In your first Playthrough, as you might have heared / read, you DO NOT waste your time actually helping Monokuma. This is because, its no use!
Completing the Monokumas / Tasks, only rewards you with Trip Tickets (more on this later & in the "Trip Tickets" Section) - wich are at this point, if you wanna know more, head over to the respective Section. You should use your first Playthrough to fill out remaining Report Cards and max the gathering & cleaning skill of most/all characters, so that you can focus on other things in the next Playthroughs.
Edit: Filling out ALL Report Crads is necessary to get warlockuma ending!
thanks to ronniesinferno for sharing this information!

If you need help with the Report Cards, check out this guide:
https://cs2bus.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=628339145&searchtext=school+mode

1. Work mode:
   A Management Gamemode where you assign Activities ("Tasks") to each Member of Class #78 and Build Stuff from the Materials you've gathered and use Items. After Workmode is over, you get to Freetime mode for the evening.
   
2. Freetime mode:
   similiar to Daytime mode, but everybody is in the Hall and can be talked to (usually, more on that later). If you talked to one person or spend the time alone, the day is over and you get back to Work mode.
   
3. Every Sunday is the Day off. You cant work on that day, instead you get 2 Times Freetime mode.
   
   
   More on these Modes in the Sections "Work mode" and "Freetime mode" respectively.
   As a first time player of School Mode, i would really recommend reading through them, there will be Info mentioned there that might be overlooked here, since this section will be long enough on its own!
   
   
   What you should do in your first playthrough:
   As is noted further down below under "Tips & Tricks" you should focus on building up gathering and cleaning levels. To do this effectively you should ignore Monokumas Tasks (except the last one, Warlockuma) and instead use your materials to build HP restoring Food and Skill level incressing Items. The Food lets you work constantly (but is not carried over in the 2nd Playthrough) and the Skill levels are permanent, even in your future playthroughs.
   
   It is recommended that you try to farm the Food item "Mom's Warm Milk", since it restores everyones HP fully. For this you need:
   
   • 6 Milk - found in the Kitchen
     
   • 5 Aluminium Cans - found in the Kitchen
     
   • 2 Recipe Books - found in the Kitchen
     
   • 1 Bandage - found in the Nurse's Office
   >> As you can see, you should tasks a lot of people to roam the Kitchen and 1 or 2 for the Nurse's Office.
   
   Next we look at the Gathering increase Item. I would recommend making that first cause with higher Skill, you get more items, wich following makes everything easier, even making the Cleaning increase item. The item i'm talking about is Cheat Sheet, and to build it you'll need:
   
   • 3 Triangle Ruler - found in the Classroom
     
   • 3 Monokuma Photo Album - found in the Library
     
   • 3 Oil Paints - found in the Art Room
     
   • 3 Electronic Table - found in the Data Center
     
   • 3 Penlight - found in the Music Room
   This one is a bit more Tricky. 2 Rooms have a -3 HP on each task (Data Center&Music Room), Art Room has -2 and the others have only -1. This is a big difference.
   
   Even though we'll get to this way later, i'll still sumerize the Cleaning increase Item here, wich is Cleaning Maestro. To build this you'll need:
   
   • 3 Silver Spoon - found in the Dining Hall
     
   • 3 Iron Plate - found in the Physics Lab
     
   • 3 Antiseptic Solution - found in the Nurse's Office
     
   • 3 Venus Flytrap - found in the Garden
     
   • 3 Whistle - found in the Gymnasium
   Maybe you noticed this, but none of the rooms line up with the ones used for Cheat Sheet. There are 10 rooms total, but each Skill item uses 5 of the rooms needing a quantity of 3 from an item of each room. So i would not recommend to try and produce cleaner items and gatheritems at the same time! Focus on one task at a time & try to produce Mom's warm milk!
   
   Now you need the rough things you need to look out for, but i recommend at least looking on my Suggestion for your first playthrough!

First off, you need some people to clean, about 4 people should make it kinda stable, you can play around with the numbers however you feel. With time, as they get better you can downscale this.
Some people make "boys & girl teams", as in they send the girls cleaning or collecting for Mom's Warm Milk.
I say you take the best Cleaners / the ones you want to do the cleaning, but taking the (other) Girls off to gather Kitchen and Nurse's Office is not a bad idea. They are less in Numbers than the boys anyways, so you have the smaller team working on the Support / Supply & this way cann overview the Food production on one page, to check if someones is close to passing out.

**Side Note: Always look at each Character, specially the ones in Rooms with -2 or -3 HP and make sure they dont pass out! If they do, you loose that person for the next 3 days wich can in fact cripple all other tasks if to many people fall out at the same time!

