Building the Curriculum

There are essentially 3 ways of creating a curriculum for the following year:-

1. Copy the previous year’s curriculum and then make any changes
2. Copy part of the previous year’s curriculum, and then use a function to copy the curriculum from one year group to another
3. Create the curriculum from scratch for the next year

Building the curriculum from scratch 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 Timetabler or Nova. 

1.  Copying the Curriculum from the previous year

 Normally, you will be creating a curriculum for the following academic year.  Where the current year’s curriculum already exists in SchoolBase^® and is to be little changed next year, select Curriculum Builder on the Build & Maintain menu and select Next Working Year.  Then use the Copy whole curriculum button to bring selected parts of the previous (current) year’s curriculum into the next year.

 The first stage (Copy) creates the curriculum items but does NOT bring forward the groups.  There are two reasons for this:-

1. You should check that the numerical entries in the ‘Option Groups’, ‘Carousel’  and ‘Sets’ fields are correctly populated for the new academic year
2. Since the groups will be based on the years and forms the pupils will be in next academic year, you should arrange with the administrative staff who maintain SchoolBase^® to populate the ‘Shadow’ fields for prospective, current pupils and leavers as the system will use these in creating the groups for next year.

2.  Copying the Curriculum from one year group to another

This option is useful where, for example, you have built the curriculum for one year group and the curriculum for another is almost identical (maybe different numbers of groups and setting patterns, but essentially the same subjects and structures).

Select the ‘Copy curriculum year’ tab and enter the years you want to copy to and from, then click ‘Copy’.

Creating Groups

Whether you have used method 1 or 2, or a combination of both, after creating the structure you will need to create the groups for each curriculum item.  SchoolBase can do this for you automatically, provided it has the correct information!

Essentially, teaching groups are created based on one of four patterns:-

• Form Groups, where pupils are taught a particular subject in their form groups
• Sets, for example where pupils are split into ability groups for maths or science
• Option Groups where pupils choose a subject from a ranger being taught at the same time.
• Carousel, where pupils study one subject for a period of time before ‘rotating’ to the next option, and so on during the year

The rules SchoolBase uses to create the required groups from the curriculum are as follows:-

• Firstly where you have 0,0,0 for option, carousel and sets, the system will check the year, check the number of forms (classes) in the year and create one group per form, naming them as appropriate (eg. 7 MU 7J)
• If you have 0,0,N the system creates N groups (sets) naming them according to the subject and numbering them sequentially starting from 1 (eg. 7 MA 1)
• Where you have X,0,N (where X is a unique number assigned to each option group in a particular year group, the system will create N groups and will name them as being part of the numbered option (eg. 9 A 1).
• Where you have 0,X,N (where X is a unique number assigned to each carousel in a particular year group, the system will create N groups and will name them as being part of the numbered carousel (eg. 9 CDT 1)..
  
  Wherever possible, the group is given a meaningful name which should mean that re-naming is kept to a minimum.  However in the case of Option blocks, the actual subject being taught in each group should be selected in the ‘Subject’ column, rather than the Block number/letter which will have been used.

3.  Building a curriculum from scratch

There are occasions when this is necessary; for example the first time you enter a curriculum into SchoolBase, or if you are creating a new structure for a particular year group for the first time.  In this process, the curriculum is built up item by item, BUT the groups are also created at the same time, using the same rules as outlined above.

The number of periods can also be added as part of the same process.

Select Curriculum Builder from the Build & Maintain menu, and click on Add a curriculum line.

The example below has been set up to create 4 teaching sets for Mathematics in Year 7, with 5 periods per teaching cycle.

If your pupils are already in their correct form groups for the curriculum year you are building, you could click  Add with pupils.  However in most cases you may not be ready to populate the groups, and so select Add.

This will create the required curriculum item and the necessary groups in a single click!

The groups created by any of the above three processes can be by viewed clicking on the ‘Groups’ button on the appropriate row, or by returning to the ‘Groups’ option on the ‘Main Forms’ menu (making sure that you are looking at ‘Next Year’!) and using the filters to select the groups you need to look at. 

If it is subsequently decided that one or more extra group(s) is required (for example to facilitate smaller sets) this can be done via the ‘Curriculum Builder’ option on the ‘Build & Maintain’ menu.  Click the Groups button on the curriculum row to which you need to add more group(s).  Enter the additional number required in the ‘Groups’ box and click the ‘Add similar group’ button to accomplish this.

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.  This can either be done from the ‘Curriculum Builder’ option on the ‘Build & Maintain’ menu, or from the Main Forms | Groups menu.

 For all but the options and carousels you may well find that all you need to do is add the teacher or teachers.  For options and carousels you will need to do some renaming and select the Option Subject (Sub) to overwrite the Curriculum Subject with the appropriate ‘real’ subject rather than the block code. 

Adding Pupils to Groups

Whichever combination of methods you have used to build the curriculum, the next step is to populate the teaching groups with pupils.  Just click the Populate Pupils button. Where the pupils are taught in classes (ie. where you used the settings 0,0,0 as described above) this should be the end of the story because SchoolBase ‘knows’ who is in which class and therefore populates the groups accordingly)  However, where they are taught in sets (0,0,N), options (X,0,N) or carousels (0,X,N) you will need to do some sorting as SchoolBase® will have placed everyone into the first available set.

The ‘Curriculum Group sorter’, which is accessed via  button at the bottom of the ‘Groups’ form will enable this to be done quickly using a grid of buttons to locate each pupil in the correct group.