[sims] SIMS Teacher Comments

[CAM]

Does anyone use this? Is it a different reporting system to AM7 or a lot of pre-written copy/paste comments?

SIMS Teacher Comments / Cogent Computer Solutions | capita-sims.co.uk

Edited May 23, 2013 by CAM

[vikpaw]

It's just pre-written comment banks. I wonder how much it costs.

[Cache]

It's just pre-written comment banks. I wonder how much it costs.

 

Order form at the bottom of the page for UK prices (might help give you an indication, not sure if prices vary for you or not?) http://www.capita-sims.co.uk/files/sims/downloads/teacher_comments_order_form.pdf

[vikpaw]

When i wrote it i figured, you would have to apply and get a quote, that's surprising to have pricing open for the public to see. I love it when a company does that.

It's not that bad either, but we frown on the use of comment banks.

[PhilNeal]

When I first introduced the comment bank concept way back I went through 1000s of handwritten reports. At that time I found that teachers were actually using a very small set of phrases and often said "satisfactory" more often than I had expected!

[vikpaw]

Teachers don't use comment banks, but they do review the comments they wrote last year, and then copy and paste them to the new students and adapt them. There are only a few ways to say the same thing about ability. The uniqueness should come from personalised touches, like celebrating good pieces of work or referring to personal knowledge of their interests.

[CAM]

So long as teachers don't write the same thing for every student I have no problem with them using banks. Otherwise one student says "Oh, they wrote that in mine as well!" and the report loses all value.

[PhilNeal]

The key thing with comments is to say something specific. So often comments just say "satisfactory" but in a lot of words - that's both hand and computer generated.

[maturelady]

I very much agree with vikpaw’s comments – reports should be unique to each student. However there are many dangers if you start cutting and pasting from last year’s reports. It’s so easy to miss a ‘his’ when it should be ‘her’.

It would be very disappointing if any teacher used any supplied set of comments ‘as is’ and did no editing but sadly some will do this. To write reports using well-structured and grammatically correct phrases and sentences, and to be sure that the name is correct with all the he/shes, his/hers, him/hers being right has to be a much better starting point for any teacher. The alternative is a blank sheet of paper or an empty Word document. Most reporting software allows full editing function and/or sends the reports to Word once the bulk of the text is written. This is certainly the case in SIMS.

Another huge benefit of using such report writing tools is consistency. Heads can be sure that every teacher meets reporting requirements and of course the reports are stored centrally.

The SIMS Teacher Comments are for use in SIMS Profiles – a module every school has if they have the SIMS Assessment Suite.