FEATURE · School Events & Calendar

April to March. On one page. The way Indian schools actually plan a year.

A 12-month calendar laid out the way your school actually runs — April top-left, March bottom-right, every day a clickable cell, every event colour-coded. Click any date to see what's happening. Sundays in red, the way they've always been on the staff room wall.

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Indian schools don't run on a Gregorian calendar

A Class 5 teacher in Lucknow opens her calendar to plan the term. The default view is October. She sees Dussehra and Diwali. She wants to know which week of November is free of holidays so she can schedule a unit test. She clicks 'Next month'. November appears. She lost October's context. She clicks back. Then forward. Three minutes later, she's still flipping pages.

This isn't her fault. The calendar was built for someone whose year runs January to December. Her year runs April to March. Her syllabus runs April to March. Her board exams run April to March. Her PTMs, sports day, and annual function all live inside that April-to-March window. Every time her software splits her year across two pages, it's making her job harder.

We built the Academic Year Calendar for the way Indian schools actually plan. April top-left. March bottom-right. The whole year on one screen. Scroll once, see everything. Find a free week between Diwali and Republic Day in five seconds. Plan a unit test in two clicks. Print it for the staff room wall in one tap.

Inkwelly 12-month academic year calendar view showing April 2025 to March 2026 in a 4-column grid, each month a card, day cells colour-coded by event type, multi-event days marked with a count chip
April top-left, March bottom-right — the whole session in one scroll.

What you see when you open it

Twelve cards — one per month — laid out in a grid. Four across on a desktop, two on a tablet, one on a phone. The current month carries a small accent bar so your eye finds it without scrolling. Each card shows the month name, the days laid out as a normal calendar, and a count chip in the header if there are events that month.

Every day is interactive. Days with events take the colour of the event — green for holidays, amber for exams, teal for school events, blue for off-days. Days with more than one event get a small count chip in the corner. Today has a teal ring around it so you always know where 'now' is. Sundays are always red, even when they're holidays, even when they're outside the current month — the way they've been on the staff room wall for fifty years.

Click any day. A popover opens with the day's full event list — each event in its colour, with the title, type, dates, and which classes it affects. Hover any event to see an edit pencil. If the day is empty, you get an 'Add event for this date' link that pre-fills the create form. The class teacher who walks into the office at 8:50 a.m. and wants to schedule a unit test does the whole thing in 30 seconds.

What the year view does for you

  • Whole year on one page — April to March, no clicking 'Next month' twelve times to see your calendar
  • Colour-coded by event type — holidays green, exams amber, events teal, off-days blue, plain working days white
  • Multi-event days flagged — a count chip in the corner shows when more than one event lands on the same day
  • Click any day for the full event list with one-click edit and 'add another event' links
  • Sundays always in red — the cultural convention every Indian school grew up with, preserved
  • Today is always visible — a teal ring on today's cell, even when an event tints the day
  • Out-of-session days are dimmed — you can't accidentally schedule for July 2024 in an AY 2025-26 view
  • Header shows your year in five numbers — total events, school events, holidays, exams, off-days
  • Switch sessions in one click — view AY 2024-25 history or AY 2026-27 future without leaving the page
  • Mobile works the same — the office assistant opens it on her phone first thing in the morning

The calendar in three states

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The whole year — April to March on one page, current month highlighted
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Click a day — the popover lists every event for that date with edit links
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Multi-event day — count chip in the corner when more than one event lands

Built around your actual session

CBSE, ICSE, most state boards — the year is April to March. Tamil Nadu schools sometimes start in June. Some international schools start in August. The view doesn't hardcode a calendar; it reads your school's session start month and lays out the cards from there.

April-to-March schools see April top-left, March bottom-right. June-to-May schools see June top-left, May bottom-right. Card order follows your year, not somebody else's calendar. Sounds small. It's the difference between software that fits Indian schools and software that pretends to.

Academic year calendar with April 2025 in the top-left position and March 2026 in the bottom-right position, matching the standard CBSE and ICSE academic year layout
Card order follows your session — April first, March last.
Day popover in the calendar showing 14 October events with three entries — Dussehra holiday, school assembly, and a Class 10 pre-board reminder — each with an edit pencil icon
Click any day — every event for that date, with edit links.

Click any day, see the whole story

The class teacher clicks 14 October. The popover opens. Dussehra holiday. School assembly. A Class 10 pre-board reminder. She sees all three at a glance, with their colours, their dates, their class scope.

If she wants to schedule a unit test on that empty Tuesday next week, she clicks the cell, hits 'Add event for this date', and the create form opens with the date already filled. Done in 30 seconds. No flipping months. No going back to the events list.

Two events on the same day? You'll know

In an Indian school, two or three events on one day is normal. A religious holiday plus a board exam window plus a half-day for younger classes — not unusual.

The view handles this in two ways: the cell takes the colour of the primary event, the left edge picks up a small ribbon of the second event's colour, and a count chip in the corner shows the total. The chip is the cue — click it, the popover lists every event in order. No event is ever hidden. Every one is one click away.

Day cell in the calendar showing a count chip with the number 3 in the top-right corner and a teal ribbon on the left edge indicating a secondary event type on a day with multiple events
Three events on one day — count chip plus secondary-tone ribbon.
Page header with five stat cells — Total entries, Events, Holidays, Exams, Off days — each showing the count for the entire academic session
Your year in five numbers, before you scroll.

