Setting up and managing terms

The concept of terms/semesters is integral to controlling data for school set-up, grade reports, scheduling, and attendance.  This is one of the base steps when setting up MySchool or rolling over your system for the new scholastic year. 

Where are terms applied?

Terms are important for your attendance and assessments. All courses must have terms applied for the schedule to work, and for them to be available in assignments and assessment modules.

Who should be able to administrate your terms?

We advise that the super users should be responsible for setting term dates and that this is not open to numerous user groups. The term dates once set control enrolment, attendance and assessments, so any changes to the existing structure need to be planned. Go to Administer/Advanced options and look for Term management in the list.

Setting terms

You will see a list page with all previously created terms. it is important to note that if you change your existing term set up it will affect historic years. if you wish to change the term set up we advise you to create a new one to avoid any problems in reporting.

Each class level can have its own term set up You can have as many terms as you need If you edit existing terms you will affect all previous years You cannot delete terms once they have been applied to a class level, and applied to courses for example. Term dates should not be longer than your Scholastic year dates.  Terms can be synced to courses from term management. Course enrolment dates can be synced to terms in the course list view.

Creating a new term group

If you wish to create a new term group then click on Create New button. 

Step 1 - Naming and creating your terms

The Name field is for the term group, it is just for internal lists, but it should still be descriptive so that users setting up courses, know which term configuration they need to apply. Consider naming it as the School or class level for which it is created, and add the year for archiving later if needed. Examples would be 'Primary school 2 semesters 21/22' or 'Whole school 3 trimester 2021+'. You can always edit the term group label after saving to add 'Archive' if it is no longer in use.

Now you can add the terms. Take some time to think about when you will need to publish your assessment reports, but also what average you need if you are using continuous assessments in assignments. These are important to set out in your terms before the school year starts. Once you save the term then it cannot be edited after it has been applied. You can however delete it with the red cross if no data has been stored.

The other important part is determining whether they should be 'is schedule' and/or 'is exam'.

Is schedule - This will mean the term can be used for attendance and assignment recording.

Is exam - Determines whether a term can be used for assessments. Assessment reports are only published in 'is exam' terms.

Examples of the term set-up:

Step 2 - Applying the group to your class levels

In the apply configuration box below the terms, choose the year to which you would like to apply your configuration. You will notice a slide over to the right giving you the options. 

The academic year is the one you have selected from the configuration panel. In a multi-school instance, you can apply a term group to different schools. If a class level already has a term group assigned for the target year, they will appear in grey. Otherwise, select the class levels by checking the blue box. If you wish to change the term group for a class level, you must first unassign it, then it can be assigned normally.  Do not change term settings once assessments and attendance have been recorded. This will delete all data stored. Contact the support team for further assistance if you need to do this.

Step 3 - Set the dates

Scroll below the configuration box, and find the next step, which is to set the dates for the terms.

Select the target year, and if the dates have been entered then the above image appears. for the new year these fields will be grey.

Activate the terms in the first column. Then add the appropriate start and end dates. The report card field is not needed if you are using the default MySchool assessment report builder. Other schools will need to consult their internal guidelines for instructions.

If you do not wish to have all the terms activated, then consider building a new term group instead. 

The sync courses button will apply all the activated terms to the courses already created within the target year and class levels. This should be used in case you change term groups or add a term to the group. It will not synchronise the course start & end dates though. This is done via the course list view.

Step 4 - Check that the terms are applied to your courses, assignment grade grid and assess grid

Once you have set up the terms, it is advisable to check that they have been assigned to the class-level courses. Also, make sure that the assignment grade grid and assess grids are working as expected. If you have set up the terms in a future year then make use of the time travel to go forward in system years.

• Create a new course or open an already synced course from within the class level. On the schedule tab, you will see the new terms have been applied. You can return to the term configuration directly from the course by clicking on 'manage'
• Now go to the assignment grid and find one of the new courses. Open the term drop-down, and these should show the is schedule terms only.
• Finally, make sure you have a class set up in the new year and go to Grade reports/review. You don't need to populate the class with new students to check the terms. Here you can confirm when you will be able to publish an assessment report from your exam terms.