Hi David,
As always, you need to work out the "entities" you need to model and how
the relate to one another, then implement them in a structure of tables,
fields and relationships.
Just possibly the Student Rosters data model at
http://www.databaseanswers.org/data_models/index.htm will meet your
needs, if you change the Attended_YN field in the Rosters table into one
that can store values for Attended, Excused, Did not attend.
But depending on your actual needs you may have to add a whole bundle of
other tables to track which courses each student is taking, which
classes exist, and which of those classes the student is required to
attend. This can get complicated if - for example - some classes have
two sessions (e.g. daytime and evening) and students must attend one
session but can choose which. In other words you need to understand the
real-life system you are modelling, not only the basics and the official
way of doing things, but also the way things are actually done.
Some of the other models on that site may give you ideas: see e.g. the
Student Assignments one.
