Inquiry Regarding Potential Repercussions of Modifying Form Group Concept

Developers
1

Hello Gibbon Team,

I hope this message finds you well. I am reaching out to seek your insights and advice regarding a potential modification to the concept of Form Groups within our school’s system. Specifically, we are considering the possibility of allowing a student to be assigned to more than one Form Group, as this would better align with the operational needs of our school.

Given that we are using version 27 of the system, could you kindly share your thoughts on what the potential repercussions of such a change might be, if you are able to anticipate them? For example, we are particularly thinking about the impact this could have on functionalities such as:

  • Email communications (e.g., how mailing lists or notifications might be affected),
  • Automatic synchronization of Form Groups with Courses
  • Transfer to next year
  • Any other administrative technical processes that might be impacted.

Additionally, if you have any recommendations or best practices to ensure a smooth implementation, we would greatly appreciate your guidance. This change is important to us as it would better support the way our school operates, and we want to ensure that any modifications are carefully considered and effectively implemented.

Thank you in advance for your time and expertise. Your input would be invaluable as we evaluate this potential change. Please feel free to share any relevant insights or concerns you may have.

Looking forward to your response

Thank you,

2

Hi @odihamdalaye My apologies for the delay in a response, we’ve been short on capacity recently.

Changing the form groups would indeed have a large effect on the system, and would mean you would no longer be compatible with future versions, losing out on new features and security updates in Gibbon.

It sounds like your school may have unique or non-standard structures. In this case, using Courses and Classes may work better for your needs, as students can be part of multiple of these with no issues. Since year group and form groups are required for admissions, you could use a single group to hold all students, and then sub-divide them as needed with courses and classes. This would ideally keep you in line with the Gibbon core so that your system can continue to update and work in the future.