Introduction
MarkBook is the gradebook of Kinderpedia. Teachers enter marks in a grid, leaders check them, and the school turns them into report cards that parents can read. It opens inside Kinderpedia, so you sign in once and use the same school account.
This help center is written for school staff. It explains what each screen does and how to set it up. You do not need to know anything about the technology behind it.
What MarkBook does
| You want to… | MarkBook gives you… |
|---|---|
| Record marks for a class | A Grades grid: students down the side, columns across the top (grades, effort, targets, comments). |
| Compare a student with a target | Target and calculated columns, such as Value Added (report grade minus target grade). |
| Judge children against a curriculum | Learning outcomes: statements such as "Counts to 20", each judged on a scale. |
| Plan your teaching | Course plans and a unit planner, tied to your outcomes. |
| Send results home | Reports: templates, review and approval, publishing, and e-mails to parents. |
| Control who can do what | Roles and permissions, plus leadership roles for heads of department, coordinators and senior leaders. |
| Show parents the right things | A Parent view and settings for what families may see. |
The two halves
MarkBook has two halves. Most schools use both.
- MarkBook (marks). The grades grid, the Summary, attendance and the settings that describe a column.
- Learning outcomes. A curriculum tree and the grid where you judge children against it.
Two smaller features sit beside them: standards (official curriculum codes your outcomes can be aligned to) and course plans.
An Early Years setting often assesses only against a curriculum. A secondary school often only marks grades. You choose under Configuration → School year → What we use. Switching a half off hides its screens. It deletes nothing, and switching it back on restores everything.
Who can change this
A manager, or someone whose role includes the Module settings permission.
Who uses MarkBook
- Teachers open Grades, pick a class and a subject, and enter marks. They see their own markbooks.
- Heads of department, coordinators and senior leaders see more than one class, check columns and approve reports. See Leadership Roles.
- School administrators (managers) set everything up under Configuration. A manager has every permission by default.
- Parents and students see what the school chooses to share. See Parent View.
Where to start
If your school has never used MarkBook:
- Open Configuration. If nothing is set up yet, MarkBook offers a guided setup. Follow Setup Wizard. It builds a working gradebook from a handful of answers.
- Read Core Concepts so the words on screen make sense.
- Check that your classes, teachers and students exist in Kinderpedia. MarkBook reads them from there. It does not create them.
- Open Grades, choose a class and a subject, and enter a mark.
If your school already uses MarkBook, go to Navigating MarkBook for a tour of the menu.
Classes and students come from Kinderpedia
Enrolment lives in the main Kinderpedia platform. Setup creates the structure of your gradebook, but a grid only shows a class once children are enrolled in it.
What MarkBook never does behind your back
- It never overwrites a mark without leaving a history. Every change to a cell is recorded, and an earlier value can be restored by anyone with the right permission.
- It never deletes a scale, a column or a template that holds marks. It offers to archive it instead.
- It never shows a family anything you have not allowed. Families see a column only when the school's settings say so.
Getting help
Common problems and their fixes are in Common Issues. Words you are unsure about are in the Glossary. To reach the Kinderpedia team, see Getting Help.