As part of importing a Student XML file, you may choose to have what are called Home Group Summary Subjects automatically created, a special type of pseudo subject required for AusVELS reports.
In Accelerus, home groups, subjects and classes have very distinct meanings and roles to play. The distinction is clearest in a Secondary school, where home groups are an administrative grouping of students, overseen by a particular teacher who may have no role in assessing the students in the home group. On the other hand, in Primary schools, in most cases, the home group teacher does most of the assessment of the students, for all of the different subject areas. The students are not just overseen by the home group teacher, but they are taught by him or her.
Therefore, rather than have to create a separate record for each subject area, while importing a Student XML file, you may choose to have Home Group Summary Subjects created automatically for each year level.
The process also automatically generates the classes and enrolments for these subjects, based on the home groups. This allows the home group teacher to assess all or most learning areas which are all reported on a single Summary-type report.
For AusVELS reports it may be necessary to have two pseudo subjects:
| • | One subject to produce a summary report of all of a student's domain and dimension scores, plus selected comments. |
| • | Another subject for the Personal Learning Goals report, where this is being produced. |
Home Group Summary Subjects have different importance for different types of schools, ie Primary, compared to Secondary. In addition, the steps that a school takes when setting up AusVELS reports may also vary, as may the outcome of the process of creating the Home Group Summary Subjects when importing a Student XML file.
As the home group teacher generally assesses all or the majority of the different learning areas for the students they teach, it is unnecessary to have a separate subject for English, Maths, Science, etc. All of the assessments may be added to the one subject, with a single report being produced. Primary schools, in particular, will want to use Accelerus’ automated process for creating Home Group Summary Subjects, making it unnecessary for them to create separate subjects for every learning area. As a result of the generation of Home Group Summary Subjects, for Primary schools we would have a subject that is called 00HG, 01HG, 02HG, etc, with each having the actual home groups as their classes, eg 03HG03B, 03HG03H, etc. Therefore, a Primary school need only import a Student XML file, assign the home group teacher to each home group, and then generate the Home Group Summary Subjects when importing the Student XML file. After this, Primary schools may only need to create a few additional subjects for specialist teachers, eg Art, Music, etc. These can be added manually or imported, as the school sees fit.
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Secondary schools may decide whether they want to generate Home Group Summary Subjects, as home group teachers do not usually assess students on the domains and dimensions, etc. A school may already have a pseudo subject for home groups so that a report can be produced for the home group teacher. Often, a single home group subject is all that is required, with each of the classes of the subject being the same as the home groups. This home group subject can be used within the Quick Setup processes, or such a subject may be added if there is not one. Otherwise, you may want to generate Home Group Summary Subjects for Years 7 to 10 with the Student XML import process creating subjects. These will be coded 07HG_1, 08HG_1, etc in the selected academic cycle, when importing an XML file for Semester 1, and 07HG_2, 08HG_2, etc for a Semester 2 import file.
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In schools that incorporate both Primary and Secondary year levels, you may wish to automatically generate the home group subjects, for use at the Primary level at least. However, Accelerus will generate them for all year levels. Generally, you only need one of these home group subjects for all Secondary year levels. Therefore, you may, afterwards, reassign the classes for Years 8 to 10 to the Year 7 home group subject, and the Year 8 to 10 home group subjects can be deleted. You may also create a new subject level, eg 7-10, and assign this to the Year 7 home group subject.
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The table below summarises the role of subjects, classes and home groups and how the automated process for generating Home Group Summary Subjects in Accelerus applies to Primary and Secondary schools.
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