Report Writing

[TwoZeroAlpha]

Hi All,

My SLT is looking for a new way to do our academic reports. So what software do you lot use?

At the moment each teacher/form tutor/HOY etc writes a single A4 report for each child (so 14x subjects plus 1 pastoral)

At around 450 pupils we're going through tonnes of paper. The run we had last time resulted in over half of all reports being reprinted due to errors (wrong spelling, font, class, name, border alignment, you name it).

Ideally I'm after a DB style bit of software where staff can pick the student and enter a few comments and then it all gets packaged into one printed page.

I may be totally out of luck, but I eagerly await your suggestions.

[sparkeh]

Well....we use Report Assist.
Each teacher has it on their laptops. You can export your students from MIS and split them up on to memory sticks for the class teachers to import their class onto their laptops. RA has a comment bank that you can construct reports from and its all bundled up into one report. Then the reports are all remerged into a master copy.

In theory this should be great. However its a headache every year as I have to say RA has never been the most stable of programs and reports are regularly lost and merges fail. However, some people swear by it (whereas I just swear at it). But might be worth a look as if it works for you it could be great.

[imiddleton25]

We could not find anything we liked when we looked so ended up
writting our own we use SQL 2005 for the database we link that to markbooks ( Excel 2007) were all marks are recorded the we have an InfoPath form that populates from that data which when printed is their report ( only one person prints the reports this way saves all the mistakes)
Was a pain to set up but now its great and saves loads of hassle.

[jcollings]

We are starting to use SIMS Profiles. It seems pretty good so far.

Our longer term plan is to allow access to these on the parent part of our learning gateway.

[bossman]

We are starting to use SIMS Profiles. It seems pretty good so far.

Our longer term plan is to allow access to these on the parent part of our learning gateway.

Ditto here and I must say it works rather well.

[TwoZeroAlpha]

Is SIMS Profiles a standard bit of SIMS or is it a purchased add-on?

I'd like to integrate with existing systems where possible to save on data replication.

[Sylv3r]

We use SIMS profiles here too. Staff only have the write one Smart Target for each student so we don't go through reams and reams off paper per report.

Page 1 - Front Cover
Page 2 - Intro Letter
Page 3 - Tutor Comment
Page 4 / 5 - Subject Comments

All attendance and assessment data is pulled in via SIMS also into the report.

Profiles comes with SIMS, but we paid for extra Profiles webpart to add into our Learning Gateway. I think with the December release parents will be able to access documents such as Profiles Reports via our Learning Gateway.

[dhicks]

So what software do you lot use?

I figured this had to be about the world's simplest webapp - for each teacher, for each class they teach, for each pupil in that class, store some text - so I'm writing one. So far I have LDAP integration with Active Directory so teachers can log in with their normal network username and password, and they can save and recall chunks of text for each report. I just need to add an approvals system, so people can review each other's report and and then senior management can check things over, and get SIMS to cough up a list of classes and pupils for each teacher.

--
David Hicks

[TwoZeroAlpha]

@dhicks, when you get that finalized that would be awesome. I was thinking of trying to put a php/MySQL app together, but my code skills swing between limited and non-existant.

Sounds like an excellent plan though.

Looks like I'm going with SIMS profiles for now... joy!

[WebbA]

we just use SIMS as well, and insert a grade and a comment for each student, then this gets piped out to a printable word document. (All the money sims has and they still use mailmerge!) anyway it works fine and with SLG, makes a good parental report to view online

[lionsl2005]

We use primary Report writer. it works similar to ReportAssist. we installed on all theachers pcs and laptops. works pretty well. we are happy customers more than 5 years now.