The Awards module lets your school run award events (such as prize-givings), define the awards for each event, assign them to students, and print certificates and recipient lists. The module must be enabled for your school — contact support if you don't see the Awards menu.
The Awards module lets your school run award events (such as prize-givings), define the awards for each event, assign them to students, and print certificates and recipient lists. The module must be enabled for your school — contact support if you don't see the Awards menu.
Who can use it
| Task | Where | Permission |
|---|---|---|
| Create and manage award events, awards and certificates | Awards > Events (Award Event Management) | Manage Awards — granted via the Award Event Manager role |
| Assign students to awards you've been given | Awards > Assign Awards (Assigned Award Management) | All staff |
| View a student's awards | Awards page on the student record, and the Awards tab on the Teacher Home student panel | All staff |
Creating an award event
- Go to Awards > Events.
- Use Specify Year to choose the year, or find an existing event with Search Event.
- Click Create New Event.
- On the Event Settings tab, enter the Event Title (up to 50 characters) and the Event Date.
- Tick Allow Staff Entry if you want the awards' assigned teachers to be able to assign students themselves through the Assign Awards page.
- Click Save. Use Edit later to change the settings, and Publish Awards when the event is finalised — publishing makes all the event's awards read-only ("This Event is published, all the awards are read only").
You can also click Copy current Event to duplicate an existing event — the page confirms "This function will copy the Awards from {year} - {event}", so a previous year's event and its awards can be reused.
Screenshot: Award Event Management page with the Event Settings, Awards and Printing Certificates / Lists tabs
Creating awards and assigning students
- Open the event, then go to the Awards tab and click Create Award.
- In the Award Detail panel, enter the Award Title (up to 100 characters), select one or more Assigned Teachers, and set the Priority (ordering in the awards list) and Allocation (the maximum number of students who can receive the award).
- Click Save Award. The award appears in the Awards list with its Priority, Title and Allocation.
- To award it to students, click the award, then under Assign to Student click Edit, move students into the selected list and click Assign Students. You cannot select more students than the award's allocation — the page warns "Cannot allocate more students".
Screenshot: Awards tab showing the Awards list, Award Detail and the Assign to Student picker
Teachers assigning students (Assign Awards page)
When an event has Allow Staff Entry ticked, the teachers named as an award's Assigned Teacher can assign students themselves.
- Go to Awards > Assign Awards.
- The Awards list shows the awards assigned to you, with the allocation displayed as used/total (for example 3/5). If none are found you'll see "No awards found for you."
- Click an award, then use Edit > Assign Students exactly as above. The allocation limit still applies, and the award details themselves are read-only on this page.
Setting up certificates
On the event's Printing Certificates / Lists tab, click Edit under Print Certificates Configuration and set:
- Certificate Format — 1 Certificate per student (all of a student's awards on one certificate) or 1 Certificate per award.
- Orientation — Portrait or Landscape.
- Student Name — print the Legal Name or Preferred Name.
- Leading Text, Post Name and Trailing Text — the wording printed before the student's name, after it, and at the bottom (each up to 100 characters).
- School Name Font, Student Name Font and Award Details Font — each with a live preview.
- Background Image — upload a .jpeg, .jpg or .png. This overwrites the current background and applies to all certificates for your school. The image should have borders under 2cm and dimensions of at least 2400x1600. A note tells you if a background has already been uploaded.
Click Save.
Screenshot: Print Certificates Configuration section with format, orientation, fonts and background image upload
Generating certificates and lists
- Demo Certificate — generates a sample PDF so you can check the layout before the real run.
- Generate Certificates — produces the certificates for the event.
- Generate Award List — downloads a CSV of the award recipients.
How certificate generation is delivered
By default, Generate Certificates downloads the PDF directly in your browser.
Schools with larger events can have certificate printing run through the background job queue instead — this option must be enabled for your school by support. When it's on:
- Clicking Generate Certificates queues a job: "A job to generate the award certificates has been queued. You will receive a notification via email when it completes and can download the file from this page."
- A status box on the page updates automatically (for example "Certificate generation job started at ... is Processing").
- When the job has Completed, a Download button appears in the status box. Jobs remain downloadable from this page for a month.
- Only one certificate generation job can be pending or processing per user at a time — if you already have one, you'll see "Job not queued as you already have an awards certificate generation job pending or processing."
Save or cancel any unsaved configuration changes before generating — the page prompts "Please save or cancel your change to the certificate configuration."
Viewing a student's awards
Each student's record includes an Awards page listing the Award Title, Award Date and Award Event for every award they've received ("No awards were found." if they have none). Teachers can also see the same list on the Awards tab of the student panel on Teacher Home.
Screenshot: student record Awards page listing award title, date and event