Electronic Gradebook
Our electronic gradebook is flexible enough to accommodate teachers with almost any grading system at any grade level, yet so easy to use that it requires little or no training time. It facilitates grading by allowing for a variety of formats including number or letter grading, taking into account weights and curves, and automatically generating results instantly providing a score report that includes the mode, median, and range highlighting your best and worst performers. A highly customizable interface allows you to assign and distribute different weights to and emphasis towards homeworks, quizzes, and tests in calculating final grades.

Progress Reports
Progress Reports are a great way for teachers to keep parents informed throughout the semester or marking period. Instead of waiting for a report card, teachers can now instantly notify parents of their child’s successes or struggles as they occur, keeping parents in the loop regarding their child’s academic progress

Attendance
From effortlessly recording attendance, to producing daily attendance bulletins, letters, and documents, our attendance feature is truly comprehensive and simplifies a wide range of school attendance tasks. Because it seamlessly integrates with our grading system and communications system, teachers can send attendance to the administrator’s office with a mere click of the mouse. The updated roster is sent to the administrator and saved electronically after every class. At the end of the semester the total number of absences, lateness’s, etc, is automatically tallied by Spiral Systems so administrators never have to do any manual calculations or counting again. When Report Cards are generated, attendance information is instantly introduced onto each student’s report card saving significant time for both teachers and administrators.

Seating Charts
Computerized seating charts allow you to know where every student is in your class. Clicking on the name of the student reveals a photo of that student and where that student and indicates where that student should be sitting. Our seating chart feature accommodates any size class, and allows a teacher to control the layout of the seating chart. Teachers can choose from an array of seating options including grid, circular, box, etc. Seating charts can be organized randomly or alphabetically, alternating sex or manually taking into consideration visually and hearing impaired students.

Discipline
Teachers can document discipline reports for any child and have that report sent directly to the administrator or parent. The report includes a description of the incident, the date the incident took place, and a description of the action taken by the teacher. The discipline files are stored on our system and can be viewed for the length of the student’s academic career.

Homework
Teacher can post class homeworks online, download submitted homeworks, and then upload corrected and graded homeworks for students to view. Special alerts indicate when homework is overdue or submitted. This is an essential tool for teachers to have, as it raises accountability for all students by eliminating the everyday excuses that students often have. Allowing students to submit their answers online eliminates a teacher’s need to carry around large stacks of paper, makes grading easy, and is an efficient way to collect and track submitted homeworks.

Assignment
Teachers can post class assignments online, download submitted assignments, and then upload corrected and graded assignments for students to view. Special alerts note when an assignment is overdue or submitted. This feature even accommodates assignments that have multiple parts and thus multiple due dates. Posting assignments is an effective way to keeps students organized and parents informed.

Quizzes
Teachers can set up a quiz online. This is a great way to give students extra practice before a big exam or to ensure that they are practicing at home what is taught in class. Quizzes can be formatted with a variety of questions including, but not limited to, multiple choice, fill in the blank, matching, and essay questions. One of our newest features is the ability to set time limits so that at the prescribed time, the test automatically locks and closes sending the teacher whatever the student has completed. Results are delivered and sorted in an easy to read format enabling teachers to identify the strengths and weaknesses of each student.

Exam Creator
Teachers now have the ability to create their very own professional, customized tests. Question and answer orders can be shuffled, and teachers have the ability to reuse the same questions over and over again (year after year) while enabling them to select questions from their personal or a common question bank. Our feature is so advance that it even allows for a consistent number of questions to be selected from various categories ensuring complete coverage of all topics. After the test has been created, you can print your exam and an answer key is automatically generated for you.

Question Bank
Teachers can create a pool of questions to be used for any one of their classes on homeworks, quizzes, or tests. This pool is an invaluable timesaver for teachers as it allows them to mix, match, and reuse questions from previous years. Teachers have the ability to share their pool with other teachers and even other schools that also use Spiral Systems. Questions can be added, edited, or replaced at any time and teachers can access this tool whenever they are creating any kind of assignment, quiz, or exam.

Class Notes
Teacher can post class notes, assignment sheets, or permission slips. Sort the notes by class or by date to provide a structured, organized way of communicating with students and their parents. Students who are absent will have the ability to view what was taught in class on that particular session. The class notes can be replaced every day or remain up for an entire semester. Slides and pictures can also be posted to further enhance a teacher’s ability to relay the material. Most important, teachers can scan copies of existing notes or worksheets and upload them onto Spiral Systems where they can easily be attached and distributed, allowing teachers to reuse them as they see fit.

Student Profiles
View students’ and parents’ most current contact information. More than just numbers and addresses it provides teachers with a complete outlook into their students strengths and weaknesses. Hobbies, interests, past and current academic performance is all available and can be easily sorted allowing teachers to view information as it becomes relevant. The information can be added to, so that if a teacher learns something new, perhaps that this student is a particularly talented visual learner or if a student shows a sudden interest in the piano, then the teacher can note that and share it with parents or other teachers.

Newsletters
Creating, sending and managing newsletters is easy and quick with our step by step newsletter wizard, which requires no HTML experience, allowing you to master this feature with ease. Creating your newsletter is simple, as you have the ability to choose from multiple templates. Easily manage the newsletter campaigns through your recipient list, which allows you to track new sign-ups and opt-outs automatically. With a click of a button you can instantly and effortlessly distribute the entire newsletter electronically to your recipients.

Lesson Plans
Creating lesson plans is often one of a teacher’s most time consuming activities. With spiral Systems, teachers can create, assign, and reuse lesson plans. Create daily or weekly plans and formulate motivational strategies to ensure that the material gets across to your students. The motivational tools and strategies section is one of our most unique features and allows teachers to set up and highlight specific strategies for conveying certain materials. Lesson plans can be set over any time period and can be automatically sent to the administrator.

Academic Calendar
The personal calendar provides you with the tools you need to coordinate class schedules and communicate up-to-date course information including assignments, homeworks, quizzes, and tests. Each teacher has a unique calendar, which instantly updates itself by synchronizing relevant personal, school, and class events automatically. Teachers have the ability to add events in advance, and sort them using one convenient, color-coded list. The calendar is flexible and straightforward making it easy to use and understand.

Events
Teachers can add events to their, and their students’, calendar. They can add an event for all their students, a particular grade, class, or student. The events automatically appear on the calendar, but only those calendars that the event pertains to. This is a great way to plan school functions, encourage involvement and participation, and increase active involvement within your class. Teachers can post events such as class trips or school plays and even allow parents to volunteer to participate or chaperone these events. The events section is linked to the user’s inbox so that if a parent volunteers a notice is sent straight to the teacher’s inbox.

Chats
Chat rooms are designed for peer instruction and are a safe, welcoming environment for students to seek out extra help from teachers. Teachers can set-up chat rooms for any time period and invite as many students as they wish. The chat rooms serve as an intimate learning environment where students who may be shy in a classroom setting can feel free in an informal environment. Chats can also be set-up for parents so that teachers may conference from the convenience of their own home. Spiral Systems values privacy, dignity, and security and therefore has taken many precautions including filters that block out all expletives.

My Cabinet
Each teacher has 50MB of storage space for storing documents, photos, presentations, and much more. The cabinet is a great way to store miscellaneous files and photos such as pictures from your most recent class trip or school play. If you choose you can allow students or other teachers to access your cabinet and share those files and photos with the school community.

Language Support
Spiral Systems is capable of supporting a variety of languages so that teachers of Hebrew, Spanish, and French can type in their respective languages as well as upload documents. Multi-lingual support enables students to respond to homeworks or chats in the appropriate language using the appropriate font.