Programs and classes

Schoolwati has two levels for your academic structure inside a campus:

• A program is an academic stream — CBSE, ICSE, IB, B.Tech, Pre-primary.
• A class (called a "section" in some menus) is a group of students inside a program — Grade 5 - A, Year 2 - Computer Science.

A student is in exactly one class at a time. The class decides their fee structure, attendance roster, exam schedule, and class teacher.

When to use programs vs classes

Use a program when:

• Students follow a different curriculum or board.
• Fees, exam patterns, or the academic calendar are different.
• You report on the stream separately.

Use a class when:

• It's a group of students inside the same program (different divisions of Grade 5).
• The students share a teacher, a timetable, and study together.

Adding a program

Step 1. Open Academics

From the menu: Setup → Academics. You'll see tabs for Programs, Class Sections, and Subjects.

Step 2. Click + New Program

Fill in:

• Name — like "CBSE - Primary" or "B.Tech CSE".
• Code — a short code for reports (PCB, BTC).
• Levels — how many years the program runs (5 for Grade 1-5).
• Academic year — defaults from your campus settings.

Save.

Adding classes inside a program

Step 1. Open the program

Click into your new program from the list.

Step 2. Click + Section

Fill in:

• Class name — like "Grade 5 - A". Stick to one naming style across the program.
• Level/year — pick the grade from the program's levels.
• Capacity — maximum number of students. The admission form warns when a class is full.
• Class teacher — optional, can set later.
• Subjects — tick which subjects this class will study.

Save. Repeat for every class you're running this year.

Naming tip

A school with 5 sections per grade across 10 years ends up with 50 classes. The naming style you pick on day one is what reports look like five years from now.

Recommended:

• "Grade 5 - A", not "A - Grade 5" (sorts naturally).
• Same separator everywhere — pick a hyphen with spaces, or a period.
• Don't put the academic year in the name — that's a separate field.

Assigning teachers to classes

After you've added staff:

1. Open Staff → Teacher Assignments.
2. Pick a class and a subject.
3. Pick a teacher from the dropdown.
4. Save.

The class teacher (homeroom) handles attendance and parent communication for the class — one per class. Subject teachers are assigned per (class, subject) pair.

Moving students between classes

When a student changes class (transfer between divisions, repeating a year):

1. Open the student's detail page.
2. Click Transfer Section.
3. Pick the new class.

Their history stays with them — old attendance, marks, payments are still visible.

For year-end class promotions (everyone moves from Grade 5-A to Grade 6-A), today this is done one student at a time. A bulk promote action is on our roadmap.

Common mistakes

• Set capacity to zero. A class with zero capacity rejects all admissions. Default to a sane number like 30 even if you're not enforcing it.
• Tried to admit a student without a program. Students go into a class, which lives inside a program. If you're getting a "select program" error, you're trying to admit a student directly to a class without a program parent.
• Confused "Grade 5" with a program. Grade 5 is a level within a program (like CBSE). The program is the curriculum stream, not the grade.

What to do next

• Adding staff and setting roles
• Fees, invoices, and payments
• Managing the student lifecycle