Overview

Assessments and grading give you a structured way to record, calculate, and publish student results. An assessment is any graded event — an exam, a quiz, a homework submission, or a project. Grades are the scores students earn on those assessments. Premeena computes percentages, maps them to letter grades, ranks students per class, and aggregates everything into term and year report cards automatically.

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The order of operations

This is the question we get asked most: “I opened Enter Grades but I can’t find my class / my exam / anywhere to type a mark.” Almost always it is because the assessment does not exist yet. Marks are never entered “for a class” — they are always entered against one assessment, so the assessment has to be created first.

The full chain, in order:

1. Examinations → Grading Setup → Grading Scheme — create the assessment categories for the grade level and term (Homework, Class Test, Mid-term, Final Exam…). Their weights must add up to 100%. Do this once per grade + term. See Grading Scheme for the weights, and for how the marks inside one category combine.

2. Examinations → Exams, or Examinations → Coursework → All Assessments — create the assessment itself: name it, pick its category, subject, term, max score and date. Creating an exam also creates one assessment per paper automatically.

3. Examinations → Enter Marks — pick the section, term and assessment, then type each student’s score and click Save Grades.

4. Click Publish when you are ready for students and parents to see the scores.

Note

On the Enter Marks page, the checklist shown before you pick an assessment tells you exactly which of these steps is still outstanding, with a link to the right page.

Caution

Creating categories needs the Assignment Categories — create permission, which teachers do not have by default. If the create button is missing for you, ask the school owner either to create the categories once for the whole school, or to grant your position that permission under Settings → Positions.

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How it fits together

Before you can create an assessment, several pieces must already be in place:

Prerequisite	Why it’s needed	Where to set it up
Active academic year with terms	Every assessment belongs to a term.	School Structure → Academic Years
Grade levels and classes	Assessments are scoped to a grade level or a specific class section.	School Structure → Classes / Sections
Subjects	Every assessment is tied to one subject.	School Structure → Subjects
Grade scale (recommended)	Maps numeric percentages to letter grades (A, B, C…). Without a default scale, only pass/fail is computed.	Examinations → Grading Setup → Grade Scales
Assignment categories	Define the types of assessments per grade level + term (e.g., Homework 20%, Tests 50%, Final 30%) and must sum to 100%.	Examinations → Grading Setup → Grading Scheme

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Assignment categories

Assignment categories define what kinds of assessments exist for a grade level in a given term, and how much each type counts toward the overall grade. For example, Grade 5 in Term 1 might be split as: Classwork 20%, Homework 10%, Quizzes 30%, Mid-term 40%.

Caution

The weights across all categories for a given grade + term combination must add up to exactly 100%. The system enforces this when you save.

Creating a category

1. Navigate to Examinations → Grading Setup → Grading Scheme.

2. Click Create Category. (If the button is not there, your position lacks the Assignment Categories — create permission — see the note above.)

3. Fill in the fields:

Field	Description
Template	The organisation-level category template this category is based on (e.g., the “Homework” template). Templates are created in Settings.
Grade level	Which grade level this category applies to (e.g., Grade 5).
Term	Which term this category is active in.
Weight (%)	The percentage this category contributes to the overall subject grade for the chosen grade + term.
Display order	Controls the order categories appear when creating assessments and on report cards.

4. Click Save. Repeat for each category until all weights for the grade + term sum to 100%.

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Who can do what

Action	Required permission
View all student grades	Grades — view all
View own grades (students)	Grades — view own
Create assessments	Assessments — create
Edit assessments	Assessments — edit
Delete assessments	Assessments — delete
Enter / update student scores	Grades — enter
Edit entered scores	Grades — edit
Publish grades to students/parents	Grades — publish
Delete grade records	Grades — delete
Unlock a locked grade	Academic Override
Manage term grade weights	Term Grade Weights — manage

Permissions are assigned to staff through their positions. See Positions for details on how to configure role-based access.