Grading scale, GPA and merit lists

What you'll do

Set up the percentage windows that turn marks into letters and grade points, so report cards, result sheets and merit lists can compute themselves instead of being typed by hand.

Before you start

• Do this before your next exam, not after. Saved results are never re-graded when you change the scale, so a scale configured late leaves everything before it ungraded.
• A decision on your letters and their grade points. The Bangladesh national scale is one press away if that is what you use.
• Grading Schemes permissions to configure the scale. Teachers can read it; changing it is an administrator job.
• Results read to see merit lists, Reports read for the printable one.

First run: your centre probably has no scale

If your centre existed before grading shipped, you have no grade bands at all. Only newly created centres are seeded. Until you fix that, marks are saved with no letter and no grade point, and every card prints an em dash where a grade should be.

You will see it stated on the marks-entry screen: No grading scale is available, so results are saved without a letter or a grade point.

Fix it in one press. Go to Configurations → Grading Scale — Percentage windows that decide the letter and grade point on every result. The empty state is No grading scale yet — Until a scale exists, results are saved without a letter or a grade point. Load the default scale to start.

Press Load default scale. The confirmation is Load the default scale? — This adds the Bangladesh national scale (A+ down to F). It only works while the scale is empty.

That last sentence is the rule, and it is a good one: the button can only ever add to an empty scale, so it can never overwrite bands you built yourself. Press it on a scale that already has grades and you get Scale already set up — The default scale can only be loaded while no grade exists, so your edits are never overwritten.

The default scale is the Bangladesh national one:

The grading scale — grade, percentage range, grade point, failing flag and how many results each has been awardedScreenshot pending

Building or editing a scale by hand

Add grade gives you one band:

Watch the health banner at the top of the page. It checks the whole scale and tells you what is wrong in plain words — Nothing covers 0.00%–33.00%., Gap between "A" (79.99%) and "A+" (81.00%)., "A" and "A+" overlap between 79.00% and 80.00%., or No band is marked as a failing grade, so no result can ever fail. When the scale is sound it says so: The scale covers 0–100% with no gaps or overlaps.

Take the banner seriously. The footnote explains the stakes: Results are graded from these windows, so a gap or an overlap quietly mis-grades everyone. Saved results are not changed until they are re-saved. A gap does not produce an error at marks-entry time — it produces a missing grade nobody notices until a card is printed.

Editing a band that has been used does not re-grade anything. The dialog warns you: This grade is already on saved result(s). Editing it changes future results only — the printed ones keep what they show.

Deleting an awarded band is refused, and you are offered the right alternative: "" has already been awarded to result(s), so it cannot be deleted. Deactivate it instead? It stays on printed results but is no longer given to new ones.

The page closes with the sentence that governs everything here: Report cards and result sheets are controlled documents. Changing the scale never re-grades a saved result; the grade is recomputed only when that result is saved again.

Entering marks once a scale exists

Nothing changes about how you get to marks entry — see Exams, marks and result sheets. What changes is what the grid does with the number you type.

The dialog tells you: The grade and grade point come from your grading scale. Enter the marks and they fill in. Grade and GP become read-only computed columns.

Marks entry — Grade and GP fill themselves in from the scale as you type marksScreenshot pending

Overriding a computed grade

Sometimes the computed letter is not the one you want to award. Press Override grade on the row and the Grade cell becomes typeable.

An override is not free. Below the table a reason panel appears — Reason for overriding 's grade, required, up to 500 characters, prompting Why is the computed grade not being used? You cannot save without it: An overridden grade needs both a letter and a reason.

Every override is written to an append-only record with your name, the time, the computed value, the value you chose and your reason. The row afterwards carries a Manual badge — This grade was set by hand, overriding the computed one. — and the printed result sheet marks it with an asterisk and the footnote * Grade set manually, overriding the computed one.

Use Use the computed grade to drop back.

How GPA is calculated

Two rules, and both surprise people, so it is worth being direct about them.

1. Any failing exam fails the whole result, and the GPA becomes 0.00.

This is the Bangladesh convention, not an average. A student with four A+ grades and one F does not get a GPA around 4.0 — they get a fail and 0.00. The report card says so where it applies: A failing result in any exam makes the overall result a fail and the GPA 0.00.

An absence counts as a failed paper. Otherwise skipping the exam you were going to do badly in would raise your GPA. But a result with no grade point behind it at all — data from before you configured a scale — is skipped rather than treated as a zero. Inventing a zero would fail students on records that predate the feature.

2. Numbers truncate at two decimals. They never round up.

79.996% prints as 79.99 and stays an A; it does not round to 80.00 and become an A+. A GPA of 4.995 prints as 4.99, not a perfect 5.00.

The reason is worth understanding, because you will be asked. The letter is resolved from the truncated number, so the figure printed on a document and the letter printed beside it can never disagree. A student holding a card that says 80.00% and A would be right to argue. Truncation costs a hundredth of a percent; the alternative costs an argument you cannot win.

What prints

Report cards and result sheets both gained fields in this wave, which makes them changed controlled documents — worth a line in your own release note if you keep one:

• Class result sheet — a Rank column and a GP column.
• Report card — GP and Rank columns, and a totals row carrying total marks obtained and possible, the overall percentage, the overall grade, the GPA and the overall rank.

The report card — GP and Rank per exam, with a totals row carrying the GPA and the overall gradeScreenshot pending

Where there is nothing to say, both print an em dash. A card with no graded results prints — for its verdict — not "Pass", and not "Fail".

Merit lists

There are two, and they do different jobs.

