Making a database from an idea, can feel like making something out of nothing. 
 Which means it seems hopeless when you try to start ...
 and gives you a great feeling when you get it working!

 OK, how's this for a start:
  
 The way we do is, we look at our form, and ask ourselves, 
 what are the "objects" there?

	 students
	    contact info of student
	    parents of student
	    health of student
	    attendance of student
	    grades of student
	
	 subjects
	 attitudes and values
	 activities
	
	 terms / parts of terms

 So - those "objects" will probably be our tables.

 The convention is, to name our tables in plural: students.
 Where an object has one and only one characteristic
 (like name, gender, or birth year) we can make each of those
 a field of the table.

 * Where an object may possibly have more than one value in a field,
    we make a separate relational table.
    For instance: student_parents
    Some students may have only one parent.
    Some may have three. Or none, only a guardian!  Not often, but it is 
    good to be flexible where we can. And that's what "relational" is for!

 * Where an object could have different combinations of another object
    (students <--> subjects)
    It is good to make a separate table, contianing only foreign keys
    of student and subject, mapping them to each other.

 Things i've found helpful:
   - Start simple, go one step at a time.
   - Draw it out on paper first.
      Don't think about "tables", then our poor brains get all scrambled up 
      in tech-think. Instead, think of like "boxes" you are going
      to put things into.
   - I would start with a box for students.
      Then see, which characteristics of students could go neatly into
      the students' box, and which would be managed better if we put them 
      in their own boxes.
      Just work on that, and then let's take a look at it!

   - And don't worry, things will always change as we go on -- isn't that great?  :)
     We will refine our tables the  best we can, but once we start programming
     we will probly change some things. That's just how it works, and that's
     why we like php and mysql - because we can do that!

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