E10 - How to: Teacher Data (F2)

Modified on Thu, 14 Aug at 12:53 AM

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preamble
View options

Fields to show
Editing Teacher data
Unavailable / Flexible work
Schools that are using Multi-Grid will need to have assigned a 'Main Campus' in 'Teachers > Teacher data' to ensure the Unavailabilities appear correctly in Tes Timetable Daily.

Preamble

Teachers > Teacher data (F2) is a data entry table where you enter all teaching staff associated with the school. Once entered into this table, every teacher is eligible to be allocated classes for teaching in other parts of the program.

Most schools do not add administration (office) staff to this table. Only those staff members that will be allocated to classes as teachers, support staff or the Duty roster need to be added to this table. Administration staff can be added to Edval Daily (if your school is licensed) for the purpose of keeping track of leave.

View options

Teacher data from all faculties may be displayed, or filtered to that of a selected faculty. The Faculty filter (top-right) displays the list of faculties, as well as 'All faculties'. When selecting All faculties, an extra column will display, titled 'Faculty'.

It is important to place teachers in the faculty where they teach the majority of their subjects, so that they will appear grouped with like teachers in other screens. Teachers belong to one faculty only for grouping purposes, but may be included in Subject teacher options for subjects in any faculty.

To create new faculties, or edit existing faculties, go to Admin > Setup > Faculty data.

Fields to show

The View menu (top-right) allows you to display additional fields containing Admin ID, Email, Phone, FTE, Gender, Elective team, Home room, House, Main campus, User access controls, MaxLoad in minutes, GUID or Teacher sets.

Columns can be sorted by double-clicking on any column heading.

Default display fields

1. Code: A short code used to refer to the teacher. This code should match the codes used in your school admin software where possible. The preferred format is to use the first 2 or 3 letters of the teacher's surname, followed by the first letter of the given name. This allows sorting on codes to sort by surname.
Example : Neil Bark = BARN.

2. Name: The teacher's name, in the format of "SURNAME, Given name" so that sorting will be done by surname. The surname clearly identified in capitals and separating the first name by a comma, to ensure the name is correctly interpreted in exports.
Example : BARK, Neil

3. MaxLoad: The maximum load each teacher can be allocated, including non-teaching allowances, expressed as the number of periods per cycle to 1 decimal place. Edval will calculate the equivalent value based on the data in the FTE column and in Setup > School info, but can be manually adjusted afterwards if needed. Ideally, all full-time staff will have the same MaxLoad. Positions of responsibility and non-teaching loads will be entered into Allowances. Edval will subtract all allowances from the MaxLoad to calculate the number of teaching periods a teacher can be assigned.

4. Faculty: when filtered by a single faculty, the faculty column is hidden. When selecting ' All faculties' the faculty field with be displayed. Each staff member entered in Teacher data, must be assigned to a faculty. Faculties are used to group staff that teach the same subjects, such as English or Mathematics. Each teacher can only belong to one faculty. However, teachers can teach subjects from other faculties when assigned to Subject teachers sets.

5. Unavailable : A list of days or period ranges a teacher is unavailable per cycle, instruction on how to enter unavailabilities can be found at the bottom of this page. Unavailable entries should only be where the teacher is off-site and not engaged in any school business. It is not appropriate to code a teacher as unavailable if they are needed to block out periods for school activities, such as to set up a hall for assembly or teach a primary school class. In such cases, these should be entered as a 'class' or 'meeting' in the Meetings year level Classes > Class data (F6) screen. This allows visibility on the teacher’s timetable of what the teacher is actually doing, rather than what they cannot do. It also allows these activities to be cancelled on a day by day basis as required, whereas an unavailable entry is more permanent.

6. Notes: This is a free format text field.

The Notes text displays in Edval Daily, so enter text appropriately.

Additional fields

There are additional fields that can be displayed via the View menu.