For the Skill increase items: again, first we should focus on Cheat Sheet. This means we need to gather in the Data Center & Music Room (-3HP), Art Room (-2HP), Library and Classroom (-1HP).
Effectively we want to set some boys in each room - but the boys that go to the -3HP-rooms need to Switch with the -1HP-rooms regularly. This way, in 2 work days, everybody looses -4 HP.

• The Boy(s) in the Art room loose 2x -2 HP
  
• The Boys going from Data Center & Music Room to Library and Classroom loose -3 and then -1
  
• The Boys going from Library and Classroom to Data Center & Music Room loose -1 and then -3

Anyways, if thats to much work for you, no worries! Just play like you want, i'm merely makeing suggestions of what i think is the most effective way to do things :P
** You dont have to apply this on day 1. On your first day the School is clean and you dont actually need Cleaners...
Cleaners: Toko, Celeste
Gatherers:
Kyoko > Nurse's Office.
Sayaka, Hina, Sakura and Junko > Kitchen.

Cleaners: Chihiro, Yasuhiro
Gatherers:
Makoto > Music Room
Kiyotaka > Library
Byakuya > Data Center
Mondo > Classroom
Leon > Art Room
Hifumi > well, i just stuck him to the Library so he could annoy Taka :P

After the day (if everybody was full HP before) only Makoto and Byakuya will have gone down from red to orange. Now you switch:

Cleaners: Chihiro, Yasuhiro
Gatherers:
Makoto > Classroom
Kiyotaka > Data Center
Byakuya > Library
Mondo > Music Room
Leon > Art Room
Hifumi > well, ofc he's following Taka xD

Everybody lost 4 HP and is orange. Every Character has around 5 HP, sometimes they can take on -6 HP and only the turn blue.

Rule of thumb is: A red Character can go in any room (-1, -2, -3), a orange one can go in Rooms with -2 and -1 without passing out. A Blue Character always need to rest or get Food.

In my case i actually got enough materials to craft a Milk to Charge them up again, depending on your Luck that might not happen for you. In that case, either do only -2 and -1 Rooms this round OR let everybody rest. Decide what you are most comfortable with.
Either way, you need to get your characters back to red! For this sooner or later your Mom's warm milk production should kick in!

With time you'll be able to construct "Cheat Sheets", apply those on your gatherers. The whole process is exponantial so it should get easier with time. Keep an eye on your girls team and your cleaness! Change up the Numbers of cleaners as you see fit, if you need more cleanness take some more, when they get better and you clean more than you need - scale them down bit by bit.

like this you should have no problem getting through the days and filling your report cards on each character! For help with any Monokuma task (if you do want to make one or need help with the obligatory Warlockuma) look at the Monokumas Backups Section!

*** will be updated as i play through all endings *** done

Day 48: normal Workday but your last time to use the "Work mode" menu! So use all Cheat Sheets etc on that day or they are lost!
Day 49: Holiday. You'll be asked to turn in Warlockuma, before having 2 Freetime periods.
Day 50: Monokuma will remind you that this is the last day of this School Life. You'll get 2 more Free time periods.
Day 51: Monokuma will call you to the Hall where you'll see the Endings of each Character you unlocked.

• If you dont complete Warlockuma, nothing happens. you get a lil scolding and Monokuma says you cant start your real School life if its not done - so he makes you stay and do it. It just lets you save and you can start NG+ from this save, starting a new 50 day period.
  
• If you do complete Warlockuma, Monokuma will praise you and you'll recieve 4 Trip Tickets for the next 4 Freetime periods, in addition to 200 Coins. Monokuma will announce that he wants you to work harder, so he says he'll kill someone if the Class didnt hit the Goal in time. At this Moment Warlockuma springs to life and fights him off
  Usami gives you the Key for the Entrance Gate and sets Class #78 free before shutting down suddenly. When everybody leaves the Characters you have at 10 Hearts will stay behind and talk to you - rewarding you with their undergarnments xD ... wich you need for the Achievement "Seriously, you shouldnt have" (collect every present possible)
  
• If you complete all Backups.... nothing happens. You get the same speech from monokuma where he claims you didnt build anything and slacked off, until you present Warlockuma. Its just the Warlockuma Ending, but you have some Trip Tickets to spare (i had 8 left since i did eacht trip with 1 full heart and didnt start anyone new sicne i knew i wouldnt get him/her to 10).

