E10 - How to: Set up Roll classes

Modified on Thu, 14 Aug at 12:46 AM

Summary

Roll / Roll call / Form / Mentor / Tutor groups / Pastoral Care classes can be set up in each Academic Year level or in a separate Year level.
For vertical groups, with students from different year levels, create the classes in a separate Year level.
If the classes occur at the same time every day, in the same period, these periods should be defined as off-grid (yellow) in Setup > Grid structure. This means the Roll classes will not appear in the Master Grid F11.

Setup > Grid Structure

Period name

Label the Roll call period ‘RC’ or something short, no more than 2 chars.

Period type

Ensure the period type is set to Off-grid (ctrl-O) for the ‘RC’ period. It should appear yellow. It does not need to appear in Master grid F11, as these classes are fixed.

Setup > Year levels

If using ‘per year’ Roll classes like 7Roll2 and 9Roll3, then set up Roll classes in the same academic year. There is no ‘Roll’ year defined in this case.

For vertical roll classes that integrate students from all years to each class, create a ‘Roll’ or perhaps ‘Roll call’ year to contain all the Roll call class codes together.

Class data

Class / Course code

Use anywhere from 2 to 4 characters for the course code e.g. ‘RC’ or ‘Roll’. The individual classes will have codes such as 7RC2 or 8Roll3. This makes it easy to use a wildcard string search to match class codes.

If there are more than 10 classes, use a dot separator and start with a 2-digit class identifier 01, 02, 03 ... e.g. 7Roll.02 or 7Roll.13 for the class codes.

For vertical roll groups, and Roll classes created within a ’Roll’ year, the class codes do not have a year prefix, as they are not associated with individual years. In this case, the Roll class codes are simplified by having either ‘RC’ or ‘Roll’ as a prefix, such as RC.02 or Roll.56

Faculty

Use ‘NoFaculty’. Don’t enter individual faculties against Roll classes, these are administrative classes, not academic classes.

Subject

Use ‘Roll’, 'Roll call', 'Form' etc. Keep it generic.

Colour

Right click on the Class code and select Light grey or similar light colour. Keep bright colours for classes which should stand out.

#Per

These classes should run in an off-grid period every day, hence set #Per=0+10(0), assuming a 10-day fortnightly cycle. This means zero online (teaching) periods, ten off-grid periods, and with a teaching load of zero, being the (0).

There is no need for the Roll classes to appear in the Master grid F11, so do NOT set #Per = 10(0).

Some schools consider Roll call partially loaded, and will enter the load value in brackets e.g. #Per=0+10(2). A decimal can also be used e.g. #Per=0+10(0.1). Often part-timers share a Roll class, and their load is calculated as a proportion of the overall load,based on the proportion of periods they take.

In some cases, the school may have an assembly period or tutorial periods that can be considered to be effectively part of Roll call. There is no need to create a separate subject. Adjust the #Per accordingly. If this runs in a regular teaching period once a week, then set #Per = 2+10(0).

Spread

The class spread should always be set to ‘Anything’ for Roll classes, as you don’t want or need E10 to spread manage them.

Line

For the Roll classes held in Academic year levels, use a format ‘Group 7A’ . By associating Roll classes with number or letter groups, (e.g. 7A or 8-2), new enrolments are automatically assigned their Roll class without any administration on your part. This automates the assignment of Roll classes to all students, and ensures no student is without a roll is class at any time later.

However, for the classs held in a Roll call year, to socially mix students in their Roll classes as distinctly different from their academic the core subject groupings, specify the classes as Line = ‘Line R’. Use Class list manager F9 to populate the classes.

Periods

Use the short-form period identifier, as per that defined in Setup > Grid structure e.g. ‘RC’.

TeacherPref

If staff take the same Roll class each year, it is appropriate to put an entry in the TeacherPref field.

Otherwise leave this field blank and use Staff allocations F4, or auto-staff to assign teachers based on the Subject teacher sets, loading and availability.

RoomPref

This should always be left blank. Manage the set of Roll call rooms in Rooms > Subject rooms. Ensure you include all the specialist rooms, or others which may not be otherwise regarded as a general teaching room. If you want to group Roll call by year, you can set up individual year groups for Roll call rooming, but generally the set is ‘all’ years for ‘Roll’.

