Data Files samples / School or training centre

Lantern Learning Centre

Students, families, classes, registers, test results and termly fees for a tuition or training centre.

Download 203 KB19 tables, 13 queries, 9 reports, 6 print templates and 13,441 invented records, dated back from 2026-10-22.

Rutba Data Files with Lantern Learning Centre, the school or training centre sample, open at its print template Fee invoice: a page laid out with the business's own name and address at the head and one of its records filled in, beside the list of the database's tables and how many records each holds — Lantern Learning Centre in Rutba Data Files, made with its invented records and open at its print template Fee invoice.

Overview

For a centre that teaches groups in terms and bills by the term: a tuition business, a language or music school, a dance studio, a sports academy. It keeps who comes, who pays, which class each student is in, who was there at each lesson, how they did in their tests and what is still owed.

Lantern Learning Centre is an invented tuition centre in Leeds with about a hundred and twenty students. After school and on Saturday mornings it teaches children from Year 3 to Year 11 (ages seven to sixteen) in groups of eight to ten: maths, English and science for each stage up to the GCSE exams, and coding. On weekday evenings adults come for Spanish, French and Mandarin, and for bookkeeping in the computer room. In the school holidays it runs daytime workshops: a maths booster, GCSE revision days, a coding club, a reading and writing club and science lab days. Ten teachers are paid by the hour.

The records go back to the start of a term fourteen to eighteen months before the day the file is made: three terms a year with the holidays between, run to the end of the current one, with the next term or holiday planned when it starts within six weeks. Each class has its lessons on one weekday at one time, a register for every lesson that has happened, and tests twice a term for the children. Families get one invoice a term, three weeks before it starts, with ten percent off for a second or third child; most pay before the first lesson, some pay in three instalments, some pay late and a few still owe from earlier terms.

It prints what such a centre sends out: a fee invoice to each family each term, with a line for each child's class, the discounts and what has been paid; a receipt for every payment; a letter confirming each place, with the day, time, room, first lesson and what to bring; a progress report for each student at the end of each term, with attendance and marks for each class; a certificate for each adult course and holiday workshop finished; and a pay statement for each teacher each month. Tuition is exempt from VAT here, so no VAT is charged.

Children's records hold only what a centre needs: a name, the date of birth, the school year, a short note such as an allergy or an inhaler, and whether photographs may be taken. Addresses and phone numbers belong to the family, not the child. All of it is invented.

In Rutba Data Files, choose School or training centre on the start screen, then With sample records to look around, or Empty for the same design with nothing in it.

It suits, with small changes

A tutoring business with group or one-to-one lessons
A language school with evening classes
A music or dance school that teaches in terms
A driving school, with a class for each instructor's block of lessons
A sports academy or swimming club with weekly sessions
A small private or weekend school
An adult education or evening class programme

Read on

Tutorial: the everyday tasks: 7 everyday tasks, step by step, each naming what to open.
Tables, fields and relationships: every field of 19 tables, and how they are related.
Queries, forms, reports and print templates: what each one shows, its criteria and calculated columns, and when to print it.

Things you should know

Everything in a sample's records is invented: the business, the people, their addresses, e-mail addresses on example domains that reach nobody, and phone numbers from the ranges kept for drama and fiction. Tax, company and bank numbers are placeholders of zeros.
The dates count back from the day the file was made, and some run on into the weeks after it, as real bookings and due dates do. Made from the Data Files start screen, a sample is dated from that day. Queries that compare with today (overdue, due this week) show more as a downloaded file gets older.
To start empty, choose the same business on the start screen and then Empty: the same tables, queries, forms, reports and print templates, with nothing in them but the Start Here guide.
Your records live in one file on your computer. Keep copies: File, Save As makes one, and a copy on another drive or in your own cloud storage keeps it safe if this computer is lost. Close the database before copying the file by hand.
Every change to the design (a new field, a renamed table) is a numbered step that Data Files keeps, so you can see what was changed and when.
An invoice's lines are the enrolments that point at it, so an enrolment with no Invoice is not on any invoice yet. Set it when you send the invoice; a place booked after the invoice was sent goes on a new invoice of its own.
Paid So Far on an invoice and Balance After on a payment are typed, not worked out. Keep Paid So Far equal to the invoice's payments added up, or the balance printed on the invoice will be wrong.
The Enrolment letter prints only for places whose Status is Enrolled. The other print templates print every record of their table (every invoice, receipt, report, certificate and pay statement there is), so choose the ones you want, such as this term's invoices, before pressing Print. A record you choose from its form always prints.
Term reports and certificates are records of their own, written once at the end of a term. Changing the register later does not change a report already written: update its line by hand if a mark was wrong.
A pay statement's lines are the lessons that point at it. A lesson covered by another teacher has that teacher in its Teacher field, so it is paid on their statement, not the class teacher's.
Tuition here is exempt from VAT, so the Business record's Tax Rate is 0 and no document shows VAT. If yours is not, see the last of the ways to adapt the sample.
School Year on a student is this year's and moves up each September; the term report keeps the year the student was in at the time.

