Generate and release report cards

A report card gathers a student's results, position, attendance and comments on one page. It moves through three states:

Before you start

• Marks are entered for every subject of the exam, and the exam is Completed if you want them locked (see Enter marks). Check Exams → Marks Progress first.
• If the report combines several exams, create the combined report.
• Set the head teacher's name, signature, stamp and the report layout in Account → Settings (see School settings).

Step 1: Generate the report cards

1. Open Exams → Generate Report Cards.

   

2. Choose the Report: a combined report (its exams and percentages are listed, for example "Mid-term 40% + End-term 60%"), or a single exam ("One exam, counting 100%").

3. Under Classes tick the classes to make cards for (use the select-all to tick every class).

4. Click Generate. You see "Report cards generated: 240 report card(s) created or updated for 8 class(es)."

You can generate again at any time. Existing cards are refreshed, and released cards keep their released status, so it is safe to regenerate after correcting a mark.

Step 2: Look at them by class

Open Exams → Report Cards (the class page). It lists each class with how many cards there are and how many are Draft, Ready and Released.

• Open shows that class's cards.
• Download PDF makes one PDF with the whole class (you see "Preparing the PDF… You will be notified when it is ready").
• Print all opens the class's cards ready to print.

Step 3: Add comments, then check each card

The full list is under Exams → Report Cards after you open a class.

Each row shows the Student, Class, Average, Rank and Status. Row actions:

Tick many rows to use the bulk actions:

• Automatic comments suggests comments from each student's results. Choose whether to fill the class teacher's comment, the head teacher's comment, and whether to replace comments that are already written (off by default). You can still edit any comment afterwards. You see "Comments added to 30 report card(s)", and how many were skipped.
• Mark ready moves the selected cards to Ready.
• Release releases the selected cards.

Class teachers can also write their comments in the teacher portal (Report Comments), and assess behaviour and competencies before you release the cards. Check those first.

Step 4: Release

When you are sure, select the cards and choose Release (or use Release on one card). Read the message: This makes the report card final. You see "N report card(s) released".

What releasing does:

• Parents can open the card in the parent portal, if Report cards is switched on for parents (Settings → Parent Portal). Whether they see the position in class depends on the setting there.
• Each parent gets a notice that the report card is ready (bell, and SMS or email if your school switched that on).
• If the school allows it, the family can also find it on the school's public page with the child's name and date of birth.
• You can still open, print and download it as before.

What appears on the card

The card follows your settings: layout, header style, marks display and which sections show (admission number, remarks, total and average, position, grading key, behaviour, attendance, comments, signatures, stamp, dates). Change them in Account → Settings → Exams and Reports. Cards you have already printed do not change.

Send report cards to parents

Once cards are released you can send each parent a link to their child's report card, by SMS and email. The link opens the report card with no sign-in and no password, so it works for parents who never use the parent portal.

1. Open Report Cards and tick the cards to send (or use the row's Send to parents for one card).
2. Click Send to parents and choose the channels: SMS, WhatsApp and/or email. Only the channels your school has set up under Messaging settings are listed.
3. Confirm. You are told how many parents were sent a message, and how many students have no parent with a usable phone number or email.

• A parent with several children in your selection gets one message with every link, not one each.
• Only released report cards are sent. Drafts and cards that are only ready are skipped and counted.
• The parent can read the card, print it and download the PDF. They see only that one report card.
• A link works for 90 days from the last time it was sent. Sending again keeps the same link and extends it.

Parent link and WhatsApp by hand. If your school has not set up WhatsApp, the row action Parent link shows the link with a Copy button, and an Open WhatsApp button for each parent who has a phone number. It opens WhatsApp with the message already typed and you press send yourself, so it works even if your school has no SMS or email set up.

Stopping a link. If a link went to the wrong person, open Parent link and click Stop this link. It stops working at once; send the card again to give parents a new link.

The link is a key to that report card: tell parents to keep it private. When a parent opens it, the school's audit log records that (once a day for each card), without showing the link itself.

Secondary results: points and division

Secondary schools can show points and a division on every card. Each subject's grade is worth points (A is 1, B is 2, C is 3, D is 4, F is 5 on the NECTA O-Level scheme). The best seven subjects, meaning the ones with the fewest points, are added up, and the total gives the division:

To use it:

1. Give the class a grading scheme whose grades have points (create one from the NECTA O-Level template under Assessment → Grading Schemes) and set the class's Class Type to Secondary.
2. Open Account → Settings → Exams and Reports and switch on Work out points and division under Secondary results. You can change how many subjects count, which class types use it, and the divisions themselves.
3. Generate the report cards as usual.

The card then has a Points column (the subjects that count are in bold), POINTS and DIVISION in the summary, and a division key. Position in class follows the points, with the higher average winning a tie. You can switch it to rank by average instead. The report card list shows Points and Division columns.

A student needs a result in enough subjects to get a division. Until then the card says, for example, "No division yet: 5 of 7 subjects have a result", and the student is left out of the ranking. A class with fewer subjects than the number to count uses all of its subjects.

If something goes wrong