Subject: Data Model for School Reporting in Chile
Hi,

I work in a small school down here in Chile. I have some experience in IT, mainly networking, and some rough idea of databases (and have been reading up).

I�m trying to set one up to record subject (or courses) reports. That is, teachers have to write a short report of each of their pupils in their subject, every term, every year.

Now, I have looked at other examples and suggestions, but none seem to fit quite right, and I have not been able to work out the proper schema logic.

I was wondering if you could point me in the right direction.

The main problem I have is fitting the real world model into the logic model. I have tried to think �out the box� by not limiting myself strictly to how things look �on the ground�
� even so, can�t quite get it.

The way the school is organized is as follows:

There is the school year (March to December here).

Then there are the terms (although students remain in the clases through the year and don�t change subjects).

Then we have �yeargroups� (1st, 2nd, 3rd�. all the way 12th)

Then we have subjects in a �yeargroup�. Here I have to use different terms, because, although a subject is referred to on its own, it�s actually taught by a teacher.
So I usually create a �course�, which is a subject taught by a teacher for that year.

Then we have the students that belong to a yeargroup. At the end of the year they move up to the next year group.

Finally, the reports, that belong to a student in a term and yeargroup, to a particular course (subject and teacher).

Also, I struggle to split the data so that I keep integrity for the reports that have been written already, so that when a students moves up a year group,
their reports for last year remain, same for courses.

Any ideas or tips are most appreciated,

Regards,

Christopher Eason.
Caernarfon College.