This article provides a comprehensive guide on setting up carouseling class course rotations, where students rotate through different subjects throughout the year. It outlines the steps for creating courses and modules, enrolling students, and managing rotations effectively. It also discusses various options for student enrollment and addresses common issues that may arise during the process.
What is a carouseling course?
A carouseling or rotating course is a course where the students move around different lessons during the year. A common example of this is technology, where students might do cooking one term, textiles another term, and woodwork in the third term.
Here's an example timetable for one year group at my school:
Term | Cooking | Textiles | Woodwork |
1 | Group 1 | Group 2 | Group 3 |
2 | Group 3 | Group 1 | Group 2 |
3 | Group 2 | Group 3 | Group 1 |
How long will it take?
- Set up the course and modules - 15 minutes
- Enrol students using one of the options - 15 minutes
- If you've chosen to move students at the end of each rotation, book in some time to do this
Permissions
Before you get started, make sure you have the Academic Structure: Administer permission so you can see the right menu options, add courses and add, edit and remove student enrolments into them. Ask someone at your school to make sure you have this permission or give it to you using these instructions.
How do I set up a carouseling course?
Step 1 - Set up the course
This step is the same as setting up any course in Arbor.
- If you've already created your course as part of the New School Year Setup by copying over last year's course or importing your timetable from TimeTabler, you won't need to complete this step.
- If you do need to create a new course, we recommend setting up a parent course for the overall subject. Within that add separate modules for each year group taking the parent subject. Within each year group you can add a module for each class students will be taking. The structure will look a little like this.
To set up a new course, go to School > Programmes > Courses and click +Add. A slide-over will appear where you need to enter information about the course/class you are setting up.
You can only select one year group per course you create. Leave the Year group field blank to be able to create sub-modules assigned to different year groups.
When all the details are correct, click on the green Add Course button.
This creates the course (the top-level component). The next step is to set up modules within the course. Form the Course Overview, click +Add in the Modules section.
In the slide over add the name of the module e.g. Year 7 Tech and fill in the other details. This time select the year group. Then click the green Add Module button.
You will be taken to the module overview. You will then need to add a sub-module within this module by again clicking +Add in the Modules section.
In the slide over add the name of the module e.g. Year 7 Tech - Woodwork, and fill in the other details. Then click the green Add Module button.
You will then be taken to the sub-module overview.
To schedule lessons for this class, click +Add in the Classes & Lessons section. You can then choose to schedule multiple regular lessons.
In the sideover, select the days the lessons will run on, the time, effective dates, location, and the teacher. This ensures this person sees this lesson in their calendar.
You'll need to schedule lessons for each of your bottom-level courses, and you'll need to continue to make submodules until all your classes have been added. You can check your structure as you go from School > Programmes > Courses.
Step 2 - Enrol your students
There are four options for managing your carouseling course, but which one should you pick?
- Using our bulk import spreadsheet
- Creating a separate teaching group for each rotation
- Manually moving students around each rotation
- Manually moving the teachers around each rotation
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Follow these instructions to download, fill in then reimport the enrolment spreadsheet. Top Tip: Click the Customise Import Spreadsheet button to select only the courses that will be carouseling.
When you import your spreadsheet, edit the date range so that the enrolment ends at the end of the first rotation. You'll need to repeat this process for however many rotations will happen in a year. In my example I have 3 terms, so I'll need to complete the process three times.
For each year group, you'll need one teaching group for each subject from Students > Enrolment > Academic > Teaching Groups. So if my students could do any number of 3 subjects, I'll need to create 3 separate teaching groups for each year group.
Next, you'll need to add which students will be doing each subject at which time. Click into the teaching group and click to add new members. Select all the students that will be in the first rotation and add in the dates they will be taking this subject. You'll need to repeat this for each group of students, adding in the different relevant dates.
Then add an automatic enrolment so the students are automatically enrolled in the class and added to the register when they have an active enrolment in the teaching group.
- Once you've added all your rotations to the teaching group, you'll have a full list of students and when they'll be automatically enrolled in the class.
- You can see the automatic enrolment from the class overview. The students will only appear in the registers between the dates you've set up their enrolment for. You'll need to repeat this process for each teaching group you've set up.
This option means at the start of each rotation you'll need to transfer students to their next class. This is fewer steps than ending the students' enrolment into their own class and adding them to their new class.
