Academic years and terms

An academic year is the school year, for example 2026. A term is one of its parts, for example Term 1. Almost everything in ShuleOS is done "for a year": which class a student is in, marks, attendance, fee invoices and report cards. So the year and its terms come first.

Before you start

• Decide the year's name, and the start and end dates.
• Have the dates of each term ready (most schools have three).

Create the academic year

1. Open Academic Management → Academic Years. The list shows each year with its start date, end date and status.

   

2. Click New academic year.

   

3. Fill in the form. All four fields are required.

4. Click Create.

Only one year can be active

Your school can have only one Active year at a time. If you try to make a second one active you will see "The academic year 2025 is already active. Mark it completed first, or use the year-end promotion, which does it for you." The year-end promotion (see Promote students) marks the old year Completed and the new one Active in one step, so most schools never change the status by hand.

The active year is the one the school works in: Enter Marks, class attendance, report cards and new fee invoices all use it.

Create the terms

1. Open Academic Management → Academic Years, click the year, then Edit.

2. Under the form open the Terms tab and click New term.

   

   

   (There is also a full list of every year's terms at /admin/terms. It is not in the menu.)

3. Fill in the form. All five fields are required (the year is filled in for you when you add a term from the year's page).

   

4. Click Create, or Create & create another to enter the next term straight away.

Why terms matter. The dashboard's "Week 6 of 16" banner, term-based attendance and the fee installments by term all read these dates. Report cards use the term's end date as the closing date unless you set one in Settings.

Change or remove a year or term

• Click a row in the list, then Edit, to change names, dates or status. Click Save changes.
• A year that has been used cannot be deleted. Deleting an academic year would remove everything that belongs to it, so ShuleOS refuses once the year has enrolments, exams, invoices, payments or report cards. To finish a year, set its status to Completed instead, or use the year-end promotion.
• A term can be deleted if you created it by mistake.

If something goes wrong