Creating a Class

• This article explains how to create a Class record in Schoolworks.

• The Class record holds the name, level, availability of the Class, together with other settings.

• The Class can be assigned to deliver Lessons for Bookings of specific Services.

  • Lessons determine the date, day, time, teacher and room for the delivery of the tuition. These can vary week by week within the Class.

  • Typically the Class should be seen as a long-term grouping - for example, a school may always run an Intermediate level class, but the times, frequency, teacher and of course students may change.

• Prerequisites to this process are:

  • Teacher records - see this article

  • Room records - see this article

  • Timetable times - contact your System Administrator

Creating a Class Record

• Navigate to the Classes tab, and click New

• Complete the fields as follows:

Open

• Class Code - a short code to identify the Class, used on screen and in reports

  • This should be unique to save confusion

• Name - a fuller name of the Class that can be used on documents or emails for the student.

  • This should also be unique to save confusion

• School - a link to the School the Class is delivering tuition under

• Level From - optional, to provide a bottom level range, typically left blank

• Level To - compulsory, the level here can update the Student Level when the student is placed in the Class

• Colour - a hex code can be entered here to colour code the Class to make it easier to identify on the Classing screen.

  • Typically, classes are coloured by their timing, e.g. all morning classes are blue, lunchtime classes green and so on.

  • Hex codes can be found using a simple Google search - each colour has a six digit hex code preceded by a hashtag

• Sort - used for sorting in lists

• Class Start Date - the first date the Class is available from (this should always be a Monday)

• Class End Date - the last date the Class is available to (this should always be a Sunday)

  • Typically relatively long date ranges are used here (not to be confused with Lessons) - for example, you may wish to have a Class open for a three month termly period, or even a full year.

• Class Lessons Per Week - a crucial field, explained below

• Level Assign to Student - to determine whether the Student Level will be automatically updated when they are placed in this Class.

• Exclude Attendance From Course - it may be desirable to set up Classes for Monday placement, or social activities, where attendance tracking is not critical

• Allow Multi-Room - to allow multiple rooms to be used concurrently to deliver a Class, rare, but can be used when two physical rooms are merged together

• Auto Placement - explained further in this article.

• Active - must be ticked on for the Class to appear in the Classing screen

Note: when creating new Classes, it can be quicker to use the Clone button to copy the details from a similar Class. Be sure to give each Class a unique code and name to save confusion.

Class Lessons Per Week

• This is an important field as it controls when the student is considered “fully” placed.

• The figure in the field is arbitrary, but must match with the Service the student is booking.

• On the Course Service, there is a field called “Maximum Class Lessons per Week”

• The student will be considered “fully” placed when the student has been placed in Classes where the sum of the value of the Class Lessons Per Week field equals the Maximum Class Lessons per Week field on the Service they have booked.

• For example:

• The values used in the two fields can be anything, as long as the principle is maintained that the addition of the values of each class equal the value of the Max Lessons on the Service to be considered Fully Placed.

• Some schools prefer to use hours for these fields, as follows:

Related Courses

• Navigate to the Related Courses tab

• Select which Services this Class is able to deliver tuition for by moving them to the right-hand panel.

• Remember to Save when finished

Open

Lessons

• This screen is controlled by the Week Start Date field, defaulting to the current week.

• Always check you are on the correct week before creating any Lessons.

• When you are on the correct (first) week of the set of lessons you wish to create, press “New Lesson”. This will open a dialogue box as follows:

• When to apply? - Choices here are:

  • Until a specific date - the lessons will start from the week selected in the screen and continue to the end date selected in the date picker

  • This Week Only - the lessons will be created for the week selected in the screen only

  • From Now On - the lessons will be created from the week selected in the screen to the End Date of the Class

  • Always - very rarely used - use with caution. This will create lessons from the Class Start Date through to the Class End Date - this may be fine if desired, but in many cases, this will retrospectively adjust lessons already created in the Class for previous weeks and can cause confusion.

  • Typically, always navigate to the starting week of the block of Lessons you wish to create and look forwards.

• Which week days? - Select the days of the week that the Lessons will be delivered

• Timetable Time - Select the time of the Lessons. If there are different times on different days, separate Classes will need to be created.

• Teacher - this list will check which teachers have not been assigned to any Lessons for the days/times selected, but this can be over-ridden by unticking the box

• Room - this list will check which rooms have not been assigned to any Lessons for the days/times selected, but this can be over-ridden by unticking the box

• Press Save when ready and the Lessons will be created.

  • This Class will now show in the Classing screen ready to place students in.

Making Changes

• It is possible to create the Lessons without selecting the Room or Teacher, as this may not be known at point of creation.

• It is possible to edit individual Lessons by clicking on the Edit link on the left hand side of each line, or multi-select and use the “Edit Selected Lessons” button to make changes.

• The same rules apply with regards to This Week Only, From Now On etc, as outlined above.

• Be careful to make sure you are editing the correct week and for the correct period.