Admin ID: The code used by any overarching system that Edval syncs to. These must match to sync correctly.
Note: this column may be titled according to the system Edval synchronises with eg Compass id, Sentral id etc.

Email: Displays teachers email addresses (email entry is needed when sending daily bulletins via Edval Daily).

Phone: Displays teachers phone numbers.

FTE: Teachers full-time equivalent loading. In Setup > School Info, the full-time load per cycle is entered. This is the equivalent in periods and minutes of a full-time teacher with FTE = 1.0. This does not include non-teaching Allowances or Duties. All full-time staff should be on the same FTE.

FTE is important for Daily organisers to calculate part-time cover loads.

Gender : Displays teachers gender. Valid entries are F, M or X.

Elective team: An obscure feature used by US schools with the 'Tertiary Features' of elective line construction.

Home room: Enter the room code of the room where the teacher mostly teaches, if your school is lucky enough to have enough rooms to allow this. That teacher will then almost always have their classes allocated to this room provided the room is also in the room set for that class. The home room may not be auto-allocated to a teacher if there is a class on at the same time which requests this room at a higher preference level. This column is the same column as 'Homeroom Of' in Rooms > Room data (F5).

House: Assign teachers to a house as defined in Students>Sporting house data. May be useful for exports. Some schools create classes for House, which can be more flexible.

Main campus: (Relevant only if you're using the multi-campus feature). Assign each teacher to a campus where they most likely teach in. Affects what grid is used for their timetables and in interpreting the 'unavailable' syntax and allocating duties.

User access controls: Restrict the access rights of individual staff to view and make a change to data. To create access or change access, press 'Edit ' and add a password.

MaxLoad in minutes: Displays teacher loads counted by the minute (format hours:minutes). Edval will calculate the equivalent value based on the data in the FTE column and in Setup > School info, but can be manually adjusted afterwards if needed .

GUID: This is a globally unique identifier for an object such as a code, class, room, teacher or student. This field cannot be edited. It is used when synchronising between different software systems.

Teacher sets: This screen shows an overview of all the courses that each teacher is considered as an option to teach - either as a preferred, (fallback) or ((if desperate)) option. It is not a listing of what they are currently teaching, nor necessarily what they will be assigned to teach; it is the courses that Edval will consider them to teach. This view is a summary subject list per teacher, in comparison to Teachers > Subject Teachers which shows a list of teachers per subject.

Editing Teacher data

Edit teacher code: Click in the teacher code cell, hit BACKSPACE and type in the new code.
Note: When changing a teacher code, a pop-up box will check whether the teacher is the same person or a new person.

Add a teacher: Enter the new teacher’s details into the bottom blank cells or press Insert on your keyboard. If new teachers are to be hired but the name not yet known, ‘NEWMAT’ as an example can be entered for a new Mathematics teacher. The details can be changed once known.

Delete a teacher: Click in the teacher Code cell and hit delete on the keyboard. All teaching allocations must be removed from the teacher before being permitted to delete the teacher.

Add/edit the Faculty: Choose All faculties, then enter the correct faculty into the Faculty cell. Edval will autocomplete the faculty once recognised.

Unavailable / Flexible work

Schools that are using Multi-Grid will need to have assigned a 'Main Campus' in 'Teachers > Teacher data' to ensure the Unavailabilities appear correctly in Tes Timetable Daily.

Double click on the Unavailable cell to open up the Flexible work tab where you can enter a teacher’s unavailable times. The preferred syntax of 'non-specific' days off is far more flexible, allowing the timetable itself to dictate the best days off for each teacher. Only specify fixed days off if there is a strong need to be specific, such as pre-arranged external activities like childcare, other work or training etc.

Non-specific unavailable times: Enter the number of Full days off (top-left).
Specific unavailable times: Single-click to toggle on/off a period or drag to highlight multiple periods.

Edval will convert the entries from the Flexible work tab automatically into a syntax when you return to the Teacher data screen in the unavailable column.

See Portal: Part timers: Best Practice