Class

In Omniscol, a class is the main entity that brings together students following the same curriculum in the same school, over a given period. It is what courses are addressed to: a course targets a class (in full, or via a group that subdivides it), not the other way round.

A class carries:

• a name (for example "Year 7A", "Grade 10 Homeroom", "Cohort 2028"),
• a level (levels are defined in Create — for example Grade 6/Grade 7/Grade 8 in school, Year 1/Year 2/Year 3 at bachelor level),
• optionally a campus (Premium option; branch, faculty, hub or other organisational grouping),
• a default site (physical location and classrooms used by default),
• optionally a dedicated classroom in which its lessons take place by default,
• a theoretical headcount (expected number of students; optional but useful for sizing classrooms).

Vocabulary depending on the context

The word "class" takes on very different nuances depending on the type of institution. All of them map to the same Omniscol entity:

• Primary / secondary — "class" in the ordinary school sense: one stable pupil group attached to a year, section or homeroom (for example "Year 7A", "Grade 10 Homeroom", "5th Grade Blue").
• Higher education — often "cohort", "intake", "session", "year group", sometimes "track" or "specialisation". An intake of 200 students is a class; tutorial and practical subgroups are groups, not classes.
• Continuing education — "session", "cohort", "learner group".

When you read "class" in Omniscol, read "the cohort following this curriculum over this period", not "the physical room" (which is a classroom).

Class vs group

A classic pitfall: confusing a class and a group. Groups are always subdivisions of a class. If you need to mix students coming from several classes (for example the Latin students of Year 8A, Year 8B and Year 8C attending the same Latin course), you do not create a new class: you use a group alignment or a group of groups.