Building the curriculum is a task that you should only really ever do once – and only then when you are not using an import/export from a scheduling package such as Nova.
Where the curriculum already exists, just use the arrow buttons to move to the new (blank) curriculum year, then click the Copy previous button and amend as necessary.
The fields:
Year the academic year
Pupil year Just that
Subject The CURRICULUM subject – that is the thing that all pupils do. So if all pupils do English, that would be a curriculum subject. But if they have a choice as in an option block, the curriculum subject is Option 1 or Block A or whatever. The subjects within that are defined at the Group level.
Option Group 0 indicates that this is a compulsory subject – any other number indicates a choice between several subjects.
Carousel 0 indicates that this is not a carousel – any other number indicates that classes change subject at least once during the year.
Sets The number of sets or groups within the curriculum subject. Where pupils are taught in classes, leave this as zero.
Period Denotes the number of periods that are taught in 1 cycle.
Report Indicates whether this curriculum item is to be reported on. PLEASE NOTE that the curriculum level overrides the group level. So if you have Report set to off here, all groups will be off. However if this is set to on, it is possible to set individual groups off whilst the default remains as on.
Number The system holds a number behind the scenes for each subject which is not normally displayed (the primary key). However some timetablers have found this a useful number when sorting out anomalies.
Name The system never uses this field and it can be left blank. There are occasions when it may prove useful in the import/export process.
You can create your curriculum gradually, for example doing it a year at a time. You then proceed to the next stage, returning to the Curriculum form to add the next year, once you have created the groups.
You can navigate between the cells on this form using the cursor keys on your keyboard. This can make entry much quicker. You can also filter to a single pupil year by clicking in one cell with the Pupil Year you want to filter to and then clicking on the Filter by Selection button on the toolbar. To remove this filter click on the Clear filters button.
Creating Groups
Once you are fairly sure that the curriculum entries are right and in particular that the Sets column has been correctly completed, then press the Create Groups button. Do heed the warnings displayed. Any groups WITHOUT pupils attached to them will be deleted. If any of the groups have academic records associated with them or have been referenced in any other way, then they will not be deleted or overwritten. This means that if you are creating your curriculum a bit at a time, the sequence should be:
- create curriculum entries
- create groups
- populate pupils
The groups will be created using your curriculum entries. Firstly where you have 0,0,0 for option, carousel and sets, the system will check the year, check the number of classes in the year and create that many groups naming them as appropriate.
If you have 0,0,N the system creates N groups naming them according to the subject.
Where you have X,0,N or 0,Y,N the system still creates N groups but will name them as being part of the option or carousel.
Wherever possible, the group is given a meaningful name which should mean that re-naming is kept to a minimum.
Once the groups have been created, you need to check the names, add one or more teaching staff to each group, and populate with pupils. See setting teaching groups for this next stage..
