[sims] Academic Year Early

[studio]

I was wondering if anyone had ever started their academic year in the middle of August in SIMS even though it doesn't really start until September?

 

I'm asking as we use things that use Groupcall Export and this year they didn't sync until the 1 Sept, but staff wanted to start using them in the summer to prepare for the new year.

 

Thanks

[bobsmith]

I've started the year early in Facilty CMIS before now, and we used third party software involving groupcall exporter.

 

A quick phone call to them got it updated to the new academic year straight away....

[RLR]

We wanted to do this so we could get all new student accounts ready before September. Although I think it is possible, our Data Manager didn't want to do it in-case any students didn't turn up. This would mean students would be on our census data but never actually attended and causes a lot of work, or so I'm told.

[CAM]

I was told during training that if they don't cross the school's threshold, you can just delete them once you have confirmed they will never attend. If they attend for even one morning, they are yours for life and go on the census.

[Jamman960]

we've started the academic year in August for a few years now with no issues, I believe we still admit pupils on their day of arrival though

[studio]

we've started the academic year in August for a few years now with no issues, I believe we still admit pupils on their day of arrival though

 

Do you know how you did this? And did it cause any issues with census or attendance?

[PhilNeal]

It won't affect the census or attendance figures if you start the academic year early; many schools do. I would be concerned about admitting children before they actually join the school. If they get a start date of June, I'd expect to be recording attendance from then.

[bobsmith]

you can hold them in the pre-admissions area until the start of term (when they actually arrive).

 

if you want to get them into their classes quickly you can play with the .slk files to export and import teaching group memberships very quickly.

[Jamman960]

Do you know how you did this? And did it cause any issues with census or attendance?

 

We essentially set the period between the AC Year start date and the actual start date as holiday so attendance didn't expect the pupils in.

[vikpaw]

There are a few documents / guides on this on Capita's My Account site. At least there used to be on SupportNet I'm sure I've seen them on the new site.

Mostly things to be concerned with are dates, and how you do the promotion, so you don't add new starters and then promote them. The guide should discuss any relevant caveats.