scheduling for entire student body to a 'House System'

@Jean Oliwa - Jean, I would recommend just setting up the advisories as needed for year 1 and then, during the master rollover, rollover the section identifiers, advisors, advisees, and the other available information you want to keep.

Scott

@Jean Oliwa We use Community Groups for that purpose. Our houses are clustered by (main) advisory, so we use smart groups to create a definition to update them. Community Groups also allow both faculty and students to be “leaders” equally. Either way, community groups can be continuous and not tied to a year so you don't lose the group content.

@Jean Oliwa - The choice between Community Groups and Advisories depends on what you want the adults in a house to be able to do and what you want them to be able see about the students in the house.

Community group leaders won't have access to report cards, attendance records, conduct records, etc, for group members. (Of course, the group leaders may have other roles that do give them that access.)

Advisors can see report cards and can submit comments for students in their advisory group. (Our teachers write comments for every student in their classes in mid-April. Advisors then write a comment about non-class aspects of the student's activities. This all goes out to parents and the student in a report card.)

Advisors can be included in attendance and conduct emails. Community Group leaders do not.

It's hard to know which is more appropriate without knowing more about how your house system will work. It may be that you want both community groups and advisory groups.