What are Cycle Years?
Cycle years refer to the relative age of your students, and are interchangeable with the more traditional term of "grades" to define the year of each student. Within Montessori Compass, Cycle Years are used to define the ages of students enrolled in each Classroom. For example, a typical "Early Childhood" level Montessori classroom (often called Primary or Casa) includes children ages 3-6. To correctly set up a classroom for this age grouping, select the Cycle Years "PK1," "PK2," and "K."
The curriculum is structured so that each lesson is "tagged" as appropriate to certain Cycle Years, and it is the Cycle Years that determine which lessons will be displayed in each Classroom's record keeping pages. Cycle Years can also be used as shortcuts for planning and recording lessons, as well as filtering the students displayed on your Grid.
If you prefer to use different terminology to define your Cycle Years, you can customize that in your School Profile. Just go to <More/School Profile> and select the "Cycle Years" tab. You can enter any name for the outlined Cycle Years. However, you cannot add new Cycle Years or edit the age ranges to which each Cycle Year refers.
