Before you can take a single attendance record, enter a grade, or generate an invoice, EduPilotPro needs to understand the shape of your school. That means defining your academic year, your grade levels, sections, subject catalogue, and courses. It sounds like a lot — but with the right approach, it takes less than an hour.
Before You Start: What You Need
Gather these before opening EduPilotPro:
Step 1 — Create the Academic Year
Navigate to Settings → Academic → Academic Years and click 'New Year'. Give it a name (e.g., '2025–2026'), set the start and end dates, and mark it as active. EduPilotPro supports multiple concurrent academic years, which is useful if your school runs a July intake alongside a September intake.
Step 2 — Add Grade Levels
Grade levels (year groups, key stages, or grades — whatever your school calls them) are the first structural layer beneath the academic year. Go to Academic → Grade Levels and click 'Add Grade'. Enter the name, display order, and any descriptors. Create all your grade levels before moving on.
Step 3 — Create Sections
Sections are the physical class groups within each grade. Under each grade level, click 'Add Section'. Name it (e.g., '4A', '4B'), optionally assign a homeroom teacher, and set its capacity. Sections are what students are actually enrolled into — and what attendance registers are generated for.
Step 4 — Build Your Subject Catalogue
The subject catalogue is your school's master list of all subjects — independent of which grade or teacher delivers them. Navigate to Academic → Subjects and add each subject (Mathematics, English, Science, etc.). Subjects are reused across grades and academic years, so you only define them once.
Step 5 — Create Courses
Courses are the intersection of a subject, a section, a teacher, and a schedule. They're the 'instances' of teaching. For example: 'Mathematics 4A · Mr Patel · Monday & Wednesday 09:00–10:00'. Create one course per subject-section-teacher combination you run.
Step 6 — Enrol Students
Once your structure is in place, enrol students into their sections. You can do this individually or via the bulk CSV import tool. Once a student is enrolled in a section, they are automatically included in all attendance registers for courses that run in that section.
Before you go live, verify:
Pro Tip
If your school runs the same academic structure year after year (same grade levels, similar subjects), use EduPilotPro's 'Duplicate Year' feature to clone your entire structure into the new academic year. You'll only need to update teacher assignments and any new sections — saving 30–40 minutes of setup.