[SIMS] Fixing historical issues with Course Manager

[MissingDatum]

So, I've inherited a bunch of courses for our post-16s, but the students were all placed on memberships of the old A2 courses at the start Y12.

 

Now, in year 13, having received as AS result, some of them have withdrawn from the A2 courses.

 

What is the most sensible (and fast!) way of reconciling their course memberships such that they were on an AS course, which they successfully completed, and then dropped the A2 for the subject? This is made somewhat more complicated, because some students were 'transferred' to the new 2-year A-Levels, but the HoDs claim they were always planning to offer the new 2-year without the students sitting AS exams (because they thought the students would perform poorly.)

 

Obviously, this is all thanks to census day coming up this week.

 

Thoughts?

[BKGarry]

So I just need to clarify something.

 

Are they doing the 2 year A level all together? Or are they doing AS to A2

 

If they are doing AS to A2 then these should be treated as two separate courses all together. Both 1 year long and if they complete the AS and not going into the A2 then they should be deleted from the A2 (as they have not reached the 6 week cut off)

 

If they are on 2 year A they will all need removing from the AS and a new 2 year A Level course created.

 

Also, assuming your year 12s are now in two year, you will have to create new ones with new QANa for those ones with course links enabled and remove the course links on the old AS/A2 courses.

 

I hope I have made sense there?

[RootsSchImp]

There's a process, Tools, Academic Mgmt, Update Course Memberships

 

This should align courses with students timetabled classes. I would run that first because it might sort you out, but I'm not 100% it'll remove Memberships where no class exists so you might still have to edit your left after AS kids.

[MissingDatum]

Sadly neither of these will sort me out, because the situation is that this is all historic. The classes were not correctly linked to courses, and no AS courses even existed last summer.

 

The situation is as follows.

 

Last summer:

All students initially entered on old-style A2 qualification in Y12, according to Course Manager

No students entered for old-style AS qualifications, according to Course Manager

Some students then transferred to new-style A Level, no changes made in Course Manager

 

Now:

Students who were on old-style A2 in SIMS course actually sat AS exams in Summer

Students who were transferred to new A level, outside of sims, did not sit exams

Students are dropping old-style A2 courses

Students are dropping new A level courses

No students have a record of having been enrolled in AS Courses, despite some of them having AS results in their examination history

 

I am looking for advice on resolving this so that our course history correctly reflects the actuality, before census day. Ideally in a way that will correctly define start, end and planned end dates without me having to go and edit them all manually.

 

Hope that clarifies

[BKGarry]

OK,

 

What I would do is create a new AS course in SIMS, with the QAN etc and then enrol the students with a custom date range of last year.

[Seb1780]

I think that whatever you do with the historic data would be pointless as your school has (or at least should have) already returned a census for October 2015 in which the students would have been enrolled on the two-year courses. It is against this census that the EFA and others will compare this week's data to ascertain completion rates etc.

 

If I were in your situation I'd do the following:-

 

1 - Make sure this years census reflect the current reality

2 - Document the findings of your research and get them acknowledged by the powers that be

3 - Prepare your case for when the EFA produce your funding statement and then raise a case with them

 

I had to do something similar (but on a much smaller scale) when it was noted that there were historic inaccuracies in past censuses here.

[MissingDatum]

This is pretty much exactly the advice I didn't want to acknowledge. On the other hand, since the AS is part of the A2 exams, would this affect things for those that remained on the A2 pathway?

 

Seems to me I would be best off setting up AS, A2 and 2-year A-level courses, initially recording everyone as being on the A2s with full teaching hours, adding everyone that remained on the A2 courses at the end of summer onto AS courses with no planned qualification hours, and transferring students from the A2 to 2-year course. Then record the people who drop 2-Year courses as withdrawals for personal reasons, and delete the ones that drop A2 courses. Then scramble like a headless chicken trying to justify the cock-up.

[CAM]

I'm on a similar problem. All my Year 12s last year were put on the old AS levels as I wasn't informed of any changes and when asking "Are they on the 2 year linear course?" I was told "They are doing AS" so the QAN was just re-used. Found out yesterday afternoon that they are doing a different AS level with a different QAN number! Best I can do is backdate the QAN in the AS course and pray our retention doesn't fall through the floor. Edited October 6, 2016 by CAM

[iansimpson888]

Hi,

 

Not sure if this is too late to help you (or you may have read this info already) but Section 5.10 of the DfE Guidance Document (2016_to_2017_School_Census_Guide_V1_2.pdf) may give you some help. In particular section 5.10.17 (page 120 onwards) provides several scenarios for dealing with As/A2 scenarios.

 

Thanks

 

2016_to_2017_School_Census_Guide_V1_2.pdf