In the classroom

Classroom tools

Epraise has a number of built in classroom tools, which are a handy extra to help make teaching a little easier. These tools are found when you select a Class or Tutor group and have a class view on the screen.

Bulk award (3 star button) – This will allow you to bulk award points, demerits, interventions, accolades, achievements and draw entries.

Grid award (9 circles button) – If your school has activated this feature you will be able to award students in several categories at the same time.

Random student selector (dice button) – If you want to pick a student to answer a question or carry out a task, you can use the random student selector to do this.

Timer (stopwatch button) – You can use the countdown timer to time tasks.

Student grouper (4 students button) – If you need to split the class into groups, just set the amount of students you want in a group and the grouper will do the rest.

Switch seating plan (two horizontal arrows button) – You may want to create additional seating plans for a class, if you teach them in different rooms.

Student shuffler (seating plan only, crossed arrows button) – Use to rearrange the seating plan either temporarily or permanently.

Reset seating plan (curved arrow button) – This will completely reset your seating plan. You will not be able to undo this action.

Customise your view (cog icon) – You can personalise the information you see on your seating plan or grid view by adding grades, photographs and detailed student data.

Views

Introduction

These show your class information in various ways. Grid and Seating plan are the most appropriate for awarding points; Graph and Datasheet are best for viewing data. Your Administrator may have also enabled the Marksheet view to access further student information.

Seating plan

Each teacher can arrange their classes into their set seats by using the seating plan tool. When you click on a class that you have not created a plan for yet, it will give you a few options on how you would like to view the students to help you get started.

Simply drag the student tabs into the required positions and the system will remember this. You can also print off the seating plan so that you have a helpful reminder when writing reports.

If you teach the same class in two different rooms, you can create a new plan for the other room. To create a new seating plan for a class you will need to click on the two horizontal arrows button. Then you will need to name your current plan and your new plan. It will then switch to the new plan and allow you to arrange your students in the new layout.

Once the layout has been created you can then switch between them by using the switch icon described above and clicking the room you wish to view.

Additional student information such as SEN status and other detailed student data can be displayed within seating plans. To show or hide this, click on the cogs icon and select or deselect the relevant information.

Attendance

If your school have purchased SIMS writeback, you will have the Attendance option available for all of your classes and your tutor group. The Attendance section allows you to mark individual pupil attendance, displays an attendance mark from the students' previous session and displays any comments that you record against attendance marks.

To enter your attendance marks, all you need to do is select the relevant mark against each student as you would normally do for each lesson. To mark everyone as present at once, just select the All present button at the top of the page. These marks will then get written back into your school's MIS that day.