Academic structure: years, terms, and periods

Before your school can offer classes or enroll students, Edurie needs to know how your academic calendar is organized. The Academic Structure is that foundation — a hierarchy of time containers that tell the system when instruction happens, how grades are divided, and which grade or year level a student belongs to. Every class, enrollment record, and grade entry in Edurie is anchored to a point in this hierarchy.

Hierarchy at a glance

The hierarchy flows downward: a Year contains Terms, each Term contains one or more Periods, and each Period can be subdivided into Stages and Grading Periods. Classes and enrollment records are created at the Academic Period level.

Academic Levels

An Academic Level represents where a student sits in your institution's structure. It can be a sequential grade designation such as Kindergarten or Grade 1 through Grade 12, or a year designation such as 1st Year, 2nd Year, 3rd Year, and 4th Year. Sections and programs reference these levels — sections tied to a grade reference the level directly, and program cohorts reference it through their associated program.

Create Academic Levels once and reuse them across all academic years. They do not need to be recreated each year.

Grading Periods

A Grading Period is a named window within an Academic Period during which teachers record grades. Multiple Grading Periods can exist within a single Academic Period, allowing you to capture Preliminary, Midterm, and Final grades separately — each with its own open and close dates for grade submission.

Note: Grading Periods are optional. If your institution records only a single final grade per period, you do not need to configure them. They become important when you use Edurie's gradebook features.

Setting up your academic calendar

Follow these steps to build the full Academic Structure for a new school year.

1. Create an Academic Year — Navigate to Academics → Structure → Academic Years and select New Academic Year. Provide:
   • Name — A human-readable label (for example, 2024–2025).
   • Start date and End date — The boundaries of the school year.
   • Status — Set to Active when the year is current.
2. Add Academic Terms — Under the Academic Year you just created, select Add Term. Terms divide the year into major instructional blocks. Common patterns include:
   • Semester-based — First Semester, Second Semester (plus optional Summer Term).
   • Trimester-based — First Trimester, Second Trimester, Third Trimester.
   • Quarter-based — Q1 through Q4.
3. Create Academic Periods — Within each Term, create one or more Academic Periods. An Academic Period is the unit at which classes are offered and enrollments are opened. For most institutions, one period maps to one term (for example, First Semester AY 2024–2025). Schools with block scheduling or modular calendars may use multiple periods within a single term.
4. Define Academic Stages (optional) — If your institution divides a period into distinct instructional phases — for example, a Midterm Stage and a Finals Stage — add Academic Stages under the period. Stages are informational markers used to segment the period in reports and gradebook views. They do not change how classes or enrollments work.
5. Configure Grading Periods (optional) — If teachers record separate grades at multiple points in the period, create Grading Periods. Each Grading Period has a name, a sequence number, and dates during which grade entry is open. Typical Grading Periods for a semester-based setup:
   • Preliminary (sequence 1)
   • Midterm (sequence 2)
   • Final (sequence 3)
6. Set up Academic Levels — Navigate to Academics → Structure → Academic Levels and create every grade or year level your institution uses. You only need to do this once.

   Tip: Set the sequence field in ascending order so that Edurie can automatically determine promotion logic and sort levels correctly in reports.

What comes next

With your Academic Structure in place, you are ready to define the programs and courses your institution offers. See Programs, curricula, and courses to continue setup.