In Observe, each school year / academic year must be created as they define the start and finish dates for each academic year. This helps to organise your records as it lets Observe know which school year a particular record should be displayed within. This will also allow you to view the records within each year in the Records and Reports areas.
Creating / Managing School/Academic Years
To create or manage School Years, go to Admin > Settings > School Year > School/Academic Year List tab.
Observe provides you with the current academic year to begin, and sets this as the default year. If you would like to amend the Display Name, which appears in the Records and reports areas, or the Start/End Dates differ for your school you can click on the name to drill down and click Edit Details to make changes.
At the start of each academic year you will need to ensure you have created the new school year in Observe. This can be done in Observe by clicking Create School Year.
Next, select the relevant school year from the dropdown (if shown). If there is only one school year available to create, this will be automatically selected. If you label your academic years differently in your school, such as '2024 Leavers' for example, you can enter this in the Display Name box. If you are happy to use the default name however, then you can leave this box blank.
Then, you’ll need to determine the start and end dates for this academic year. We would recommend to use the dates of the entire school year, such as 1st September till 31st August to ensure all records are included.
Below this there is a tick box allowing you to set whether this should be the default school year. This controls which records are displayed to users by default when viewing the Records or Reports areas, as such, we recommend only setting this once all reviews have been carried out for the previous year's records. Once you have finished making the relevant selections, click 'Create'.
Once created, this year will now appear on your School Year List. The Make Default button on the right will allow you to change the default School Year in the future, and this will be greyed out for the school year selected currently.
You also have the option to create Report Windows, which can be used to define specific periods within the school year, such as terms or half terms. This would allow additional filtering options in the records and reports areas, as well as providing additional comparisons in the trends report. If you would be interested in setting these up, please see the following article: Report Windows.
Filtering by School Year in Records and Reports
School Years can be used to filter your Records and Reports by once they are created, as Observe will sort these out based on the date you have selected when the record was created.
In the Records area, all records created for the School Year set as default will be shown. To view records created for other years, you can click 'Set Date Range', then select the desired School Year, followed by 'Search'.
Similarly, in the Reports, you can also filter the information for any specific year. This can be done by clicking 'Change Date Range' on the left hand side.
Thanks for reading!