Lesson Twelve - Creating and Using Groups
Within MINTclass teachers can create groups of students enabling you to create seating plans, view data, print etc for targeted groups or non-timetabled groups such as extra English lessons or internal exclusions.
On the sidebar, you now have a new Groups area that will give you the option to make and view your own groups of students. These can then be placed in a seating plan.
Creating Groups
Click on the Groups button next to 'Lessons' on the sidebar and then click on 'Create New Group'. Enter the name of your Group and an optional description and then click on 'Create Group'.
Next, you need to add pupils to your new group. The pupils can be from any year, subject or class, they can be a combination of these or from any of the Advanced Search criteria available from your school's version of MINTclass.
Click on the Pupils tab then select Advanced Search and search for the pupils you want by selecting from the combo boxes (years, subjects etc) and tick boxes that are available within your school's version of MINTclass and click on search.
 
For the purpose of this lesson, I have chosen students in year 9 that have a SEN need of BESD and a Maths grade of 4.
Now in the bottom left of the screen, click on 'Search Results > Group Show/Hide' and select 'Show'. Providing your Search results are correct, click on 'Add to Existing Group'.
This will now have added those selected Pupils to a seating plan in your Group.
You can also create a group from the Advanced Search area if you did not create a group in the previous steps. Click on 'Create Group' and type the name of the new group into the 'choose a group name' box and if necessary you can add a description. When done, click on 'Create Group'.
The selected pupils have now been added to your group and can be displayed on a seating plan as below.
Using Groups
Once you have created your Group, you can view the groups in the same way that you view a lesson. For the purpose of this lesson, I have created an empty group called Internal Exclusion and associated this with a template for the room used for Internal Exclusions.
You will note that there are currently no pupils in this group as you would normally add pupils to an internal exclusion group on the day or even as they are sent to you.
 
To add pupils to this group click on the Pupils tab and select the year group that the pupil is in and then type their name in the Search by Student Name box and click on Run Basic Search.
Now drag and drop the pupil into the seating plan as you would with a lesson.
Now click on the Overview tab on the sidebar and click on your group name (Internal Exclusions) this will add these pupils to the group.
Removing Pupils from a Group
To remove a pupil from a group such as the one above simply click on the Remove button under the pupil picture.
If you are sure that you wish to remove a pupil from a group click on OK.
Removing a Group
If you have a group that you no longer need, you will first need to remove all pupils in that group. You can remove all pupils manually by clicking on the 'Remove' button under their photo, or alternatively, you can remove all pupils by clicking on 'Change Template' located on the sidebar and then selecting 'Remove All Students From Plan'.
Now when you look at the sidebar you will notice that you have a remove button. To delete the group click on this Remove button.
If you are sure that you no longer need this group click on OK.
Sharing Groups
You can also share groups with all staff - for more information click here.