Group Activities

Overview

Group Activities can be used to manually or automatically manage the enrolment of students into activity sessions either as a consequence of receiving a specific Chronicle post, or having reached a specified number of points in a particular category within Compass' Chronicle module.

Group Activities can be used to manage both positive and negative consequences and are frequently used for activities such as detentions, homework catch up sessions, awards ceremonies for high achievers and so forth.

Creating Group Activities

Navigate to the Organisation menu (grid icon) and select the Group Activities option (staff will require the GroupActivitiesAdmin permission to access the Group Activities page and manage the activities).

Click the '+ Add group activity' button to open the editor panel and enter the default details which will be used to create sessions of the activity.

Name	The name of the activity (e.g. After School Detention)
Default Staff Member	The default staff member who will manage the activity, similar to a Lead Teacher for normal classes. This will pre-populate with the name of the staff member who is logged into the Compass portal and creating the new Group Activity.  Please note you can have more than one staff member per session within the Activity.
Default Location	The default location in which sessions of the activity will be scheduled.
Start and Finish Date	The beginning and end date of the time period in which sessions of the group activity can be scheduled.

Please Note: If you need to delete a Group Activity, click the associated bin icon for the activity.  Activities that have been associated with a Chronicle Template cannot be deleted until you remove the association from the related templates.  Deleting a Group Activity will remove all related data for the sessions and student attendance so please proceed with caution.

Creating Sessions for Group Activities

Once the Group Activity exists, sessions will need to be created. To do so, click on the name of the Group Activity to open the activity dashboard, similar to the Class dashboard. Click on the Sessions tab, then then select the '+ Add Sessions' button to open the Session Editor window.

Note: To create or manage sessions, staff will require either the ClassesPower or ClassesAdmin permission.

   

The Session Editor window that is launched is very similar to the Session Editor screen used in other sections of Compass.

    

To add sessions you will need to complete the following information:

Date	The date on which the first session of the activity will run.
Start and Finish	Start and Finish time for the first session. You can type specific times or choose a period from the drop down lists.
Repeat	If this checkbox is ticked, multiple sessions of the activity will be created according to the repeat pattern specified on the chosen days of the week.  Please note, the Repeat functionality in a Group Activity session works identically to the Repeat function within a School Activity; for details on using the Repeat option please refer to the 'Creating a School Activity with Multiple Sessions' section from the School Activities article in our Knowledge Base.
Location	The location in which the sessions will be scheduled (pre-populated with the location chosen when creating the Group Activity).
Staff	Group Activities allow you to assign multiple staff to each session.  Add the staff member, or staff members, who will be supervising the session and  be responsible for marking the roll. You can add as many as needed and the session will show on each of their schedules.
Roll Marking Mode	Select the appropriate roll marking mode based on whether you want to capture attendance for this activity.
Max Attendees	Limits the number of students that can be enrolled in a particular session. Leave blank for unlimited.

Once the session details have been entered, click the 'Save & Close' button. The sessions tab will refresh and the session information will appear as a list under the All Sessions heading.

Please Note: the Staff member/members you select will be allocated to all the sessions you create in the Session Editor. If the staff member or members will vary in different sessions, use the Add Session button as many times as needed to create the sessions for each staff combination.

Manually enrolling students in Group Activity sessions

Students are enrolled in activities via Chronicle entries.

In order to enrol students into a session of the Group Activity, the Chronicle template used to create the entry must be associated with a Group Activity.

Using the instructions in the 'Creating a Chronicle Entry' article, create a new Chronicle entry by selecting a template with an associated Group Activity.
Add the students against whose record you wish to record the Chronicle entry, complete the required information fields on the Details tab of the Chronicle Entry window, then navigate to the Activity Attendees:(Chronicle Template Name) tab.

     

To choose which session of the Group Activity the students should attend, click the Edit button (pencil icon) to the right-hand side of the row for a particular student, then select the checkbox to the left of the date and time for the correct session(s):

     

If a student has an existing enrolment for a session of the Group Activity from a previous Chronicle entry, staff will be able to see this information when clicking on the Edit button. Existing enrolments in a session are indicated by a yellow triangular '!' icon.

A student can only be enrolled into a session of a Group Activity once, but they can be enrolled into multiple sessions of the same activity.

