Setting the school up¶

The order on this page matters. Each step uses what the step before it created, and doing them out of order produces screens with empty drop-downs.

Allow a morning for the whole sequence with the school's information to hand. This is done once, and then only added to.

The order of work¶

1. The school itself
2. The academic year, the school week, terms, holidays
3. Grades and sections
4. Subjects
5. Departments, houses, classrooms, periods
6. Document types, then the rules that decide who needs which document
7. Nationality policies
8. Fee types, then this year's fee structures
9. Installment plans
10. Buses, routes and stops (only if the school runs transport)
11. People: staff, then their teaching assignments
12. Students and their enrollments

Step by step¶

1. The school itself¶

Record the school's legal name, address, tax registration and currency once. Everything else in the system is filed under it. If the group runs more than one branch, each branch is set up as its own school and gets its own years, classes, fees and buses.

2. The academic year¶

School → Academic Calendar → Academic Years. Create the year, then fill in, on the same screen:

School Week — which days the school opens. Nothing else works properly until this is right: it is what tells the register that Friday is not a school day and what stops a child's attendance percentage being damaged by a day nobody was expected.
Terms — as many as the school uses, each with the weight it carries towards the year's result.
Holidays — the dated closures.

Then press Activate. Exactly one year is active at a time; that is the year new work defaults to. Full detail in Academic calendar.

3. Grades and sections¶

School → School Structure → Grades, then Sections.

Grades arrive already set up for KG1–KG3 and Grades 1–9, chained so the system knows which grade follows which. Check the chain matches the school and correct it if not.

Every section needs three things: its grade, its capacity, and which gender it takes. There is no default for gender — somebody has to state it. The system then refuses, everywhere and forever, to place a child in a section of the opposite gender.

4. Subjects¶

School → School Structure → Subjects. For each subject, say which grades study it, and whether it is examinable — that is, whether it earns a row on a report card.

The grade list is not decoration: it is what later prevents a teacher being assigned to teach Chemistry to Grade 2.

5. Departments, houses, classrooms, periods¶

Also under School → School Structure, plus Periods under Academic Calendar. Periods are needed only if any part of the school marks attendance period by period. Overlapping periods are refused.

6. Documents and who needs them¶

School → Configuration → Document Types, then Document Requirements.

Document types arrive seeded with the common ones. What you configure is the requirements: a rule that says this document is needed by this population, narrowed by any combination of nationality, grade, gender and bus use.

This is the part schools most often expect to need a programmer for, and do not. A medical clearance for Grade 1, a transport consent form for bus users, a sponsorship letter for corporate-funded students — each is one new rule row. See Rules and policies.

7. Nationality policies¶

School → Configuration → Nationality Policies. For each nationality that needs special treatment, record whether a residency permit is required, which documents are accepted instead, and how VAT applies.

A nationality with no policy gets the strict treatment

No policy row means: residency document required, standard VAT. The system never assumes an exemption it has not been told about.

8. Fee types and fee structures¶

Fees → Configuration → Fee Types arrives with the school's fee components already listed. Add any the school invents later — it is a row, not a release.

Fees → Configuration → Fee Structures is the price list: one structure per academic year and grade, with a priced line per component. Press Publish when the prices are final. Only a published structure can price a student's fee account.

9. Installment plans¶

Fees → Configuration → Installment Plans. Each plan is a set of percentages with due dates, and the percentages must add up to the whole. A school can offer more than one plan.

10. Transport¶

Only if the school runs buses. Set up buses, then routes, then the stops along each route, then drivers and attendants. See Transport.

11. Staff¶

Staff files come first, then Staff → Teaching Assignments: who teaches which subject to which sections, in which year. Name the class teacher on each section while you are there — the class teacher is who a leave request goes to.

12. Students¶

Either register children directly (Students → Students) or let the admissions pipeline produce them (Admissions → Applications). Either way the child ends with a permanent file and one enrollment for the current year.

How you know the setup is right¶

Work through this before the first real day: