Preparing students for the next school year

Before the new year rolls around, there are a few things that you will need to do to prepare the software for the next school year. If you don’t do some of the things listed below, it can mean that your students may not appear in Connecting Steps or may not be in the correct frameworks in the new school year. Here is what you need to do to make sure that your system is all ready for the next school year.

Assigning next year groups #

You need to make sure that you assign the next year groups for your students. If they are not assigned, the students will move out of their currently assigned class without moving into their next one. To assign the next year group follow the steps below.

There are several ways of assigning year groups.

Bulk: whole class – use this to move all of your students in one class to the same next class in one go.

1. Go to the manage groups page on My BSquared.
2. Find the group for the class you want to set the next year group for.
3. Click edit on that group.
   A window will pop up where you can edit group details.
4. Click set next class (bottom right).
5. Choose a Registration Group for next year from the drop down menu.
6. Click save.

Bulk: several students – use this to move several students to the same next class in one go.

1. Go to the manage students page on My BSquared.
2. Find the students you want to set the next year group for.
3. Click the tick box on the very left of those students.
4. Once done, go to the top of the page and click the Please select drop down.
5. Select the Set next year group and then click apply to the right.
   A pop-up will show all students selected and a drop-down for your class selection.
6. Choose the class you want to assign for the students’ next year group.
7. Click confirm.

Manually – use this to move individual students to their next class.

1. Go to the manage students page on My BSquared.
2. Find the student you want to update the next year group for.
3. Click edit on that student.
   A window will pop up where you can edit student details.
4. Click the drop-down next to the next year group and choose the next class for this student.
5. Click Save at the bottom of the page.

Import – use this to import students from your school’s student management system.

1. Create an export from your student management system with the updated registration groups.
2. Prepare your export file, so it only includes the students that you wish to work with in our systems.
3. Go to the manage students page on My BSquared.
4. Click Import CSV in the top right.
5. Click the software that you are importing the file from and then drag and drop the CSV file in.
6. Assign the fields that are in the file to the fields in the software.
7. Choose whether you want to remove students that are not in the import file.
8. Commit the import and all the students’ registration groups will be updated.
   (Note that you should only import the students that you plan to work with in our systems.)
   (Note that we recommend including the student UPN numbers in the import, as our system will use these to match the students. If there is no UPN number, first name, last name and date of birth will be used to match the students. This second method is less reliable as duplicate records will be created if the information in those three fields does not match exactly.)

If you prefer to watch a video rather than read written instructions, there’s also a video guide that explores these options to help you decide which approach is best for your school. Click here to watch the video.

Checking Frameworks #

It is also worth checking that your default frameworks are set up for the correct age groups, as you want to ensure that all students get put into the correct framework for the new year.

If you watch the video below, it will show you how to set up and manage your frameworks.

Did you know that we have a free online training course for B Squared software Administrators?
This 1 hour 30 minute course goes through all of the settings and management screens for each of our products. It has been designed to give you a good understanding of how to configure everything, the impact of each setting and how it affects your data and your users.
Click here to start the training.