Course Manager and Starting the Timetable Early (Post 16 schools)

Starting the timetable early can result in courses showing with a start date in July of one academic year and an end date in June/July the following academic year.

Course Manager should cope with this as a one year course if the student is a member of the course till the end of the previous academic year and from the beginning of the current academic year.

However,  it is important to note that an early start of the course could result in a loss of funding.  Completing part of the course in the last half term of the previous academic year could result in as much as a 15% reduction in funding for the year.  Furthermore, the start in June/July would mean that the six week period where students are allowed to change or transfer without that information being included in the school census would end mid/end September.  So, for example,  a student starts the course beginning July, changes end September – that would mean he/she would have followed the course for 7 or 8 weeks, so it would be included in the Census.

It is therefore important for the school to decide if it is just an introduction to the course or if the course is actually starting early.  If the course is actually starting early then the advice is that course manager should be left unchanged.

However, if the intention of sending the timetable across was just to introduce the students to the course and the actual work was to start in the new year, then the school will have to manually amend course manager to reflect this as follows:

1.  Student memberships are showing as continuous over 2 academic years – e.g. 03/07/12 – 28/06/13

• In Tools / Academic Management / Set Academic Year, change the year to 2011-2012
• In Tools / Academic Management / Course Manager / Maintain Courses, open the affected course.
• In Panel 6. Classes – change the affected class date range from to 03/07/12 to the end of that year, say 20/07/12.
• Run Update Course Memberships.
• In Tools / Academic management / Set Academic Year, change the date to 2012-2013
• In Tools / Academic Management / Course Manager / Maintain Courses, open the affected course.
• In Panel 6. Classes – attach the 12-13 classes (if you can’t see the 12-13 classes you may have to log out of SIMS .net and log in again)
• Run Update Course Memberships
• Close SIMS .net and log in again.  Open the course and check the memberships in panel 7 now show with the correct date range, e.g. 02/09/12 – 28/06/13.
• In Tools / Academic Management / Set Academic Year, change the year to 2012-2013 and run Update Course Memberships again.

2.Student Memberships are showing twice – e.g. 03/07/12 – 20/07/12 AND 02/09/12 – 20/07/13

• In Tools / Academic Management / Set Academic Year, change the year to 2011-2012.
• In Tools / Academic Management / Course Manager / Maintain Courses, open the affected course.
• In Panel 6. Classes, delete the class with the July date range.
• Run update Course Manager.
• Reload the course and check that the students’ July memberships are no longer showing.
• In Tools / Academic Management / Set Academic Year, change the year back to 2012-2013.

Reviewed 12/05/2016