Your year in five numbers

Above the 12-month grid sits a strip of five numbers — total entries, school events, holidays, exams, off-days. Each is the count for the entire session, with a small coloured dot for the type.

The principal looks at it for two seconds before scrolling. "108 events this year, 32 holidays, 18 exams." Now she knows the rough shape. Now she scrolls into the months for the detail.

Real classrooms, real moments

Class 5 teacher planning a unit test. Opens the view. Scans November. Second week is clean — no holidays, no exams. Clicks Tuesday. Hits 'Add event for this date'. Create form opens, date pre-filled. Test scheduled. 30 seconds.

Principal answering 'free week between Dussehra and Diwali'. Glances at October. The heavy red and amber stretch is visible immediately. The week between is clean. Click. Schedule the inter-house quiz. Done.

Office assistant verifying a parent's claim. A parent says her child marked an event for 14 October that wasn't on the calendar. Office opens the view, clicks 14 October, the popover lists every event. Parent's claim verified. 10 seconds.

Sports coordinator scheduling annual sports day. Wants a Friday in late January or early February with no exam clashes. Scrolls to January. Scans for amber cells. Finds the second Friday clean. Clicks. Schedules. Saved.

Chairman in a quarterly review. Wants to see how packed the year is. Principal opens the view on a meeting room screen. The 12-month grid fills the projector — holidays green, exams amber, events teal. Chairman nods. No further questions.

What you can do from this screen

  • Click any day for its event list, with one-click edit
  • Click 'Add event for this date' to open the create form pre-filled with the clicked date
  • Hover any event in the popover to reveal the edit pencil
  • Switch sessions to view past or future calendars without leaving the page
  • Print the year as a single A3 sheet for the staff room wall — colour preserved
  • Open it on your phone — the grid stacks to one column, popover becomes a bottom sheet
  • Read the header strip for your year in five numbers before scrolling
  • Use the legend at the bottom to remember the colour coding

See your school's year on one screen

20-minute walkthrough on a real CBSE / ICSE / state board calendar. We'll scroll April to March on a screen-share and answer every 'can it do X?' you can think of.

Open the Events Command CenterBuild your year with Bulk Setup

A few things worth knowing

The view is a navigation surface, not an inline editor. Click a day, you go to the day's events. Click an event, you go to the edit form. This is on purpose — nobody accidentally overwrites half a year by dragging on a calendar view. To bulk-edit, you go to Bulk Calendar Setup, which carries duplicate detection and a single confirmed save.

What you see depends on who you are. The class teacher with view-only access sees the popover but no edit pencil. A parent in the parent app sees a read-only version filtered to her child's class. The principal sees everything. Permissions are managed in Identity & Access Management — set once on onboarding.

Most schools we've onboarded report that the year view becomes the most-opened screen in the Events module within the first week. The office opens it for parent calls. The class teacher opens it to plan tests. The principal opens it on a meeting room projector when the chairman walks in. The parent app shows a filtered version, and parents stop calling the school to ask if tomorrow is a holiday.

Belongs to

1 module

Frequently asked

7 questions
Why does the calendar start in April instead of January?

Because the Indian academic year is April to March. CBSE, ICSE, most state boards, and the majority of private schools all run April-to-March sessions. Showing the calendar in Gregorian Jan-Dec form forces the principal to mentally split her year across two pages — we eliminate that. For schools running June-to-May or other session orders, the view automatically reads your session start month and lays out the cards from there.

Why are Sundays always red?

Because that's the convention every Indian school grew up with. Printed wall calendars, school diaries, and parent communication have used red Sundays for fifty years. We preserve it: Sunday text renders red even on holiday-tinted cells and even on dimmed out-of-month cells. The choice keeps the view feeling familiar to the office assistant who's been using paper calendars for twenty years.

What if my school observes second-and-fourth Saturday off?

Set it once on your school profile. Schools can choose 'every Saturday off', 'second & fourth Saturday off', 'no Saturday off', or a custom rule. The view honours your setting and renders the relevant Saturdays as off-days with a small dot in the corner. Attendance and fees use the same setting, so working-day counts stay consistent everywhere.

Can parents see this same calendar in the parent app?

Yes — a read-only version, with events filtered to their child's class. Multi-child parents see a class selector at the top to switch between siblings. The parent app doesn't show edit pencils or 'add event' links — just the day list with type chips. We've found this becomes the most-used screen in the parent app once a school turns it on — parents stop calling the office to ask 'is tomorrow a holiday?'

Does it work on mobile?

Yes. The grid collapses from four columns on desktop to one column on mobile, with each month card scrollable independently. The popover repositions to a bottom sheet. Performance is unchanged. Most office assistants we've onboarded actually open the view on their phone first thing in the morning, then switch to desktop only if they need to edit.

How does it handle multi-day events like summer vacation?

Multi-day events fill every day cell in their range with the event's colour. Summer vacation (15 May to 30 June) tints 47 day cells green. Click any of those cells and the popover lists 'Summer Vacation' as one of the events for that day, alongside any other events that overlap. The events are de-duplicated inside the popover — a single multi-day event shows once per cell, not once per day.

Can I print the calendar for the staff room wall?

Yes — a print-optimised stylesheet renders the 12-month grid on a single A3 sheet (or two A4 sheets) with colour preserved on colour printers and converted to grayscale patterns on monochrome. Schools laminate it, stick it on the staff room wall as the official paper backup of the digital calendar. The PDF export from the [Events Command Center](/features/events-command-center) also includes this printable version.

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12-Month School Academic Calendar View · Inkwelly