The assessment report is a key tool in the education cycle. This is why we created the Assessment report builder, which enables the schools to create their own assessment criteria in subject specifications, and publish professionally branded and designed PDF reports in a few simple steps. Whether your school needs a simple one-page table summary or a detailed description and summary per course, then these can be built using our assessment toolkit. The assessment report is adaptable to most internationally renowned programmes such as International Bac, North American GPA, Learning Standards, Core competencies, and simple classic numeric or Letter graded achievements.
A separate article lists the options available in each assessment section type. Check out the article here giving full details.
Where can I find the report builder?
The assessment report manager would be found in Grade reports/Adv options/Assessment report. If you do not have this available, then contact our support team for further assistance. On certain portals, this will be placed in Administer/Advanced options. The permission to access this page will be Manage grade reports, so make sure the users who will be building the report have this within their respective user group.
There are no limits to the number of templates, other than one report card, per term per class level. Schools can create a simple summary format, and then build a more comprehensive report for the mid or end of year reports.
Don't forget that if you have published report cards using a particular template then any changes to the template will show when publishing historic reports. It will not however affect the published PDF's saved on the students' profiles. if you wish to make changes then we advise archiving the template and building a new one.
Configuring the report
The first thing to determine is if you wish to have a cover page (Portrait style) ideally used when text, or detailed descriptions and learning outcomes are used, or a simple compact report (Landscape) designed for a tabular format using a single primary grade per grade. The layout will determine the orientation of the page, and the corresponding sections will determine how these are displayed on the report.
- Course grades are a section per course
- A compact course is tabular
You can have both in Compact view, but the table view would not be the best option for the portrait cover page layout.
Although MySchool promotes a paperless environment, we understand that schools may still wish to print report cards. To reduce paper costs further, you can configure the report to print on single or double-sided pages. When selected a blank page will be introduced after the cover page.
For the moment, we support two font types, the first being NotoSans and secondly a Chinese character compatible font.
The system is designed so that each class level (Grade1,2,3 etc) can have a template per assessment term. You can create different formats for your quarterly, half-yearly or end of year reports. Why not create a summary per month and publish it to your community to keep them updated on progress throughout the year.
Cover page options
1. Internal/External Label
The internal label is mandatory and it is needed for the list page. It will not be published, use the school or class level and year to make these easier to work with. The external label is what is published on the cover page.
2. Logo Override
By default, the report will use the logo shown on your system. However, you can override this and upload a different version for your assessment reports. Use the Logo Height override to adjust this on your cover page.
3. Student name
Choose to show the student's legal name, common name or both.
4. Primary Colour/Font
The primary colour determines the header and title colours. Try to match your school's branding, or keep it in line with your achievement scale colour scheme. For the moment we have one font available, and will be looking to add more in a later version.
Top tip: Use Text comment fields for Teacher feedback to maintain conformity in the report card text blocks. Ask Teachers not to copy comments from other software such as MS Office or Google docs for example, as this may affect the formatting in MySchool. If they do need to copy then please clear formatting options by using paste as plain text.
5. Term label override/Show term label
Decide whether to show the term label from Term management or override the system label with your own sub title.
6. Show the ID passport field and change the label / Show the class name or change it
If you use the passport/Id field within the student profile, then you can decide whether you show this or not on the front cover. In certain schools, this field is used for an internal Student Id or other unique markers. You change the label from passport/Id to anything you wish.
For schools in our BC community, you can choose to show the PEN number here as an option.
By default, the class name will also be shown on the report, but with the use of replacement tags, schools can change this to be a variety of information pulled from the student's profile.
7. Show the Teacher's name
You can show the teacher's name if they have been attached to the student's class in MySchool. You can also show the course Teachers name if you are using the cover page layout. If you use multiple teachers then these will be listed as well.
8. Address and contact overrides
By default, the footers (Right - Contact info, Left - Address info) will be populated with the system details taken from the School configuration page. You can override these for your report cards. You can also use this space for other information if you wish.
Other configuration options
Show the school name as a subheader. You can include the name of the school as entered in the MySchool system. This appears above the report name in small-sized font.
Show the publish date in the footer. The date the report is published is a mandatory requirement in certain countries. This will be shown in the centre of the footer if selected.
Footer options also allow you to configure how the footer information is shown on the report and subsequent pages.
Building the body by adding sections
For a more detailed look at the sections, then check out this article which lists and shows the different options available. Each section will add information to the report. The actual grades and assessment criteria will depend on the layout chosen in the first steps.
Compact course grades layout
- This creates a landscape report, as the attached report at the bottom of the article shows.
- It is designed to pick up the primary grade contribution per subject per exam term.
- It is not designed for certain assessment types (learning outcomes, select scales)
- Other sections can be used (Static text, User comments) but these will be in landscape mode for the whole report.
- Can be used to calculate an across subject US GPA per term.
Course grades layout
- Standard portrait layout.
- Can be configured with all assessment options available in subject specs.
- Designed for a more comprehensive feedback approach
Hybrid solution - Compact and course grades
- Must have compact course grades as the first option. The report will the follow in landscape mode for the rest
- Allows for a summary page based on a primary grade across terms for the year, with further detailed analysis per course.
Hints and tips
- Build a test subject/course/student and Teacher. Try out the different styles.
- Try to build different reports per term, with different text boxes to keep the report up to date with the current grade level news.
- Use images in your text boxes, especially if the students have participated in group activities and you have some photos to share.
- Avoid copying and pasting from other word processing software. There can be hidden formatting in the copied content.
- Make sure the assessment terms in subject specifications are linked to the correct assessment report template.
- If you are using the compact table then you must create an assessment build per term in order to have a primary grade.
- If you are using learning outcomes, you can change the colours of your scales in assignment configuration. Test and try out different schemes. You can turn off the progress bars if you need.
- Use the comment to students within the subject specifications to describe the objectives of the subject for the year.
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