Setting up your first school year
Configure grade levels, subjects, classes, and enrollment in the right order.
Setting up a new school year on Lectern follows a fixed order: grade levels → subjects → classes → enrollments. Skip a step and the next one won’t have what it needs to validate.
Plan to spend about 30 minutes for a typical primary school, longer if you’re configuring custom grading scales or unusual stream structures. Have your enrollment list ready as a CSV before you start - download the template here.
1. Define your grade levels
Open Admin → Academic → Grade Levels. Lectern ships with the SA system pre-loaded (Grade R to Grade 12), but you can delete what you don’t use or rename levels to match your school’s convention.
Open the Grade Levels page
From the admin sidebar, click Academic → Grade Levels. You’ll see a table with the default levels.
Remove or rename what doesn't apply
For a primary school you’d typically remove Grades 8–12. Click the row, then Archive. Archiving preserves any historical references but hides the level from new enrollments.
Save the order
Drag rows to set the order learners progress through. Lectern uses this order for promotion logic at year-end.
2. Add subjects
Now Admin → Academic → Subjects. Add every subject your school teaches, with curriculum codes if your reporting requires them (CAPS codes for SA government schools, IB or Cambridge codes for international).
3. Create classes
A class is a group of learners taught a specific subject by a specific teacher in a given term. Admin → Academic → Classes is where you define them.
- Click
New class. - Pick the grade level and subject. The teacher dropdown filters to staff with the right qualifications.
- Name the class clearly -
Grade 10A · Mathematicsis better thanClass A. The name shows on every report. - Save. The class is now ready to receive enrollments.
4. Enroll learners
Two ways to enroll: the bulk path (CSV upload) or per-learner from their profile. For a brand-new year, bulk is faster - see the bulk-import guide.
Bulk path
From Admin → Academic → Enrollment, click Bulk enroll. Upload your CSV with learner_id, class_id, and term columns. Lectern validates first, applies on confirm.
Individual path
Open the learner’s profile, scroll to Enrollments, click Add enrollment, pick the class. Useful for late arrivals or transfers mid-term.
What next?
- Set up your term calendar so the system knows when terms start and end.
- Invite teaching staff and let them claim their assigned classes.
- Configure your grading scaleif you’re not using the default 7-point system.
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