations:

• The school has a new class to add.   
• A class has no students registered in it and the school wants to remove the class.
• The class information requires edits.

Choose Setup> Class info and select THIS YEAR or NEXT YEAR on the Classes card.

The corresponding Classes page will appear.

Classes

Here is an example of the classes table. It will be sorted in alphabetic order (numbers first then letters).

Use the search icon to find a specific class, or use the page navigation.

Each class has a number of fields that you can set up, if required, to meet the school’s specific needs. See Class fields for information on each field.

Add a class

Use the Add icon in the Classes tool bar to add a new class.

Class fields

When a class is added or edited, the DETAILS tab is defaulted and this is typically the tab where any edits are made. See MULTIPLE ROOMS tab, and PROV. EXAM tab (if applicable to your provincial jurisdiction), for additional information on these tabs.

DETAILS tab

The following fields are located on the DETAILS tab when editing a course:

Class identification info

The first section of class information identifies the class (course and section letter), room, and teacher information as shown here:

These are the fields:

Course: The course code, course title, course number (PASI code in Alberta), and course grade. Only courses in the school’s courses table are available to create corresponding classes. When editing a class, the CHANGE button is available for the rare occasions where a class has been set up with the wrong course code. If you change the course code, all students in the class will be changed to the new course code.

Section: A unique letter from a to z (lower case) to identify a unique class for the course. A unique section is created each time the course curriculum is delivered to a unique group of students.

Multiple rooms needed? Usually this is set to no because the class is taught in the same room each time the class is taught. If this is set to yes, the room field is disabled and the MULTIPLE ROOMS tab appears where you can specific each room the class is taught in for each semester/term/day/period. See MULTIPLE ROOMS tab for more info.

Room number: The room in which the class is taught. Only rooms in the school’s rooms table are available. This field is disable if the class has multiple rooms (previous field is set to yes).

Teacher: The teacher of the class. Teachers must exist in the school’s staff records and they must be flagged as a teacher (available from the Employment, Teaching History area).

Additional teacher: If applicable, an additional teacher can be specified.

There may be additional fields that appear for only specific provincial jurisdictions.

Schedule

The next section of class information identifies the class's schedule that provides information as to when the class is taught. By default, this section is collapsed for most classes during the edit, as it shows sufficient schedule info in the sub header title (e.g., Schedule (Sem 1 - Period 4) in the example below). Expand the area to see details and to make changes if needed.

The class schedule is defined by identifying semester/term and day/period information. Semester/term information applies only to those schools with more than 1 semester or term. Since the drop downs values for these fields are school defined, they should use terminology that is meaningful to your school. Select the appropriate school-defined value that describes where this class is taught for these fields:

Sem/term – set: This is the list of sets that the school has defined that typically describes whether the class is a semestered course, or a yearlong course, or a term course.

Sem/term – pattern: This is the list of patterns that the school has defined for the ‘Sem/term – set’ selected for the class. For a semester set, the patterns are typically semester 1 or 2, and a term set are typically Sem 1 Term 1, Sem 1 Term2, etc.

Note: next year’s classes may have the pattern set to “Not assigned” so that the scheduling tools can select the best pattern for the class.

Lock/unlock icon: (Only applicable for next year’s classes) If a sem/term set and pattern are selected for the class, and you do not want any scheduling tools to change this information, select the lock/unlock icon until it shows as a locked icon. This might apply if you have 2 classes of a course and you want to lock one class in semester 1 and the other class in semester 2.

Day/period – set: This is the list of sets that the school has defined that typically describes what days the class is taught, and what period it is taught in. Examples might be Regular (for classes taught in a single period) and Double (for classes taught in 2 consecutive periods).

Day/period – pattern: This is the list of patterns that the school has defined for the ‘day/period – set’ selected for the class. For example, if the set is Double, the patterns might be Per 1 &2 or Per 3&4. Note: next year’s classes may have the pattern set to “Not assigned” so that the scheduling tools can select the best pattern for the class.

Lock/unlock icon: (Only applicable for next year’s classes) If a day/period set and pattern are selected for the class, and you do not want any timetable building tools to change this information, select the lock/unlock icon until it shows as a locked icon. This might apply if, for example, a music class must be scheduled in period 1 because the teacher is teaching at other schools for the remainder of the day.

