My School Structure doesn't fit a standard pattern!

Different School Structures

We recognise that some schools have structures which do not follow a standard pattern, so we have listed a few different ways to build your structure on Classlist below. If your school does not fit any of these patterns, or if you would like some help form the experts, please do get in touch with our support team. Once you have decided which structure to use please take a look at the instructions detailing how to build the structure. 

Standard school structures

Standard structures are explained more in our main article on understanding the school structure and include:

• One Year > Multiple Class structure - Schools with year groups that contain multiple classes in each year. 
• Single Class per Year - Schools with a single-form intake with only one class per year group.

Mixed age structure with years and classes reversed

If you have classes which span two year groups you can reverse the structure so that the year column contains the classes and the class column contains year groups nested under the classes.

Example - More than one age-group per class

Year Column = Class 3/4 

Class Column = Two Classes 'Year 3' & 'Year 4'

In the example below 'Mr Robinson' teaches a mixed age group class of Year 1 & 2 children. The class tier then becomes the age (year) group of the children in that class. This allows parents with children in Year 1 to communicate just amongst themselves, or they can communicate with the whole class including the year 2 parents. 

Small school with 'Years' structured as Key Stages

In small schools the division between years is often less meaningful, so you might prefer to merge age groups. You could use key stage groups at the 'Year level' with the years listed in the class column.

Here the school is arranged into 2 groups for 'Reception & KS1 parents' and 'KS2 parents' with the year groups listed in the class column. This means that as well as being able to communicate with their year, parents can also communicate with the rest of their key stage. 

School with mixed age groups in some (but not all) classes

If your school has a mixture of different systems, or groups pupils into houses rather than classes, you might have to play around to get the best fit for your school.

Remember you can always contact the support team for advice if you have a complicated school structure! 

As a result of having mixed year groups in some classes, this imaginary school has children of the same age (ie their upper tier 'Year' group level) spread across more than one 'Class'.  This makes it hard to use a straightforward two-tier structure.

The classes in this example school are:

This is what it would look like on the School Structure page, showing just the classes in the Year 3 and 4 level:

The parents at this school will still be in two school groups for each child: their Classlist Year eg 'Years 3 and 4', and their Classlist Class eg 'Miss Parris (Year 3/4)'.  That means they can communicate with both groups, and can see contact details for the people in those groups (if parents have chosen to share them).

If a parent in Miss Parris' class wants to communicate with all the year 3 children's parents (ie including those in Mr Walker's class), they would need to post to the 'Year 3 and 4' Year group, because they would not be able to post to Mr Walker's year 3 class unless they also have a child in that class. This means the parents of the year 4 children in Mr Kellington's class would also receive the post, but we usually find parents do not mind a little cross posting especially as these patterns tend to happen at smaller schools where parents across different age groups are more likely to know each other in person.

Create Extra Other Parent Groups

You can also set up extra 'groups' to cover further parent groupings if it isn't possible to achieve the years and classes you need within the two tier structure.

For instance, you could set up a parent group for boarding houses, in addition to years and classes.

Please note: groups set up as parent interest groups are not part of the school structure and won't automatically update when new parents join. You will need to add members to the relevant extra parent groups after parents register, and keep the group updated if the membership of the groups changes from year to year. You can ask parents to add themselves to the right groups when you welcome new parents at the start of the school year. 

Help with the school structure

Please raise a Help request if you need assistance with which method to use.