Kick Start your Academic Programme Early

This guide is designed to support the ability to initiate a future academic program ahead of the commencement of the next academic year. The use of this guide is most frequently applied when you want to commence your academic programme early, following the exams for senior students. 

In this guide we will use Year 11 students beginning Year 12 (as the final year of school before graduation) during term 4 (of a 4 term academic year) as an example. The concepts of the year level and timing can be adjusted to suit the requirements of your school. If you would like to discuss your school’s strategy, then please contact your School Engagement Manager who will arrange a consultation with the Professional Services Team.

On this page, you will find the following information:

General recommendations

Specific considerations

Further recommendations (and steps to take)

Performing a rollover

Creating folders or pages in bulk

Create academic terms

Using custom participation

Resource browser structure

It is a good idea to create separate folders within the resource browser for classes that will utilise a different academic period. This allows classes pages and enrolment codes to be rolled over without negatively impacting other class pages.

Our best practice structure would look something like this:

Applying Year Levels to Class Pages

Year levels (as defined in Admin > Lists > Year Levels) can be applied to class pages in Schoolbox. Alongside allowing a class page to follow a specific set of LMS rules and settings, it also allows for an extraordinary academic period to be utilised to categorise and filter the class page’s learning activities. A year level can manually be added to any page by going to modify it, but is usually best done when the page is first created using the ‘Import Pages’ tool.

Tag Year 11/12 and graduating year

As well as tagging the standard year levels (e.g. 12) to a class page, Schoolbox recommends adding an ‘Exit Year’ year level (e.g. ‘Exit 2022’) to the Year 12 (single year class page) or Year 11/12 (2 year class page) class pages. This will allow a complete view of that cohort’s grades from the onset of the early start programme to be maintained in the future.

The exit year should be the only year level tagged on the extraordinary academic period. 

Using a year level, such as 12, that will have repeated use, will mean that the visibility of the extraordinary academic period and the filtering effects it has will cease to be available if you have another academic period tagged with that year level.

NOTE: It is important that the LMS rules applied to the Exit 2022 year level should be the same as that of the Year 12 year level. This prevents rule conflicts and the settings defaulting to that of the Admin > LMS > LMS Policy settings.

Distinct enrolment codes for Years 11 and 12

Where possible, create and use enrolment codes for Year 11 and 12 classes that won’t be utilised by the following cohort. Doing so means that multiple enrolment codes can be put onto and left on a class page to span the entire duration of the class page and the various iterations of the timetable that it may endure. It will exempt these pages from the need to be included in the rollover processes and updating their enrolment codes during their use. If this cannot be done, the enrolment codes on the class pages will need to be manually modified/added when the timetable changes. A change can also be made via a request to the Schoolbox Support Team where they require a CSV file of the original enrolment code and what it needs to be changed to. Please note our Schoolbox Support policy and where possible request the change at the earliest possible opportunity. 

NOTE: On completing a rollover, any learning activities that have no feedback, have no submission or have not had the teacher click ‘Mark as submitted’ will dissociate the learning activity from the student. Meaning that it will not still appear as requiring submission or assessment and thus also remove it from the markbook.

Before utilising the remainder of this guide, there are some questions about your school’s use of Schoolbox and timetabling that should be considered:

1. Do many students move between classes during the academic programme? If so, when? 
In order to move a student’s submissions and grades from one page to another, manual recreation and deletion is required by the teacher(s). To avoid this, it is beneficial to plan how the class pages and academic periods can best be used to avoid this. For example, utilising the functionality of a group as an interim solution instead of an enrolment code, or having a separate class page for submission of all summative assessments.

2. Are class pages used for 1 or more years? 

It is common practice to either:
    a. Use a class page for each year, thereby grouping Year 11 results and Year 12 results by the class page.
    b. Use a class page for 2 years, thereby grouping Year 11 and 12 results together and requiring the use of filters to view a student’s overall grade.

3. How and when do we timetable the early start within our SIS? 
    a. Are whole new classes and enrolment codes created for the early start period? Or is one enrolment code used for the whole of Year 11 and then a different code for Year 12?
    b. Are distinct enrolment codes used each academic year? Or are the same enrolment codes used each academic year?

An enrolment code is considered available for use if:

• It is not actively being used by another page in Schoolbox.
• It is current and contains the appropriate students within the system that provides Schoolbox with a timetable.

If using a class page for Year 11 and another page for Year 12

Before Year 12 early start classes begin:

1. Rollover Year 11 class pages to archive the enrolment codes. Doing so changes them from being in rounded to square brackets.
    a. If possible (i.e. Year 12’s have graduated and have been rolled over in the SIS/timetable), rollover the Year 12 class pages in Schoolbox.
    b. Move these pages to the archived classes section.
    c. Create a new folder in the resource browser for the new early start classes.

2. Create an extraordinary academic period to cover the entire duration of the year 12 programme of study. Ensure it utilises only the exit year level e.g. ‘Exit 2022’.

3. Bulk import pages using:
    a. The Year Level utilising at least the same year level as used on the newly created extraordinary academic period.
    b. One of these methods to attach students:
       i. The Year 12 enrolment code - only available if the previous Year 12 classes have been rolled over or using distinct enrolment codes AND the SIS/timetable has been updated for these students to start using this new enrolment code. No further action will be required for this cohort of students and their class
          pages.
       ii. Only the Year 11 enrolment code - suggested for use when either the Year 12s enrolment codes aren’t available for use or the SIS/timetable has not been updated. This should only be considered when there is little movement between classes for students. Further action required, see below.
       iii. The Year 11 and Year 12 enrolment code - suggested for use when the Year 12 enrolment codes are available for use but the SIS/timetable has not been updated. Further action required, see below.
       iv. No enrolment code, but then made into a group page and students manually added. Suggested for use when the enrolment codes are unavailable or unrelated to the expected cohort of students (i.e. there is lots of movement between classes, and the cohort will begin their early start classes without
            following a formal timetable).

At the end of the whole school’s academic year:

       c. If b.ii is used, then rollover the classes and update to the Year 12 enrolment codes. This can be done manually by modifying each class page or supplying Schoolbox Support with a CSV of the old enrolment codes and the new enrolment codes that you want them to be replaced by. 

       d. If b.iii is used, then manually remove the Year 11 enrolment codes to leave just the Year 12 enrolment codes, (this then allows the Year 11 enrolment codes to be used by the new Year 11 cohort).

       e. If b.iv is used, then disband the groups and manually add the Year 12 enrolment codes to the appropriate pages.

If utilising a single class page for Years 11 and 12.

Prior to starting the senior academic programme:

1. Create an exit year level for when these students are due to graduate.
2. Create class pages with either:
   a. The year levels 11, 12 and exit year.
   b. The Year 11 enrolment code
   c. Where available (see above definition of an available enrolment code) the Year 12 enrolment code

On the completion of Year 11 topics and before Year 12 topics begin:

1. Create an extraordinary academic period to cover the entire duration of the Year 12 programme of study, utilising the year level ‘Exit 2022’.

At the end of the whole school’s academic year:

1. If you have created class pages using only the Year 11 enrolment code (as you do not have distinct enrolment codes), you will need to:
   a. Perform a rollover to remove the Year 11 enrolment codes and then manually add the Year 12 enrolment codes.
   b. Supply Schoolbox Support with a CSV of the old enrolment codes and the new enrolment codes that you want them to be replaced by.