Toddle provides you with an intuitive interface to configure academic setup for your curriculum, such as setting up subjects, grading periods, grading method, grade boundaries and more.

Setting up grading periods is the first step towards configuring the grading system for your curriculum. Grading periods are usually aligned to the school’s reporting cycles such as terms or semesters. These are used to track and report student’s progress. Once a reporting period(term or semester) is complete, you also have the option to lock the grading periods associated with that term/semester to ensure the integrity of students' scores by preventing discrepancies caused by unnoticed adjustments or added assignments. Read this article to learn how you can set up grading periods on Toddle.

It’s important to configure grading periods as they act as the foundation for the grading system. As an admin, you can define one or more grading periods for each academic year. Teachers create assessments that are linked to specific grading periods, and consequently, students’ performance is reported for each grading period taking into account all assessments associated with that grading period.

To navigate to the option for configuring grading periods, go to the admin portal, scroll to the ‘Programme level configurations’ section and click on ‘Academic setup’ for Diploma Programme.

To configure grading periods, select the ‘Grading periods’ option in the left pane. Here you can use the options on the extreme right to add (+ icon), edit (pencil icon), or delete (trash icon) grading periods. Grading periods can also be configured under ‘Academic years and terms’ section in the School setup menu. To learn more, click here.

Once you click on the ‘+’ icon, you’ll have the option to add a new grading period. Here you can add a title and an abbreviation for the grading period, and further define its type by clicking on the dropdown menu. You can choose from the three types of grading periods:

Keep in mind that you have the flexibility to adjust the start and end dates of grading periods at any point. However, once one or more tasks have been associated with a grading period, that grading period cannot be deleted.

In case you select a cumulative grading period, you can further decide which grading periods’ scores it will aggregate by clicking on the ‘Configure’ button. Here you can select from other types of grading periods such as reporting periods and exams or choose from already existing cumulative grading periods.

Once configured, you can also select the calculation method for cumulative grading periods. This can be done from the Grading setup>Cumulative scores. Here you can assign a weightage to each of the grading periods, based on which the aggregation is done.

You have the option to lock/unlock grading periods at any time. Locking grading periods helps prevent discrepancies caused by unnoticed adjustments or added assignments after a reporting period is complete. To lock a grading period, simply click the lock icon next to the grading period you wish to secure.

When you click the lock icon, a warning pop-up will appear, outlining the impacts of locking the grading period. Review the details carefully and click ‘Lock’ to confirm. Once a grading period is locked, the school will no longer be able to edit or create assessment categories or grade boundaries, create or modify assignments, adjust grades in the gradebook or progress reports, or add new evaluations in the learning goals gradebook.

💡Please note that changes made to custom evaluation criteria definitions will still apply to locked grading periods. Additionally, ensure all related reports are locked before proceeding to prevent inconsistencies.

And, if you lock a cumulative grading period then their dependent grading periods are automatically locked.

💡Cumulative grading periods allow schools to track and report students’ cumulative progress across multiple grading periods.

You can unlock a grading period at any time by clicking the lock icon next to the grading period you wish to unlock.

If you unlock a grading period, the gradebook scores may be recalculated if any changes were made to the grading setup after the period was originally locked. However, any reports that were locked for that grading period will remain unaffected. Review this information in the confirmation modal and click ‘Unlock’ to proceed.

For cumulative grading periods, remember that you must first unlock the cumulative grading period before unlocking any dependent grading periods.

💡Please note that unlocking a grading period may affect the consistency between grades in the gradebook and those in locked reports. Exercise caution before proceeding.

Let’s explore the importance of grading periods from the lens of an educator. When creating a class task, whether it's a Formative assessment (FA), Summative assessment (SA), or Learning Experience (LE), educators are required to associate the task with a specific grading period. Teachers will be able to select a grading period from the ones setup by you in the academic setup.

For tasks with assigned maximum scores and a designated grading period, the platform aggregates the scores to calculate the overall performance for that specific grading period. These scores can be viewed within the Gradebook of a class. For instance, by selecting Term 2 grading period in the Gradebook term filter, as shown below, teachers can view scores of all tasks tagged to Term 2 along with the corresponding total score for that period. These scores and corresponding grades can also be used to report student progress in the progress report.

It's important to note that the configuration of how total scores are calculated for each grading period is customizable by school administrators. Further details on configuring the calculation method can be found in our comprehensive Grading Setup article, which you can access here.

Keep in mind that if you have locked a grading period, teachers will no longer be able to edit, delete, or add new grades in the gradebook.

We hope you found what you were looking for. Explore other articles for in-depth articles information on other components of the grading setup such as assessments, cumulative scores, etc.