Building a course hierarchy in Arbor

This guide will look at manually building a course hierarchy in Arbor - this may be required if you are setting up a new set of courses from scratch, or you have migrated to Arbor with some courses that don't fit into an existing course structure.

Arbor's Recommended Course Structure

We would recommend courses operate on a 3 level structure, as this will allow the courses to link into Arbor's Assessments module most efficiently. The diagram below shows our recommended structure - a Key Stage instance of a subject sits at the top level, with the Year Groups the subject is being taken by sitting as the middle level. Finally, all the timetabled classes sit as the bottom level courses under the appropriate year group.

The structure will look like this in the class lists, and in the New School Year Setup.

An alternative has the Subject as the top course component and the individual classes directly underneath. In this case, you would just skip the middle step of the setup outlined below, and label the sub-modules themselves with the correct year group.

Setting up the Course Structure

To start building your course structure, follow these steps:

1. Head to School > Programmes > (Academic Year) Courses & Classes, selecting the desired academic year.
2. Click the green Add button, and use the slideover menu to create your top level course. You can set the Subject for the course at this point, and it will then feed through to any child courses that are created.
   
   Click Add Course to create the course.
   
3. The course will then be created, and you'll be taken into the Overview page. Next, scroll down and click Add next to Modules. Use the slideover menu to add in your mid-level course, for example, Year 10. You can set the Year Group for the course at this point, and it will feed through to the courses we will create under Year 10.
   
   Click Add Module to create the module.
   
   
   
4. You'll then be taken into the Year 10 module - again, scroll down and click Add next to Modules, and this time use the slideover menu to create your first class.
   
   
5. Once the class has been created, either press the back button on your browser, or click Component of > More Information to return to the mid level course.
6. Repeat steps 4 and 5 until you've created all the courses to sit under the mid level course.
   
7. Once you've created all courses under the mid level course (e.g. all Year 10 Maths courses), click Component of > More Information from within the mid level course (Year 10) to return to the top level course (Maths GCSNF).
8. Repeat step 3 to create your next mid level course (e.g. Year 11), the steps 4-7 to create the bottom level courses.

If Bottom Level Courses already exist

If you've migrated to Arbor with some bottom level courses that exist outside of a course structure, you'll need to follow a slightly set of steps to set up the structure and move the courses into it:

1. Head to School > Programmes > (Academic Year) Courses & Classes, selecting the desired academic year.
2. Click the green Add button, and use the slideover menu to create your top level course. You can set the Subject for the course at this point, and it will then feed through to any child courses that are created.
   
   Click Add Course to create the course.
   
3. The course will then be created, and you'll be taken into the Overview page. Next, scroll down and click Add next to Modules. Use the slideover menu to add in your mid-level course, for example, Year 10. You can set the Year Group for the course at this point, and it will feed through to the courses we will create under Year 10.
4. Click Component of > More Information to return to the top level course, then create your next mid level course.
5. Repeat step 4 until all required mid level courses are created.
6. Head back to School > Programmes > (Academic Year) Courses & Classes, then click into one of your bottom level courses that you want to move into the newly created hierarchy.
7. When viewing the course, click on Component of: Nothing - top level component.
8. On the slideover menu, use the drop-down menu to select the required mid level course as a parent, then click Move to New Parent Component.
   
   
9. Head back to School > Programmes > (Academic Year) Courses & Classes and repeat steps 6-8 for each course that needs moving into the hierarchy.