starbuckadale
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- Oct 26, 2014
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Hi, I'm a newly qualified teacher who's school laptop has a copy of Access 2007-10 on it. The last time I used Access, it was 15 years ago at school and I remember nothing. When I was training, my mentor recommended Access as a great way of tracking student progress and I've attempted to build a database for that purpose. I'm working as a total n00b though, so I need a little help.
The document I use to assess is called Development Matters. I teach age 4-5, so I'm mostly working with the age bands 30-50 and 40-60 months. Education in the UK (that's where I am) splits early years ed into 7 learning areas, each one subdivided into 2 or 3. For example, one of the 7 areas is PSED, split into MR, MFB and SCA (Don't mind the acronyms, you really don't need to know what they stand for). So my tables are set up like this:
PSED: MR 30-50 learning objectives
PSED: MR 40-60 learning objectives
PSED: MFB 30-50 learning objectives
PSED: MFB 40-60 learning objectives
PSED: SCA 30-50 learning objectives
PSED: SCA 40-60 learning objectives
where the columns are the learning objectives and each child has a row. And there are similar tables set up for the other 6 areas. There's a table with all the children's data on too. I used a lookup relationship to set that up - I think that's the correct thing to do, but confirmation would be good!
So when a child achieves a learning objective, I go to the relevant table, based on learning area, subsection and age band, find the corresponding field and enter that date. I have data validation set up so that only dates may be entered. Simple, right?
My problem is that some learning objectives appear twice. For example, 'Adding a storyline or narrative to play' appears in Communication and Language: Speaking 40-60 and also Expressive Arts and Design: Being Imaginative 40-60. Ideally, I would like it set up so that if I edited a child's data in the CL table, the EAD table would update with the same data, and vice versa, so that it didn't matter which table the data was entered, both would always be up to date. I am aware that this is the exact reason you're not supposed to duplicate fields in databases usually, so what's the best way around this? Is there code I can use, or do I need to adapt my database to better fit the data that I'm entering? And if that's the case, what do you suggest?
Thanks for reading, I know this is TL;DR and the computer ate my post already once so hopefully I've included all the useful info without waffling too much...I've read around the forums and I know you guys like specifics!
The document I use to assess is called Development Matters. I teach age 4-5, so I'm mostly working with the age bands 30-50 and 40-60 months. Education in the UK (that's where I am) splits early years ed into 7 learning areas, each one subdivided into 2 or 3. For example, one of the 7 areas is PSED, split into MR, MFB and SCA (Don't mind the acronyms, you really don't need to know what they stand for). So my tables are set up like this:
PSED: MR 30-50 learning objectives
PSED: MR 40-60 learning objectives
PSED: MFB 30-50 learning objectives
PSED: MFB 40-60 learning objectives
PSED: SCA 30-50 learning objectives
PSED: SCA 40-60 learning objectives
where the columns are the learning objectives and each child has a row. And there are similar tables set up for the other 6 areas. There's a table with all the children's data on too. I used a lookup relationship to set that up - I think that's the correct thing to do, but confirmation would be good!
So when a child achieves a learning objective, I go to the relevant table, based on learning area, subsection and age band, find the corresponding field and enter that date. I have data validation set up so that only dates may be entered. Simple, right?
My problem is that some learning objectives appear twice. For example, 'Adding a storyline or narrative to play' appears in Communication and Language: Speaking 40-60 and also Expressive Arts and Design: Being Imaginative 40-60. Ideally, I would like it set up so that if I edited a child's data in the CL table, the EAD table would update with the same data, and vice versa, so that it didn't matter which table the data was entered, both would always be up to date. I am aware that this is the exact reason you're not supposed to duplicate fields in databases usually, so what's the best way around this? Is there code I can use, or do I need to adapt my database to better fit the data that I'm entering? And if that's the case, what do you suggest?
Thanks for reading, I know this is TL;DR and the computer ate my post already once so hopefully I've included all the useful info without waffling too much...I've read around the forums and I know you guys like specifics!