There are 14 Character Endings, one for each of them. To get a Character Ending you'll need to get them to 10 Hearts, you can look this up in the Love Chart Monokuma showes you each Freetime period, if you talk to him (more on this in the "Trips & Trip Tickets" & "Freetime mode" section).
In one Playthrough you will only get enough Tickets/Time for 5 Characters (even if you get every Goal & get a full Heart every encounter). In the Gym while everybody leaves these Characters stay behind to talk to you, and you'll be asked if you wanna talk to them & if yes to whom. Once you picked one, they'll tell you something and ask you about something personal you've learned in their Report Cards Conversations. (you cant fail, if you pick wrong you'll have to pick again) Simply answer and finish the conversation, get the reward item and go to the next person / finish the playthrough.

In Work mode menu you can do 4 things:

1. Set tasks
   
2. Construct
   
3. (use) Personal Effects
   
4. (use) The e-Handbook

As you can see you have 2 groups, the boys and the girls. They have no other difference tho, so you can just ignore this, if you want.

• 1) Next thing you'll likely notice is that each character has 2 Stats: gathering (left) and cleaning (right). All Character stat out different, Makoto has 3 in gathering but 2 in cleaning while Kiyotaka has 2 in gathering but 3 in cleaning. They level these skills up when in use (means when you send them off to do the respective task), every level makes the character more efficient in that skill/task. These Level get carried over in New Game +, thats why you should max as many as you can in your first Playthrough.
  After the Character pic you'll see an Icon representing each characters HP.
  HP are affected by the tasks you asign. Sending a Character to search a room takes up 1-3 HP, making them clean takes 1 and letting them rest restores HP (you can also use food for this).
  Every Character has around 5 HP, sometimes they can take on -6 HP and only then turn blue but you should not expect this.
  Rule of thumb is: A pink character is more efficient and can withstand more than a red one. A red Character can go in any room (-1, -2, -3), a orange one can go in Rooms with -2 and -1 without passing out. A Blue Character always needs to rest or get Food. If you have a grey one... you dun-goofed!
• 2) Icons of each Task / room. The leftmost is the Dorm (red), where you recover HP, the second one is Cleaning Duty / Halls (blue). All other Icons / Rooms are for gathering (green).
  Under the room you have selected, you can see how much HP will be used gathering there. Depending on the room it will be either -3, -2, -1 (or HP restoring at the Dorms).
  
• 3) The Bar shows you how clean the School is, when it drops to zero Monokuma will make the whole Class clean and you'll not be able to asign tasks for that day. Avoid this!

The Construction Menu has 4 important tabs.
Goals means Monokuma Task, its esentially the Monokuma Backup you have to build. Right of the Screen you can see what yu need and if you have everything collected & build that you need, you can build the Monokuma Backup.

Tool items make you more efficient one way or another. They can double materials collected in a room or make you loose less HP for your work. These are permanent buffs that last the whole playthrough! Keep an eye on those when you have the time / rescouces!

This is a very important tab! Here you craft food to regain HP (like Mom's warm milk), cure Unconsciousness (Nonsenzu Bean), give a Character hyper Energy -means the pink glow- (Spirit Bomb, instand Clean ups (the vacuums) and skill level ups for Gathering (Cheat sheet) and Cleaning (Cleaning Maestro)!
So much options! So helpfull!

Truly an unfortunate name so let me rephrase it: its the "soon to be - processed goods" tab.
Here you can craft your Goods / Materials you collected into working parts for the Monokuma Backups etc. Most things, specially later, need already build the backups. This is the tab you'll probably see the most out of all Construction tabs.

you can use the items you got or crafted. They are organized from top to bottom in this order: Food items (HP restorative), Consciousness restorative, Instant Clean-ups and finally Instant Skill level ups. Most of them are used on one person, some are general (like cleanness) and some are for everyone.
you can see Monokumas stored /build, but if you get to the end of a task Monokuma will take them away and the counter goes to zero ofc. Still its handy if you somehow forgot if you're done already.
you can see what you already build with your Marteials
you can see how much of each Material you have stacked currently! - handy if you want to (for example) farm for Warlockuma in advance!

As usual. You can save & load from here - but since you can do that practically anytime, even in dialogue its just looking nice. You can also see the presents and cards.

In the 50 days, you'll be tasked to build around 7 of 10 possible Monokumas (no repetitions!), these are in randm order, so i cant make a Guide on a schedule or anything. But, the first one is always Monokuma Casanova, and the last one always Warlockuma. In the tutorial you'll build Casanova, that one is obligatory. Warlockuma at the end too, if you want to succed.