Once the session(s) have been selected, click the 'Update' button to save the enrolment(s) and click the 'Save and Close' button to record the Chronicle entry for the associated students.

Automatically enrolling students in Group Activity sessions

If you wish to automatically enrol students into the next available session of a Group Activity from the Chronicle entry, the template must be associated with a Group Activity and the checkbox to do so on the Chronicle template must also be ticked. Please refer to the 'Creating a Chronicle Template' article from our Knowledge Base for further information on how to configure templates for this functionality.

     

Students who have been automatically enrolled into a session of the Group Activity can be added to additional sessions if necessary as per the instructions in the previous section of this article.

Editing enrolments in a Group Activity associated with an existing Chronicle entry

Select the Chronicle entry to be edited and click on the drop down menu to the right of the entry header. Select the 'Edit/View Details' option from the list.

Enrolments for any sessions of a Group Activity that have not yet started can be edited and students can be added to additional sessions if necessary as per the instructions in the previous section of this article.

Where a student has automatically been enrolled into a session of a Group Activity from the Chronicle entry, these enrolments can also be edited in the same way.

Once the session start date and time has passed, staff will no longer be able to edit enrolments in that session; this is indicated by the 'lock' icon and the details of the session showing in red text on the Activity Attendees tab for the Chronicle entry.

Bulk Editing Enrolments in a Group Activity

For Chronicle entries which are to be created for multiple students, it may be useful to edit the sessions enrolments for all students at the same time.

Click the checkbox to the left of the student names to be edited, then click the 'Selected Students' button to Add or Remove these students from sessions of the Group Activity.

If the number of students that will be added to the session exceeds the attendee limit, a lock icon will appear, as highlighted in the screenshot above. You will not be able to add all selected students to this session.

When removing multiple students from Group Activity sessions using the bulk editing feature, the list of sessions which appears only includes sessions for which any student involved in the Chronicle entry is enrolled.

In the screenshot below four students are selected to have their enrolment in the associated Group Activity removed.

If the checkbox next to the session on 09/01 is selected, Emily, Luke and Rohan will no longer be required to attend the detention session on that date, but Emily will still be required to attend detention on 13/01. Luke and Rohan's student profiles will show the Chronicle entry only. This would have no effect on Holly, who is not enrolled in a session on 09/01.

If the checkbox next to the session on 11/01 is selected, Holly will no longer be required to attend the detention session on that date, but will be required to attend on 13/01 only. This change would not have an effect on Emily, Luke, or Rohan, as they are not enrolled in the session on 11/01.

If the checkbox next to the session on 13/01 is selected, Emily and Holly will only be required to attend one detention session, not two, and no changes would be made to the sessions Luke and Rohan need to attend.

If all three checkboxes were ticked then all four students would be removed from the sessions listed and not be required to attend any detention sessions.

Clicking the 'Update' button will apply the required changes.

Removing a student from an existing Chronicle entry

If a student is removed from an existing Chronicle entry which applies to multiple student records, the student who is removed will be unenrolled from the associated Group Activity session(s) if those session(s) have not yet started. If the session has started or is completed, the student will remain on the roll with the associated attendance status.

If you have accidentally removed a student from the list of students on a Chronicle entry that exists for multiple students that also has an associated Group Activity, you can edit the Chronicle entry and add the student back in, but you must manually enrol the student in the next session of the associated Group Activity. Even if the template is setup to automatically add students to the next session this only happens upon the creation of the Chronicle entry, so must be done manually.

Alternatively you can create a new Chronicle entry just for the student who was accidentally removed, and this new entry will automatically enrol the student in the next available session of the associated Group Activity. In all cases if the session enrolment needs to be edited, this can be managed as per the instructions above.

Please note that you can never add a student to a Group Activity that has already started or is completed.

Deleting a Chronicle entry

If you delete a Chronicle entry with an associated Group Activity this will result in the student(s) being unenrolled from all sessions of the associated Group Activity which have not yet started.

Group Activity Attendance

To view which students have attended sessions of a Group Activity, go to the Organisation menu (grid icon) and click 'Group Activities'.

Click the title of the Group Activity you want to view and then click to the 'Attendance' tab for the Activity.
     

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