Assign Roll classes to the timetable

In most cases, provided you use the Class data > Periods entry of ‘RC’, classes will be automatically assigned to the grid, and thus appear on timetables. If they do not, check to see if they appear in the unassigned section at the base of timetables (teachers or year timetables). If so, you may need to drag on to the grid, or recheck the period entry of the class, vs the period name of the grid.

Split Roll classes: Part-time staff

Where you have part-time staff assigned to a Roll class, they may initially show a grey ‘U’ clash spot on their Roll class, on any day which they are marked as unavailable. To split this class, assign another teacher to the lesson, by doing a 'native' split.

Refer to E10-how-to-split-teachers-for-a-class-native-split

If there is any load assigned to Roll class, such as 0.1, each teacher will be assigned a proportionate amount of this class load.

Class list management for Roll call

The majority of Roll classes occur within a single year. This simplifies management. Alternatives include vertical Roll classes with students from a range of different years. Another approach is house group based Roll classes, to provide a non-academic opportunity for students to mingle with others in their house groups.

Where students attend Roll call in their core groups, these are associated with the letter or number core classes, and therefore Roll class lists are automatically managed at all times. Ensure that the Roll subject is selected in Student data > Action bar tab Group class lists to automatically populate Roll classes based on groups.

Where students are assigned Roll classes within year groups, but are mixed up, select Class list manager, then type ‘Roll’ into the subject drop down or the Line value from the structure drop down to bring up the Roll classes. You may now use Action bar tab > Populate classes to automatically assign students to Roll classes. This is done with size balance, gender balance, and social balance – such as if you use Mischievous pairs, or Buddy pairs.

Where vertical Roll classes are used, select the ‘Roll’ year in Class list manager. Every student in the school will appear in the Unassigned column initially, because unlike academic years, the ‘Roll’ year has no students assigned to it directly – in Student data. Again, you may elect to use Action bar tab > Populate classes and/or manually manipulate the class lists for all your Roll classes as desired.

No defined Roll classes. Mark day rolls in period 1

Some schools have decided to eliminate Roll call as a separate class, as they roll mark in whatever teaching class is running in period one. Thus, the teacher on the first period classes, is responsible for marking the roll for the day, and perhaps handing out notes etc. While the school may manage roll marking on a period by period basis, the first period class becomes an effective Roll class on that day only – where the student’s attendance at that class would constitute the normal classification of a student is either absent or present, based on their appearance (or not) on the first period of the day.

Benefits

Reduced student movement.
Reduced time spent roll marking.
No loss of time moving between a Roll class and regular class.
Simplification of timetables.

Disadvantages

Inability to group students in different ways to academic classes, such as for increased social integration.
Lack of a subject agnostic Roll class identifier for students – as some external systems may assume that students are always grouped into a defined Roll class that has a separate reference.
Slight additional workload of academic teachers, as all teachers who are on period one must then be responsible for collecting notes from students who were previously absent, and handing out daily bulletin information.

Load accounting for roll marking in period one classes

Some teaching agreements classify roll marking as a separate activity, which may not count to the total face-to-face teaching. In this case, all teachers are assumed to be roll marking teachers, and a nominal value for roll marking can be used for calculations, despite the fact there is not a defined period. In effect, roll call would constitute perhaps 10 minutes of a teacher’s class, for every first period class this teacher has. So benefits of a marginally reduced school day, and reduction in student movement is a positive, without any direct impact on teaching time calculations, and staff workload.

You may elect to structure the first teaching period of the day as slightly longer than others, to accommodate perhaps five minutes of Roll call activity, however in general, it is preferable to keep all teaching periods and identical duration. Furthermore, as schools move to new electronic roll marking practices, the idea is to account for students on every period, and therefore, period one may not be regarded very differently. The issue of students handing in notes for past absences, and teachers advising daily bulletin may perhaps be slight additional work which occurs in period one.

Classes are generally evenly distributed with regards to their first period placement, hence any loss of a few minutes for administrative activity that occurs in Roll call, which is separate to the actual process of marking the roll – would generally be accommodated, without extending first period for this to occur.