* Pictrue: this is how the Monokuma will look like
* Name: duh.
* Parts: you have to craft these from materials, to build a monokuma backup. ONLY the parts are written out here, not the full recipe!
* Total Materials: How many Materials you need to build it in total. Raw Materials used directly are normal, Materials used for Parts underlined.
* if someone wants / need it, i might even add wich rooms they are in so you dont even have to look that up :P

**if i made any error, pls contact me! Its a long list and i'm just human :P

Freetime Mode works similar to Freetime in the main game, just that your Classmates are all around the main Hall / Dorm and waiting for you to talk to them. As before, you can only spend time with one of them before time passes - but you have one new option:

• Spending Time: gets you back to the usual you encountered in the normal game. You can use this to fill out the remaining Character Reports - you should finish this before doing trips
  
• Use a Trip Ticket: you'll use one of you earned Trip Tickets to go on a trip around the school, this gives you the opportunity to earn Hearts! 10 Hearts are required to unlock the ending of a character, you can earn 0 / 0.1 / 0.5 / 1 heart in each trip, depending on your choises & random chance. Check out the "Trips & Trip Tickets" section for more on this)
  
• (cancel)

While in Freetime mode, you can also talk to Monokuma before you talk to the other students. He stands left of where you start when the Mode begins.
Monokuma will tell you who likes you and pull up a Chart where the hearts you earned via Trip Ticket are visualized. You need to get a Character to 10 hearts to see their end at Day 51. You can only see 5 Endings per Playthrough though, so you are required to replay this mode at least 3-4 times if you want to see everything or get the Achievement "School's Out Forever" (see all school mode endings).

Monokumas Chart should be pretty self-explanatory but for the sake of completeness:
All your classmates are listed at the bottom.
If you take them on a Trip you get 0 / 0.1 / 0.5 / 1 hearts depending on the dialogue choise you picked (Trigger Happy Heart Events count in too). With time & trips you make, you'll get them to the finish line at the top wich is set at the 10 Hearts you need for a Ending Scene.

1. Kyoko was done in the last Playthrough and reseted to 0 Hearts, but her Badge shows that her Ending is already been cleared. (You can raise her to 10 hearts again and see it a second time, but you dont have to.)
   
2. In this Playthrough the Girls Sakura, Hina and Toko where taken to enough trips to get them to 10 Hearts
   
3. Sayaka just joined the "10-Heart-Club" so she's cheering with Makoto (probably only she finds out that hes been spending time with the other girls too :P)

First this:
https://cs2bus.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=680253052
You'll likely need it, its simplistic but efficient. I will give you help here, but i wont list any Dialogue Choises etc here so if you need help on those you should check out that guide.


A Trip is a different kind of Dialogue, but pretty similar to the "spend time" option. If you choose to take someone on a Trip, you'll get to choose the destination:
At each destination, you'll have to make a dialogue choice! The possible Choices presented are randomly genreated for each Room, but the Guide i pinned above listed all potions - so look up wich of the three presented to you is the one that gives you the most hearts and pick that one.
Each Choise gives you either 0 , 0.1 , 0.5 or 1 full heart, so you can max out multiple Characters per playthrough if you have enough Tickets & pick/get good choices.

Sometimes (infrequently) instead of presenting the player with a dialogue choice, the character you invited will have a Moment of Doubt, a "Trigger Happy Heart".
This works like a Bullet Time Event, just that you always have the same 4 options to pick against thier weakness: Affirmation, Negation, Affirmation or Negation. Wich one gives you the most points is written (again) in the Guide above at the very end of each characters section.

The Options of every room are random, but ome have more positive ones than others so you have a higher chance to get a better result! For reference: usually a Room has 4 positive choices out of 9 (means great&good combined, usually 3 good + 1 great / 2 good + 2 great). The best Room of each Character has more positive Choices than that though.
I'll list these "best rooms" for each character now... btw, Spoilers if havent played Chapter 2 & 6 in the main game somehow...

• Kiyotaka Ishimaru: Garden.
  3 great choices, 3 good ones, 3 bad ones.
  
• Byakuya Togami: Music Room or School Store
  both have 2 great choices, 3 good ones, 4 bad ones.
  
• Mondo Owada: Garden or Dining Hall.
  Both have 2 great choices, 2 good ones, 5 bad ones.
  
• Leon Kuwata: Rec Room.
  2 great choices, 2 good ones, 5 bad ones.
  
• Hifumi Yamada: Dining Hall
  3 great, 3 good and 3 bad choices.
  
• Yasuhiro Hagakure: All **except** School store and Rec Room are fine
  and have 3 great & 2 good choices!
  
