Narrative Reports

[CarpeDiem]

Hi, we don't currently use SIMS for our narrative school reports (we use a third-party provider) but our HT has asked me to look at what options are available? What softwares do you use for reports if you don't use SIMS? Thanks in anticipation

[Bev]

We use a website called Matrep. The staff really like it, it allows them to pre-fill some information, copy and paste levels from spreadsheets, and when they are writing the actual text they can copy from another child and it changes the names and pronouns etc.

 

When everything is entered, it will produce the complete report, but I am not keen on the format provided, so I export all the results/comments etc and mail merge into a Word Doc, but that's not necessary, just me being fussy. Saying that, it took me a little while to set up the Mail Merge but now even that is very quick.

 

 

Prior to this, we used excel spreadsheets which I imported into SIMs, it was an extremely painful process. This is fantastic in comparision.

[CarpeDiem]

Hi Bev, can I ask how many pupils you work with? Matrep mentions 'one form entry' and 'over 1500 pupils we recommend you split the job into two accounts'? We work with 11 form entry and an average year count is 1800 pupils? Thanks

[Bev]

We are a small middle school with 3 form entry, so we have just 320 pupils.

I think it would be easy enough to split it by year groups but the initial setup might be quite painful.

 

You can do a free trial though, I'm sure I set my whole school up before I committed to the system, as being a middle school we don't fit any of the usual formats so I needed to see if it would work for our situation.

 

I would also add that I've found them very quick to respond to any questions, and more than once I've asked for a feature and it's been implemented within a few hours.

Edited May 13, 2015 by Bev

[Sagima]

We use a website called Matrep. The staff really like it, it allows them to pre-fill some information, copy and paste levels from spreadsheets, and when they are writing the actual text they can copy from another child and it changes the names and pronouns etc.

 

When everything is entered, it will produce the complete report, but I am not keen on the format provided, so I export all the results/comments etc and mail merge into a Word Doc, but that's not necessary, just me being fussy. Saying that, it took me a little while to set up the Mail Merge but now even that is very quick.

 

 

Prior to this, we used excel spreadsheets which I imported into SIMs, it was an extremely painful process. This is fantastic in comparision.

 

Our teachers used to get summoned to the DH's office if they submitted reports that looked like they were based on a template (I don't know how they manage sufficient variation for all our students). They also used to have an annual review on the correct use of a semi-colon. (The old DH was an english teach - the new one is a maths teacher so I'm not sure if that will continue)