- To add them into their first rotation, just click into the course from School > Programmes > Courses > Table View and add the students. Only add the students that will be in this class for the first rotation. You'll need to repeat this for each of your classes.
- Set the dates to cover the whole academic year - don't worry, this will be changed at the end of the rotation to add them to the next class.
When you want to move students into the next class, click into the class and select all the students. Click the Bulk action button and select to Transfer them.
In the slide over, select the new class to transfer them to, and the first day they should appear in their new class. This will automatically set the last date they are enrolled into their current class as the day before.
In their new class you can see their enrolment starts on that new date. You can also see the students in this class who will also need to be transferred to their next class.
Rather than setting up a separate module for each subject within each year group, you'll instead have needed to set up a separate module for each group of students.
Click into each module to add the students that will be in this group (these will be the same students throughout the whole year).
Then add the academic lead they'll have for the first rotation. For example, if the students in this group are doing textiles first, you should add the textiles teacher first.
You can add the academic lead for each subject the students will be doing.
When scheduling lessons, you'll want to repeat this for each rotation so you can specify the right room for each staff member.
You'll then end up with lessons scheduled at the same time during the day, but with different effective dates, rooms and staff members.
FAQ
If the enrolment dates are incorrect, this can cause the student to not automatically move to the next class at the right date, or it can mean teachers can't access the registers for the right class at the right time. The method of fixing this will depend on how you set up your carouseling course.
If you picked option 1 or 3, you'll need to click into the course from School > Programmes > Courses, select the students and amend their enrolment dates for each subject.
If you picked option 2, you'll need to edit the dates the students are enrolled in the teaching group. Go to Students > Enrolment > Academic > Teaching Groups and click into the teaching group. Click into each student then click the Edit button to edit their enrolment dates. This also edits their enrolment into the courses (through the automatic enrolment) and will determine when the student appears in the registers.
If you picked option 4, it'll be the dates of the staff members you'll need to edit by clicking into the course from School > Programmes > Courses. Click into the Academic leads section to edit the dates of the academic leads, or click into the Class & Lessons section to edit the scheduling of the lesson registers or the room.
The best way of adding students who join mid-way through a year depends on which setup option you picked.
- If you picked option 1, 3 or 4, you'll need to add new students to the courses with the right enrolment dates. Do this is from School > Programmes > Courses > Table View.
- If you picked option 2, you'll need to add new students to each teaching group with the right dates from Students > Enrolment > Academic > Teaching Groups.
If a student is appearing in a register when they shouldn't it may be for a number of reasons:
- The student hasn't been moved to their next class at the right time (follow the instructions above for Students are not in registers at the right time)
- The student shouldn't be enrolled in the carouseling course at all
- The student has been enrolled in the wrong group
The method of fixing this will depend on how you set up your carouseling course. If you picked option 1, 3 or 4, you'll need to click into the course from School > Programmes > Courses, select the students and select Withdraw students.
If you backdate their enrolment to before their enrolment start date, this will remove the enrolment completely. You may need to tidy up missing attendance marks for these students.
If you picked option 2, you won't be able to edit the student enrolment into the course as this is through automatic enrolment, so you'll need to make changes to the teaching group. Go to Students > Enrolment > Academic > Teaching Groups and click into the teaching group.
Click into the automatic enrolment set up and select to keep the students in the course but remove the automatic enrolment.
Select the students you want to remove then click the Bulk action button icon to select Remove members.
If you backdate their enrolment to before their enrolment start date, this will remove the enrolment completely. You may need to tidy up missing attendance marks for these students.
You can then add the automatic enrolment back into the Teaching group.
If a rotation has ended and the students have now moved to a new class, the teacher may not be able to input marks for the students they had last. They'll only be able to input marks for assessment periods that took place when they were the academic lead.
When inputting marks, if you're no longer the academic lead, adjust the dates in the marksheet filters to a date when you were the academic lead. This should enable you to input marks for students you're no longer teaching.
You'll get an error if you are trying to transfer students to a different class outside of the enrolment dates into their current class. This usually happens when you set the original end dates as the end of the rotation, rather than the end of the academic year.
To fix this, you'll first need to amend the current enrolment dates. Select all the students, then click the Bulk action button icon and select Change Enrolment Dates.
Keep the same start date, but amend the end date to the last day of your academic year, then click Save Changes. You should then be able to select the students again and transfer them to a new class for the next rotation.
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