MULTIPLE SCHEDULES button

Although rare, there are some classes that require more than 1 schedule to accurately define where it’s taught. For example, a yearlong class may be taught in Semester 1 period 3 and Semester 2 period 4. In this example, the first schedule’s occurrence would be defined as semester 1 period 3, and a second occurrence would be added for semester 2 period 4.

For classes that need multiple occurrences, use the MULTIPLE SCHEDULES button to add another schedule.

If more than one schedule exists, the discard icon will appear beside each occurrence to provide a way to remove a schedule if it is not required.

Each schedule is assigned a number for reference only. On the initial display of the classes table, the column called “Occurrences” will show the number of schedules defined for the class as shown here:

If 2 or more is displayed in the # of schedules column, please note that only the first schedule is displayed on the initial display of the classes table.

Special schedule

Sometimes a class does not easily fit into sets/patterns, and its schedule would be best defined by selecting the semester/ terms/ periods and days from a grid of all possibility locations. This is sometimes the best way to enter a class schedule when the timetable was built manually and ended up being scheduled into random periods. To do this, check the "Does this class have a special schedule" box. When checked, the schedule section changes entirely so that two tabs are available to set SEMESTER/TERM and DAY/PERIOD info.

Check off the boxes in the SEMESTER/TERM tab indicating which semester(s) and term(s) the class is to be taught in.

Check off the boxes in the DAY/PERIOD tab indicating which periods on which days the class is to be taught in.

Use the MULTIPLE SCHEDULES button if more than 1 special schedule is needed.

The semester/term and day/period information set for the class will indicate “Special schedule”, and the pattern names will be the same as the class as shown here:

Note: ‘Special Schedule’ sets will appear in the setup area where the school defines their sets and patterns. These sets and corresponding patterns are not editable from the setup area because they are edited directly from the class.

General

The General area includes the common fields listed below as well as additional fields required for jurisdictional (provincial) reporting.  Here is an example of the General area:

The following class fields need to be populated, where appropriate, in the General area of the DETAILS tab:

Capacity (Seats): The maximum number of students that can be scheduled into the class (e.g. the number of desk seats in the room).

Credit value: The number of credits that a student will earn upon successful completion of the class.

Language of instruction: The language used when providing instruction to the students in the class.

Is this reportable?:  This is normally set to yes. If a course is a placeholder course used for the school’s own purposes, it may be appropriate to set it to no. If it is set to no, many reports will provide the option as to whether or not they are included on the report.

Calculate minutes from period times?: Typically, this is set to yes so that any reports that tally the number of minutes of instruction will use the school’s period times (bell schedule) to determine the total based on when the class is scheduled. If it is set to no, the Daily average minutes of instruction field is enabled to record the minutes.

Daily average minutes of instruction: Enter the number of minutes of class instruction time per day if period times can’t be used.

Is this class continuous entry?: Set to yes if the students can start and complete this class at their own pace. Each student will have their own start and end dates, rather than the start and end dates defined in the class (which are typically set to the first and last date of classes in the school year). A continuous entry icon will appear in timetables for these classes.

Class start date: The first date on which the class is taught. This field is only available for this year’s classes and is automatically populated during the year end roll over based on the class schedule and the new school year’s calendar.

Class end date: The last date on which the class is taught. This field is only available for this year’s classes and is automatically populated during the year end roll over based on the class schedule and the new school year’s calendar.

Grouped classes: Specify the other classes that are being taught at the same time, same teacher, same room and same schedule as this class. The grouped classes each represent a different course curriculum being taught by the teacher at the same time (e.g. teacher is teaching grade 11 and 12 band at the same time). If any of the grouped classes have a change to the teacher, room, or schedule, it will automatically apply the changes to all classes in the group. The number of seats field will still represent the total students in the room, so a warning may appear for a class with only 15 students registered in it, if the seats is set to 25 and it is grouped with a class that has 10 students in it.

Achievement profile: The achievement profile defines how this class appears on report cards, and has a significant impact to the teacher's mark and comment entry.  If you are unsure what achievement profile to select, contact your help desk as these profiles are user-defined.

There may be additional fields that appear for only specific provincial jurisdictions.  See the links below for fields that are specific to your jurisdiction