• Chihiro Fujisaki: Rec Room
  3 great choices, 2 good ones, 4 bad ones.
  
• Sayaka Maizono: Library or Music Room.
  Both have 2 great choices, 3 good ones, 4 bad ones.
  
• Kyoko Kirigiri: All **except** School store and Music Room are fine
  and have 2 great & 3 good choices!
  
• Aoi Asahina: School Store.
  3 great, 2 good, 4 bad ones.
  
• Toko Fukawa/Genocide: Library.
  3 great, 2 good, 4 bad ones.
  
• Sakura Ogami: School Store.
  3 great, 2 good, 4 bad ones.
  
• Celestia Ludenberg: Rec Room.
  2 great, 3 good, 4 bad ones.
  
• Junko Enoshima/Mukuro: Dining Hall, Rec Room, Music Room.
  2 great, 3 good, 4 bad ones.

(Monokumas Love Chart is explained in the Freetime mode section)

1. School's Out For Summer
   Not much to add... play through school mode once, dont even have to build any Monokuma Backup, just pass 50 days how ever you want and this Achievement is yourse.
   
2. School's Out Forever
   You get this if you saw every School mode Ending. There are 14 Character Endings (and a End with no Warlockuma build < dont know if this actually counts as an Ending)
   
3. Seriously, You Shouldn't Have
   You get an special Item for every Character Ending. So if you want to get all presents, you have to get all Characters.
   
4. Despair's Last Reward
   Simply get ALL other Achievements in Danganronpa, these include School mode Achievements.

You can get report cards filled much faster in School mode, since each day only takes 1 work period (about 30 secs maybe?) instead of endless dialogue to get to the next Freetime period! Edit: this is a prerequisite to get warlockuma ending!
Either farm Monocoins in Trails or via School mode (Warlockuma rewards you withh 200 Monocoins flat.) Depends on what you like more to spend your grinding time on, Trials are faster but school mode might be more relaxing.

1. SAVE after getting a Monokuma Goal!
   If you actually try to do all the Backups, i recommend saving right when you get the task and then playing on another save. That way if you miss the deadline because you just didnt collect the items you needed via random badluck, you can go back and hope for some better days :P
   
2. Also, while farming for all the Endings - save before each Trip. If you get a Choice Set with the best option beeing only a GOOD one instead of a GREAT one, reload. That way every character only takes 10 trip tickets - so you can stretch that max 5 end per playthrough limit :P
   
3. When not farming for Cheat Sheets, try to collect all Tools timely (around 1st to 2nd Goal), so you ma out your material collection
   
4. Usually a Level 9 Cleaner is enough to clean the mess of the day before, if he has the first Upgrade, so you only need one. If you get unlucky, you can asign a second cleaner for 1 day every 5-6 days to get back to the top of the bar. A level 9 Cleaner with both upgrades never needs a second hand :)
   
5. If you have spare Materials and finished your Goal before the deadline look at the Backup list i provided and start building Warlockuma. These Parts can be used by other Backups but are mandatory anyways for Warlockuma, so you 100% dont waste them.
   
6. Its an old, abandoned Guide but it had some tricks i didnt know and was more helpfull than the others that i found (- if you even find one). So i recommend to at least snoop through it...
   https://cs2bus.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=683190108
   
   Most important things mentioned:
   
   • For the first Playthrough:
     

     Originally posted by School Mode Tips/Tricks Guide by Ally:

     What should I be making?

     Make as many Cheat Sheets and Cleaning Maestro's as you can manage. Make sure you apply them to your characters before the 50 days are up as no items carry over playthroughs, only stats do. ALSO, make a few "Mum's Warm Milk" as these restore everyone's HP up to Max.

     and
     

     Originally posted by School Mode Tips/Tricks Guide by Ally:

     What should I do first?

     GATHERING PHASE: First you should pick 2-4 people to be your "cleaners" and the rest should focus on gathering. I would recommend starting with 4 cleaners and as they level up I would drop this down to 2 as they will be able to handle the cleaning procedure.

   • Originally posted by School Mode Tips/Tricks Guide by Ally:

     Never let yourself get "knocked out" as this lowers the amount of "free time" you will get

7. Also this "Guide". Its basically a short step by step to get to the "Schools out forever" Achievement, but hase a lot of good info compiled in a pretty short format:
   https://cs2bus.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=641731312&searchtext=school+mode

As of this day, i consider this Guide finished! If i missed a topic you need / want explanation on or that you think i should add though, just write down below!

If it did, maybe leave a comment or like the guide to lift my spirits? :D