[sims] Full Written Reports

[tben2505]

Dear all,

 

I'd like to know your thoughts on usin Profiles for full written reports.

 

I much prefer Assessment, but it doesn't offer enough flexibility in terms of max character limits (something I really think should be implemented via the gradeset area) and also, crucially, reviewing the data for Form teachers/heads of year is virtually impossible.

 

I think we'll have to use Profiles but I feel very uncomfortable with it - anyone got any tips/advice or other ways they do things?!

 

I should point out we are starting with SIMS from September from a different MIS.

 

Cheers!

 

T

[vikpaw]

It is the tool designed for the job and includes the ability to use comment banks. However it can be quite restrictive and complex.

 

I always used Assessment; form tutors and HoYs can see the marksheets.

 

To get around the character limit which only affected primary, we had 3 comment aspects and laid them out consecutively on the template.

[Mistert89]

Caveat if they paste in, make them paste from notepad, and with no otherwise it ignored the text.....

Also, if you have In Touch, you can email directly from Individual Report generation... Profiles are excluded from IT mailing

[SouthCoastSaint]

We have used profiles for the last few years. I really like it now. As long as you are confident that Course Manager is showing the right classes/courses it's quite easy to implement. We don't on the whole use comment banks for the report, just a handful of subject choose to, however we also have a targets area and most subjects use comment banks for here. You have plenty of opportunity to edit the reports, both when in review mode and at the point of printing.

[tben2505]

It is the tool designed for the job and includes the ability to use comment banks. However it can be quite restrictive and complex.

 

I always used Assessment; form tutors and HoYs can see the marksheets.

 

To get around the character limit which only affected primary, we had 3 comment aspects and laid them out consecutively on the template.

 

But for example, in 6th form, a head of year would have to look at a marksheets with 20-odd subject's aspects, say 3 each (2 grades and a comment) so the marksheet would extend to potentially 60-75 aspects - did the HOYs/FTs find that OK to check?

 

I would much prefer to use AM as you can combine with in touch, too - but it's the review part that concerns me most...

 

Perhaps I just need more practise and confidence with profiles!

 

Cheers

 

Tom

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

We have used profiles for the last few years. I really like it now. As long as you are confident that Course Manager is showing the right classes/courses it's quite easy to implement. We don't on the whole use comment banks for the report, just a handful of subject choose to, however we also have a targets area and most subjects use comment banks for here. You have plenty of opportunity to edit the reports, both when in review mode and at the point of printing.

 

I may have to come and see you! Where's your school?!

[vikpaw]

It depends on your school and the workflow. I built reports that could be used for proof reading of comments. The grades and stuff are easy enough to check on a marksheet, plus you can whack in some analysis rows at the bottom, and see graphs live, if they want to delve into it.

 

Truth is, it's not ideal, but most people i've had to deal with that are in charge of reporting have always opted for printing out reports for proofing, and so it doesn't really matter how it works online. I'm yet to convince someone to proof online, though giving them the ability to modify the data would be a big selling point.

 

Depending on your time frame, you may want to start with AM7 and work on getting Profiles setup alongside.

[CAM]

Profiles is something I want to learn to use but I find it so absurdly complex. The workflow for maintaining and administering the Profiles reports seems overwhelming and complicated. It needs to be tweaked by Capita to make it more user friendly IMO.

[vikpaw]

I've never been a fan of having to open sessions, and lock them and not being able to go back, or whatever the complication is. AM7 was way more flexible for all it's limitations.

[SouthCoastSaint]

We are in Southampton. There are two sides to the admin of Profiles imo. Get your session set up correctly first - as long as you have all your courses for that year group in the comment bank and linked correctly to the course, all will be fine. Set your to and from dates and the correct students will display to teachers.

 

The second part of the admin is the get your output looking just as you wish it to. This can be done alongside the teachers writing the reports. I tweak my template then generate some profiles to view the finished product. Actually I generate often and that way can pick up any issues (for example wrong font pasted in, wrong section being picked up by my template). You can generate them as many times as you wish and each time, the linked doc gets updated. (The only issue this causes us is that Insight doesn't allow you to pick specific linked docs for publishing to the parent site and once we released unfinished reports).

 

Lastly, for reviewing, we let tutors review the profile and make any changes/bounce back to class teachers, then at that point write their pastoral report having read all the subject reports.

 

Profiles seems to get bad press but I think that's a bit unfair!