We are entering July, and we have the final two to three weeks of active teaching left for this academic year. Now is the perfect time to start looking into the future and set your Eepos up for the autumn term 2024-25.
Some of you have already completed this preparation process, but others are just about to get started. We at Eepos HQ want to ensure that your Eepos is ready for the next academic year, so here is some last-minute advice.
Academic year, terms and holidays
The first thing to do is set up the academic year. To set up the new academic year, go to Settings in your sidebar and select ‘School year and periods’.
Usually, you set the academic year from September 1st to August 31st, and the terms back to back so that your Eepos doesn’t have any gap days. In other words, the autumn term should start on September 1st, 2024, and end on the last day before the spring term, January 5th, 2025.
However, this year, September 1st is a Sunday, so you can set the academic year to start from September 2nd.
Your academic year and term dates could look like this:
After this, you should set up the ‘Holidays and other days without teaching.’ Your autumn term might start with a ‘non-teaching period’ or a ‘CPD week.’ This way, you get teachers’ schedules to look correct, and your Eepos knows when the actual teaching starts.
Type in the October, February, and May half-terms, Christmas break, Easter holiday, and the bank holidays.
Your ‘Holidays and other days without teaching’ could look like this:
Roll-over
After the academic year has been set, you need to get the tuition set up. Depending on how much the tuition changes, you can either set everything up from scratch or roll everything over from the summer term and adjust the changed bits. For most of the UK Eepos sites, we recommend doing the roll-over.
Go to Machine Room in your sidebar and select ‘Copy studies for next year.’ Select the sections you want to copy, decide the date from which you want to copy the tuition (study date), and select the study types (e.g., individual, small group, and groups).
Then insert the term dates you want for the new pieces of tuition. At this point, you can decide if you want to also copy the teacher schedules.
When you are happy with the selections, press Create Studies.
Group categories (terms)
If you have rolled over groups, you need to put them into the right categories. Most of the UK Eepos sites use termly categories, which means you would need to create new termly categories for the groups.
Eepos creates the copied groups in the same category where the original group is. This means that the group now has duplicate groups which need to be moved to the correct category.
Go to Groups in your sidebar and then open one of the sections where you have groups. Click ‘+Create new category’ and name it, for example, ‘2024/25 Autumn.’ Do the same for all other sections that include groups.
Then select the duplicate groups by clicking the tick boxes on the left-hand side. If you are uncertain how to recognise them, click ‘start date’ from ‘Show more details.’
When you have selected the correct groups, go to the toolbar at the bottom of your screen, select the three dots, and change the category → Select new category.
Do the same for all other sections that include groups.
Data cleansing
When the copy-over has been completed, you need to start the data cleansing process. Your to-do list probably looks like this:
- Search for ‘Active, without studies’ pupils and end their studies if they no longer continue their studies.
- Go through Possible Student Duplicates and link them if needed. You can find this report under Reports / Statistics → Possible Student Duplicates.
- Go through Possible Siblings and link them if needed. You can find this report under Reports / Statistics → Possible Siblings.
- Go over the teachers’ list and archive the ones that have left the service. Go to Teacher list and select the ones (tick box) you want to archive, click the three dots (More options) from the toolbar at the bottom of the screen, and select Archive
- After the roll-over, you might have some groups you copied over from the summer term that do not actually start again in the autumn. Go to Groups and select the section you want to edit. Then select the groups (tick box) you want to archive and click Archive from the toolbar at the bottom of the screen.
No need to rush
Bear in mind that you don’t have to do all these activities at once. You should book some time to do this carefully, especially the data cleansing bit. If you have any questions regarding the roll-over process, do not hesitate to contact me or Riku.