On screen — Results → Merit list

Reached from an exam's row menu (Merit list) or at Results → Merit list — Rank within one exam, filtered to a comparable cohort.

Pick the Exam, then optionally narrow by Class level and Group (Science, Business Studies, Humanities, General), and press Apply.

The merit list — ranked students first, absentees after them with no rankScreenshot pending

Read the note under the filters, because it is the whole design: Filters apply before ranking, so a Science list ranks within Science. Absentees are listed after the ranked students and have no rank.

That is the right behaviour and it is worth explaining to a teacher who expects otherwise. A Science student's rank is against other Science students, not against the whole exam. And an absentee is unranked, shown with an em dash — not ranked last, which would imply they sat the exam and came bottom.

That absentee rule is this screen's rule, not a rule of the product. The printable report ranks absentees; see Printable — Reports → Merit list below before you hand anything out.

Tiles across the top: Appeared, Absent, Passed, Average, Highest, Lowest. Columns are Rank, Roll, Student, Enrollment #, Class level, Group, Marks, %, Grade, GP and Status.

This screen has no print button. That is the other one.

Printable — Reports → Merit list

Reports → Merit list — Rank students within one exam, or across a batch's exams. This is the version you print, and it can do something the on-screen one cannot: Rank by offers One exam or A batch across exams.

Its own note covers the tie rule: Ties share a rank and the next rank is not skipped. Filters apply before ranking. Two students on equal marks are both 4th, and the next student is 5th.

It does not agree with the screen, and you should know how

This is the copy a centre prints and hands out, so the two differences below matter more than they look. Neither is a fault in your data.

The practical consequence: a parent holding a printed merit list and a printed report card for the same student can see two different figures, and a student who missed the exam appears at the bottom of the printed list rather than off it. Say so when you hand them out, or read the list on screen when the distinction matters — a scholarship shortlist, say.

See Reports for the filters, printing and export.

AI-drafted remarks

The marks-entry dialog has Draft remarks for everyone, with the boundary stated beside it: Drafts only — review and edit before they are saved with the results. There is a per-row wand as well, Draft a remark for this student.

The dialog is AI-drafted remarks: These are suggestions based on marks and attendance. Edit anything, apply what you want, and nothing is stored until you save the results. Apply takes one, Apply all takes the lot, and everything stays editable.

Two things to know. Only the first 40 students are drafted in one go — Only the first students are drafted in one go. And what is sent to the model is pseudonymous: exam percentages, GPA and an attendance rate. No names, no phone numbers, no guardian details. The card is yours to sign, so read what it wrote before you save it. The affordance is hidden entirely if your installation has no AI key.

Notes

• Existing centres start with no scale. Load default scale is a genuine first-run step, not an optional nicety.
• The scale only computes on save. Changing bands never re-grades saved results, and old free-text grades are never overwritten.
• Any fail is an overall fail, GPA 0.00. Bangladesh convention.
• Numbers truncate, never round up, so the printed figure and the printed letter always agree.
• Absentees are unranked on the on-screen merit list, not ranked last. The printable Reports → Merit list does rank them, on 0 marks.
• The printed merit list's GP column is a plain average, not the fail-zeroed GPA the report card prints. The two documents can disagree for the same student.
• Overrides are permanent audit records with actor, time, computed value, chosen value and reason — and they mark the printed sheet with an asterisk.
• The marks-entry hint still says the grade is free-form text. It is stale. Once a scale exists the grade is computed and read-only unless you override it.
• Result sheets and report cards are English only, like the other printables.
• Synthetic examples only. Any student, grade or percentage shown here is invented.

Troubleshooting

Every grade on my report cards is an em dash. No grading scale is configured. Go to Configurations → Grading Scale and press Load default scale. Then re-save the results you want graded — the scale does not reach backwards.

I loaded the default scale and my old results still have no grades. Correct. A saved result is only re-graded when it is saved again. Open the exam, re-save the marks.

"Load default scale" is refused. The scale is not empty. That guard is there so the button can never overwrite bands you built. Add or edit bands by hand instead.

A student with 79.996% got an A instead of an A+. Working as designed. Numbers truncate at two decimals, so 79.99 sits in the A window. Nothing rounds up, anywhere.

A student with mostly top marks has a GPA of 0.00. They failed an exam. Under the Bangladesh convention any failing exam fails the whole result. Check the F, and check whether an absence is being counted as one.

The health banner says there is a gap. Two adjacent bands do not meet. Windows are inclusive at both ends, so D ending at 39.99 and C beginning at 40.00 is contiguous and is never flagged — a 0.01 step is how bands are meant to join. A gap is a real hole, such as A ending at 79.99 with A+ beginning at 81.00, which leaves 80.00–80.99 uncovered. Marks landing in a gap get no grade at all, silently.

I cannot delete a grade. It has been awarded. Deactivate it — it stays on printed results and stops being given to new ones.

A Science student is ranked against the whole exam. Set the Group filter before you read the list. Filters apply before ranking, so the filter is what defines the cohort.

There is no print button on the merit list. The on-screen one does not print. Use Reports → Merit list — see Reports. Read the two differences noted above first; the printed list is not a print of the screen.

A student who was absent is ranked last on the printed merit list. Expected. The printable report ranks everyone, counting an absent paper as 0 marks. Only the on-screen list leaves absentees out of the ranking.

The printed merit list gives a GP that the student's report card does not. Also expected, and it is the fail rule. The report card applies the Bangladesh convention — one failed exam makes the whole result 0.00 — while the printed merit list's GP column is the plain average of the per-exam grade points, with no fail rule. Neither document is wrong; they are answering different questions.