New school year, new term courses set up

[eric_villacarlo]

Dear all,

I am an admin for our small Canvas site (~350 users) for a secondary school (high school, catering for y10s to y13s aged 14-18). It is our 3rd year using Canvas.

I'm setting up this new school year's Canvas and I would like some advice on what to do.

In previous years, we set up new courses every year for every subject in the school. For example:

Maths Year 10 2019, Maths Year 11 2019, English Year 10 2019, English Year 11 2019. Their contents and teachers don't really change largely.

I have a niggling feeling that this is not the most efficient set up. I'm starting to think maybe if I set up a course, e.g. Maths and use the the sections to divide up Year 10 and Year 11, this way, I (or any admin) won't have to re-create new courses for the same subjects year in year, year out. The admin would just would just change section enrolments via SIS import.

The problem with this, however, is the assignments are all assigned to [everyone]. So when I insert new Year10s they will have a massive back log of outstanding assignments before they even start. Is there a way to bulk unassign assignments?

Part of me thinks I should use Blueprint courses but again, the contents don't really change, just students. And this will pretty much result in a list of courses similar to what we have been getting in previous years that look like Maths 2018, Maths 2019, Maths 2020, etc. I'm trying to avoid teachers having to import/export their course contents especially when they add something small, but new to their already created assignments for the same year in, year out topics.

Bit long winded question, but I'd really appreciate some insights on how your Canvas sites are set-up. 

Many thanks,