How to create vertically integrated classes

Vertical Integration refers to when students of different year-levels are brought together into a class.

Some example use cases:

1. Vertical Roll Classes - Classes with students from some or all year levels come together for roll call, mentoring, personal growth etc
2. Staged Electives - Students, say, in the middle years of high school come together to study some elective courses
3. Accelerated Students - Clever students that get added to classes in higher year levels to accelerate their academic growth

We offer 2 ways of doing this:

Multi-year structures 

Normally, there is a distinct structure for each year-level, without mixing. We call this the 'top-level structure' for each year-level. However, you can create a structure which joins together two different year-levels, e.g. Year 11 & 12. To do this, go to the "Data Entry > Structure" screen and in the toolbar dropdown for year-level, select 'multiples' then tick the two relevant year-levels. They will then appear on the same screen. This will then enable you to create structures which span both structures, i.e. a line which spans both top-level horizontal structures.

Linking

In the "Data Entry > Structure" screen, you can right-click on the class you want to vertically integrate, and you'll get the context menu. Select "Link > vertically". Then click on the other class you want to link it with, and hit ENTER. This will then do one of two things: if the structure can be rearranged to naturally put those two classes into a vertical structure, without otherwise changing your semantics, then Atlantis will do that. If this is not possible, then Atlantis will draw a blue line between the two classes to show that they are linked. We call this latter situation an 'undecomposable structure'. Undecomposable structures are not very commonly used.

Link Vertically and Join to

This option will link two classes vertically and create the 'join to' syntax in the 'Teacher req' column in the Classes screen for the second class. This will assign the same teacher to both classes without creating a clash. It also adds the 'join to' syntax in the 'Room req' column to remove the room clash.