Tests, class tests and grades

Dates and grades are two separate things in patchio – deliberately. The date of a test belongs in the family calendar, so everyone knows. The grade behind it is more sensitive and lives somewhere protected. That's why there's a Dates tab and a Grades tab.

Dates – in your region's wording

Under “Add date”, patchio first asks what you're entering: an assessment or an event (school trip (Klassenfahrt), outing (Wandertag), parents' evening (Elternabend)…). This section covers the assessment; everything about events is under “School trip, outing & parents' evening”.

For an assessment, you choose the type. What it's called depends on the federal state and school type: in Bavarian primary school it's the Probe (graded test, Bavarian primary), at secondary schools there it's the Schulaufgabe (major written exam, Bavaria) or the Ex (short unannounced test), in North Rhine-Westphalia it's the class test (Klassenarbeit), in the sixth form it's the Klausur (written exam, sixth form). If a type is missing, you add it as free text and choose yourself whether it's written, oral or practical, and whether it counts as a major assessment.

Every date with a due day lands automatically in the family calendar – in the subject's colour, with the child's name. The timetable itself deliberately doesn't go into the calendar; it would otherwise mean hundreds of lesson periods in there.

Past dates without a grade entered yet are collected by patchio under “Taken – grade missing”, so nothing falls through the cracks.

“12/08 falls in the summer holidays”

If the date you choose falls in your school region's holidays, on a recorded day off, or on a weekend, patchio flags it and asks you to confirm once. This isn't a ban – resit exams really do sometimes fall in the last week of the holidays, and a presentation does sometimes happen on a Saturday. The note is only there to catch a typo (12/08 instead of 12/06). Tick “Yes, the date is still on this day” and you can save.

For regions without recorded holiday data, patchio quietly checks only the weekend and any recorded days off.

Recurring tests

A vocabulary test in English every week? Then you don't have to enter it forty times. Create the test as usual, pick the date of the first one and switch on “Repeats weekly”. The weekday comes from the date: if the first test is on a Tuesday, the series appears in the calendar every Tuesday.

• Until (inclusive) is pre-filled with the last day before the summer holidays, i.e. the end of the school year. You can choose an earlier end. A series runs for one year at most and has at most 52 dates.
• School holidays, public holidays and recorded flexible days off are skipped. What counts is the school's federal state from the school profile. You can see what gets skipped before saving: “12 dates until 18/07, Herbstferien and Weihnachtsferien skipped”.
• Study tasks you tick in the same dialog apply to every test in the series. Study tasks that would already be overdue aren't created.

Every test in the series is a normal date. It gets its own grade, appears in the calendar on its own and can be opened on its own. In the list of dates you'll recognise it by the small repeat icon. For English and French, simply create two series.

Changing: when you open a test from the series, patchio asks whether the change applies to only this date or to this and all following. With “all following”, every later test takes over the type, subject and topic; each test keeps its own date. To move a single date, use “Only this date”. Earlier tests in the series stay as they are.

Deleting: here, too, you choose between “Only this date” and “This and all following”, for example when the vocabulary test stops after the Easter holidays. patchio also removes open study tasks for the deleted tests. Completed ones stay. Grades already entered for these tests are deleted too.

The same people who can add, change and delete a single date can do so for a series. You need to be online to create a new series. Without a connection, patchio tells you so rather than quietly saving nothing.

Grades and the average

The Grades tab shows the entered grades and the average, per subject. At the top, you switch between the 1st half-year, the 2nd half-year and the whole school year, and, across several school years, between the years too.

How the average is worked out, you set per subject (in the Subjects tab, when editing a subject):

• All equal – a simple average.
• Weighted by type – for example, written counts once, oral counts twice (free weights, not percentages).
• Major and minor kept separate – first the average of the major tests, then the average of the minor ones, and only then the ratio between the two. In Bavaria, this is the usual way.

On top of that, you choose how the year grade comes about: as the mean of the two half-years, or from all the year's grades in one calculation (as Bavaria does it).

The suggestion matches your federal state, but it's only a suggestion: the average is a guide – the teacher sets the report grade (Zeugnisnote) as an overall judgement. Ask at school if you're not sure how they weight things there.

What do you still need?

For each subject, the “What do you still need?” calculator helps: you choose the next assessment and your goal, and patchio tells you what grade is enough for it. It calculates using your set weighting – if a goal is mathematically out of reach with a single assessment, it says so calmly, rather than naming an impossible grade.

Übertritt in Bavaria

If a child is in year 4 of a Bavarian primary school, the Übertritt (move to secondary school) card appears at the bottom: the average of German, maths and HSU alongside the two guide values (Gymnasium 2.33, Realschule 2.66). Only the Übertritt report the school issues in May is binding – it takes in more than just these three grades.

Archiving subjects instead of deleting them

Once a grade or a date belongs to a subject, it can no longer be deleted, only archived. That way, the old grades stay preserved and accessible. When you move to the new school year, the “New school year” flow tidies up the subjects for you.