---
title: Managing courses
excerpt: Add courses, flag Advanced Placement and electives, record Ministry credit, organise them by subject, grade and category, and display them with the Course Table block.
tags: [courses, curriculum, academics, catalogue]
target: client:brentwood
---

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<p>Every course in the catalogue — from core subjects to electives — is a <strong>course</strong> entry: a title, a description, whether it's Advanced Placement or an elective, its Ministry credit, and the subject, grade and category it belongs to. You manage these under <code>Courses</code> in the left-hand menu. Once a course exists, show it anywhere on the site with the <strong>Brentwood Course Table</strong> block.</p>
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<h2 class="wp-block-heading">How do I add a course?</h2>
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<!-- BWG-SHOT id="course-add-new" path="/wp-admin/post-new.php?post_type=course" region="the full edit screen — title field, main content editor, Course Details box, and the Subjects / Grades / Course Categories boxes" caption="The Course edit screen. Course Details and the taxonomy boxes sit on the right." -->

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<li>Go to <code>Courses → Add New</code>.</li>
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<li>Type the course name (e.g. "AP Chemistry 12") in the title field at the top.</li>
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<li>Write the course description in the main content area — it appears on the course's own page and in its pop-up preview.</li>
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<li>In the <strong>Course Details</strong> box, turn on <strong>Advanced Placement</strong> and/or <strong>Elective</strong> if either applies.</li>
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<li>Fill in <strong>Credit</strong> if the course carries a Ministry credit.</li>
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<li>Tick the course's <strong>Subjects</strong>, <strong>Grades</strong> and <strong>Course Categories</strong> in the boxes on the right.</li>
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<li>Click <strong>Publish</strong>.</li>
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<p class="bw-callout-label">Note</p>
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<p>Every course also has a <strong>Page Settings</strong> box for overriding the page title and choosing a hero image, the same as pages and posts. See the separate Page settings guide for how that works.</p>
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<h2 class="wp-block-heading">What do the Advanced Placement and Elective toggles do?</h2>
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<!-- BWG-SHOT id="course-details" path="/wp-admin/post-new.php?post_type=course" region="the Course Details box — Advanced Placement, Elective and Credit fields" caption="Advanced Placement and Elective are on/off switches; Credit is free text." -->

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<p>These two switches live in the <strong>Course Details</strong> box, below the description. Turn <strong>Advanced Placement</strong> on for AP courses and <strong>Elective</strong> on for electives — leave either off if it doesn't apply. Both show as a small tag on the course's own page, and both can be used to filter the Course Table block (see <a href="#bw-how-do-i-show-courses-on-a-page">How do I show courses on a page?</a>), so a page can show only AP courses, for example.</p>
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<h2 class="wp-block-heading">How do I set the credit value?</h2>
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<p>The <strong>Credit</strong> field is also in the <strong>Course Details</strong> box. It records which Ministry-recognised course this one counts as credit for — often the same title (e.g. <em>AP Chemistry 12</em>), sometimes a different one (e.g. a specialised course crediting as <em>Graphic Production 12</em>), and occasionally a short note such as <em>a Board-Authorized credit that is to be confirmed</em>. Whatever you type appears on the course's page exactly as written, labelled <strong>Ministry Credit Awarded</strong>. Leave it blank to leave that line off the course entirely.</p>
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<h2 class="wp-block-heading">How do I organise courses by subject, grade and category?</h2>
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<!-- BWG-SHOT id="course-taxonomies" path="/wp-admin/post-new.php?post_type=course" region="the Subjects, Grades and Course Categories panels in the right-hand sidebar (shown closed, as they appear on a new course)" caption="Click Course Categories, Grades or Subjects to open it and tick the terms that apply." -->

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<p>Courses are organised with three separate groupings, each its own box in the sidebar: <strong>Subjects</strong> (e.g. English, Math, Science), <strong>Grades</strong>, and <strong>Course Categories</strong> (e.g. Academics, Arts, Athletics). Tick every one that applies — a course can belong to more than one Subject, Grade or Category. To add a new term, click <strong>Add New Subject</strong>, <strong>Add New Grade</strong> or <strong>Add New Course Category</strong> in the relevant box and type its name.</p>
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<p class="bw-callout-label">Note</p>
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<p>Enter grades as plain numbers — <strong>9</strong>, <strong>10</strong>, <strong>11</strong>, <strong>12</strong>. The site adds "Grade" in front automatically wherever it's shown, so a term named "Grade 9" would end up reading "Grade Grade 9".</p>
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<h2 class="wp-block-heading">How do I show courses on a page?</h2>
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<p>Courses aren't added to a page one at a time — you drop in the <strong>Brentwood Course Table</strong> block and it pulls them in automatically. Edit the page, click the <strong>+</strong> to add a block, and search for <strong>Brentwood Course Table</strong>.</p>
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<p>With the block selected, use the settings panel on the right:</p>
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<li><strong>Columns</strong> — how many courses per row (1 to 6). A separate toggle adds a small "&gt;" after each course name.</li>
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<li><strong>On click</strong> — opens a pop-up with the description and Ministry credit by default; switch to "Go to the course page" to link straight to the course's own page instead.</li>
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<li><strong>Only AP courses</strong> — restrict the list to Advanced Placement courses.</li>
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<li><strong>Only elective courses</strong> — restrict the list to electives.</li>
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<li><strong>Taxonomy filter</strong> — click <strong>+ Add taxonomy filter</strong>, choose Subjects, Grades or Course Categories, then pick the terms to match. Add more than one filter and choose whether a course must match all of them or any of them.</li>
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<li><strong>Order by</strong> / <strong>Order</strong> — sort by title or date, ascending or descending.</li>
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<li><strong>Max courses</strong> — cap how many show; 0 shows all.</li>
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<li><strong>Hide specific courses</strong> — search for and exclude individual courses from just this block; they stay published everywhere else.</li>
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<p>A <strong>Colours</strong> panel further down lets you change the link and border colour, if a particular page needs to stand out from the site default.</p>
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<p class="bw-callout-label">Note</p>
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<p>Leave every filter empty to show every published course. New courses appear automatically — you don't need to add them to the block by hand.</p>
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<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Changing the order courses appear in</h2>
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<p>By default, the Course Table block lists courses <strong>alphabetically by title</strong>. Use its <strong>Order by</strong> setting to switch to <strong>Date</strong> instead, and <strong>Order</strong> to flip between ascending and descending. A third option, <strong>Menu order</strong>, is also listed, but this site has no way to set a custom order number on an individual course — so Title or Date are the choices that actually work.</p>
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<h2 class="wp-block-heading">How do I remove or hide a course?</h2>
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<p>You have two options, depending on whether the change is permanent:</p>
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<li><strong>Gone for good</strong> (e.g. discontinued) — open the course and move it to <strong>Trash</strong>.</li>
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<li><strong>Temporarily unavailable</strong> (e.g. under review) — open the course, switch its status from Published to <strong>Draft</strong> in the <strong>Status &amp; visibility</strong> panel, and click <strong>Update</strong>. It stays saved but disappears from the site and every Course Table block until you publish it again.</li>
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<p class="bw-callout-label">Important</p>
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<p>Trashing a course removes it from every Course Table block it appears in, and from its own page. If you only want it off the site for a while, use Draft instead — the description, credit and everything else are still there when you bring it back.</p>
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