Using SIMS achievement points to cash in for rewards

[TeacherDave]

Hi

We currently use the PupilRewardPoints.co.uk system and I'm investigating moving across to record achievement points on SIMS. How do schools convert achievement points into physical rewards for pupils? Does this have to be through third party software like Vivo?

Many thanks

Dave

[tombry]

I use discover to tip me off when a student hits either 50/100/150... points (both good and bad).

 

I then generate a reward sheet which they turn in for a candy bar, or out of school pass (go to the shop/home at lunch), or a front of queue pass (jump the lunch line).

 

100 points just leads to a bigger candy bar

[rpwillis]

I dont' think that you could do anything in Sims itself, but if you extract the points out using command reporter or similar you can put them into an external system. You could just load then into a csv file and manage via Excel. I like tombry's Discover way as well.

 

I've seen implementations putting them into:

eposNow - Actually an online shop, so you'll need to use their REST api

SQL Server - Not sure what front-end they were using on top of it. Possibly just Access.

SharePoint - Students, rewards and point in separate lists, with some workflows and CSOM on a page to put a front end on it.

 

Anything like this would require some development, even if it's only some scripting to load.

[Seb1780]

We use the SIMS widgets to keep an eye on the total reward points by year group and every few weeks we run a report to Excel, take off previously issued points then merge to Word to send out "cheques" for the balance in multiples of 25 points. The children can then spend them in the library on anything from stationery to iTunes vouchers. It takes all of an hour per month to manage, the hardest part is knowing what the kids will want - we have a surplus of One Direction merchandise after a steep fall in their popularity.

[TeacherDave]

Thanks very much for your help, I'll take this forward to the relevant powers for advice.

Dave

[PhilNeal]

Homepage widgets are a great way of monitoring all sorts of things that are happening in the school including rewarding prizes when totals are reached. Discover can send you a message to the message widget as @tomby describes. I was in a primary school on Friday where the head watches behaviour incidences on the homepage and sends for children when necessary (being sent for within minutes has a powerful reinforcement effect)

[ITGuyWestMidlands]

I use comand line reporter to pull the points out every night and drop them in a sql database. It pulls each individual achievemnt. Every Friday I have an addioanly program that runs that counts up the points for each use and checks their totals against our reward thresholds. If a student is due an award it logs it in a separete database.

 

This database is then presented to house leaders via a frog widget I built. The widget allows the house leaders to see who has achieved a reward so they can write them a certificate and a voucher ready for presentation. The leader then marks the reward as processed and updates the database. It works a treat

 

I also created a couple of other frog widgets that show students their own individual achievements with descriptions and a graph with totals for each house and year group.

[haldarulon]

I use comand line reporter to pull the points out every night and drop them in a sql database. It pulls each individual achievemnt. Every Friday I have an addioanly program that runs that counts up the points for each use and checks their totals against our reward thresholds. If a student is due an award it logs it in a separete database.

 

This database is then presented to house leaders via a frog widget I built. The widget allows the house leaders to see who has achieved a reward so they can write them a certificate and a voucher ready for presentation. The leader then marks the reward as processed and updates the database. It works a treat

 

I also created a couple of other frog widgets that show students their own individual achievements with descriptions and a graph with totals for each house and year group.

 

Hi ITGuyWM, could you give us a little more info on this process please.

really interested in implementing something like that!

 

cheers.