Starting with your own records

Start with Business, the centre's own name, address and bank details, which every document prints. Then Terms (this year's terms and holidays), then Teachers and Courses (what you teach, how long and at what price). Then set up the Classes for the first term, each with its course, teacher, day, time and room. Enter Families and then their Students as they book, and an Enrolment for each place. Add the Lessons of each class (one for each week of the term), take the register in Attendance as the lessons happen, and record Assessments and Results when tests are marked. Raise a Fee Invoice for each family each term and set each of their enrolments' Invoice to it, then enter Payments as they come in, adding each to the invoice's Paid So Far. At the end of a term write a Term Report for each student, with a Report Line for each class; at the end of a month make each teacher's Pay Statement and set it on the lessons they taught.

Making it yours

Every change to the design is a numbered step in Data Files, so a change can be seen and undone.

For one-to-one tutoring, set each course's Capacity to 1 and make a class for each student's regular slot; the timetable and teacher pay work as they are.
For a music or dance school, use the subjects for instruments or dance styles and the levels for grades; add a Grade field to Results for exam grades.
If you charge by the month instead of by the term, make each month a Term record and raise the invoices monthly.
Add a Waiting status to Enrolments for full classes, and a query listing waiting students by class, oldest first.
For a driving school, make each learner's block of lessons a class with Capacity 1 and the instructor as the teacher; add a Test Date field to Students.
To keep a fuller register, add a Minutes Late field to Attendance, or a Homework Done yes/no field.
If teachers are paid a fixed amount a lesson instead of by the hour, add a Rate per Lesson field to Teachers and change the Pay column of Teacher hours last month to use it.
Add a Rooms table with each room's size if you have many rooms, and point Classes at it instead of typing the room.
If your centre is registered for VAT and its courses are not exempt, add a Tax Rate field to Courses and a VAT column to the Fee invoice print template, as the trading sample's invoice has.

Questions people ask

How do I print one family's invoice?: Open the print template Fee invoice, choose that family's invoice from the list (or open it in the Fee Invoices form and print from there), and press Print or Save as PDF.
How is the discount for brothers and sisters worked out?: The first child booked in a term pays the full fee; each brother or sister booked after them has 0.1 in Discount on their enrolments, ten percent off. A bursary place has 0.5. The invoice shows the fee, the discount taken off and what is left to pay on each line.
A child joins half way through the term. What do I charge?: Set Lessons Billed on the enrolment to the lessons left, and First Lesson to the first one they will come to. The invoice charges for those lessons only.
Why does the invoice say nothing about VAT?: Private tuition and education are exempt from VAT in many countries, and the sample is set up that way. If you must charge it, add a tax rate as the ways to adapt the sample describe, and ask your accountant first.
How do I print last month's pay statements?: Open the print template Pay statement and choose the statements whose Month is last month, then press Print. Each lists the lessons the teacher taught, the hours and the gross pay.
Who gets a certificate?: In the sample, adult learners who finish a course and children who finish a holiday workshop, when they came to at least three lessons in four. Children on term courses get their term report instead. Change the rule to suit your centre: a certificate is simply a record in Certificates.
Can I change the wording of the enrolment letter?: Yes. Open Print templates, choose Enrolment letter and edit its text blocks. The words in curly brackets, such as {Class.Weekday}, are filled from the enrolment and its class; keep them as they are or the letter will print them as blanks.

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