One timetable - two schools in a MAT with some shared resources

[suebedo]

Hi

 

I work in a MAT which comprises of two schools. One is a girls 7 - 11 with a mixed sixth form. One is a boys 7 - 11. As each of the two schools have their own DFE number we have two SIMS. Teachers are used across the site, as are rooms where necessary. Some KS4 classes are joint due to numbers and efficiency.

 

We currently timetable in a spreadsheet for the whole school which is then manually entered into each T6. Keeping the three systems in sync is obviously difficult. Rotas, duties, meetings and everything else is done outside the spreadsheet as it can't cope with that and then input into each T6 and you end up with a bit of a jumble. When staff are teaching at the school they are not based in, NCC codes are used to show them as in use and therefore not available for cover.

 

I am working through the process of creating one timetable in T6, using the sites functionality (never used it before so I need to do some reading) and splitting each year into multiple bands. The girls timetable has two bands for each year group W & X and the boys can go into Y & Z. This will allow all the functions of T6 to be used and everything entered once only. I would have to ensure that all subject codes, staff codes and room codes match and that all appear in both versions of SIMS.

 

I want to create a "dummy" year 12 & 13 in the boys school that contains no students so that the timetable can go into the system correctly.

 

I would then open both schools Nova T6 with the same file and export this into the respective SIMSs.

 

I can't see any problems with this up to this point although I would love to speak with someone at SIMS to confirm my logic - I don't hold out much hope of that happening.

 

Possible Issues:

Lesson Monitor - I think as all students will be in correct classes, everything will be fine. The fact that there are bands W & X in the boys SIMS but there are no students in them should not cause issues.

 

Cover - I think that this will prove easier, the cover manager will have complete timetables in both SIMS rather than lots of blanking codes

 

Census - my only real worry. What issues would be raised by the dummy year 12 & 13 in the boys SIMS. No students would belong but would it generate warnings or errors that have to be fixed?

 

Workforce census - Currently, staff are assigned to a school and entered into Personnel in that school, If they teach in the other school they are added via Manage Classroom staff. This is just an extension to this process so that everyone who appears on the timetable has to be in both SIMS either in via Personnel for their "home" school or Manage Classroom Staff in the "visiting" school with the workforce census tick removed.

 

 

Does anyone think that I have missed anything vital that is going to bite me? I have to sell the idea to the Executive HT next week and want to make sure that I understand all the possible issues.

[Linfit]

That seems OK to me on the timetabling side. I think you should be OK with the pupil census: it doesn't matter if you have "empty" bands and classes provided all pupils are accounted for - that is they are assigned to a valid group (or educated off site, at college etc).

 

I presume you have some existing issues with the workforce census anyway as teachers teach across the schools. These would not be resolved by your solution, but I don't think there is a simple solution as long as the schools remain separate. The SWC collects "hours worked" for each teacher in each subject and year group: if they teach say 30% of their timetable at the school which is not their home school then they will be short on hours at their "home" school. I think you could fix this by manually editing the teacher hours before submission. There might also be an issue with the reconciliation of total staff hours in each school: that is the total hours lessons being taught will not match the total number of teacher hours produced by the Home schools return (as some hours are provided by teachers from the other school). I don't know if this would matter or even if it checks this - it should be in the detailed DFE notes.

[suebedo]

Thanks - yes, workforce census does require tweaking already due to the teaching across schools so it just makes it a slightly larger job.

 

i want to do a trial run of the census with empty years 12 & 13 in the boys school but haven't had an answer from our IT team yet. Otherwise it will mean buying in the time / equipment from a support team to do a test run.

 

Thanks

 

Sue

[Esteban_Child_of_the_Sun]

Last time I tried this (about 3 years ago) I found that I had to have different timetables for the different sites. so I had 2 identical copies of the timetable that we had to keep updating. The reason being that there are some things imported from SIMS into NOVA and trying to do that from 2 SIMS databases is more than NOVA can handle. I don't know with the emergence of MATS if Capita have amended NOVA since. You'll need to log a call with your local SIMS support unit for advice.

[RootsSchImp]

Wow, what an interesting problem!

 

One thing to check is how cover treats staff who are timetabled to teach a class with no students in it (as this will I think be the case for staff taking lessons at the 'other' school). You're still going to have to keep two nova files in sync as Esteban points out.

 

It seems to me like the logical endgame is one MIS for what is running as one school (even if lessons stay sing sex at ks3&4). I guess there are political issues about that though.

 

Good luck!

[suebedo]

I think I have most bases covered with keeping subject codes, staff codes and room codes in sync means that I can work with just the one Nova T6 file.

 

The cover issue should be OK I think as the Cover manager looks after both schools so will enter the absence on the teacher's "home" school and arrange cover from there - the "away" school does not need the absence recorded in as far as I can see and therefore SIMS doesn't even know that the teacher is away.

 

I have tried talking to SIMS (just to make life worse we get support direct from Capita, one schools is supported by Chelmsford and one by Bedford from what I can gather!!) and am still waiting 2 weeks later for a call back. I need to speak through the complete issue with someone higher than a call centre but that is proving impossible. I've worked in schools since 1995 but recently had a break and prior to that had little to do with SIMS for a few years. Coming back to find that you cannot talk to anyone is VERY frustrating (and I used to work in a local SIMS support team many moons ago so I know how valuable picking up the phone to work through a solution is).

 

I think SIMS is working on a solution for MATs but it is SIMS that it is concentrating on and not T6.

 

Thanks for your thoughts - I'll let you know if it works.

[Linfit]

I was thinking some more about this and I think Estoban has raised something I hadn't thought of. When you send the timetable to SIMS it uses internal codes for data items which are unique and used to link items in Nova with the corresponding ones in SIMS. You see this on the SQL transfer wizard screen when it matches up what's in Nova with what's in SIMS to see what has changed.

 

I don't know what would happen if you transferred from Nova into one SIMS system, and then into another - would the second SIMS instance use the same codes ? And what would happen with subsequent transfers ?

I think you need to find someone who knows about how the synchronisation and the data structures in SIMS/Nova work to be sure it would be OK.

[suebedo]

I know that you can create a TT in one T6 and then copy it into another T6 and export to that SIMS. That is how timetable consultants work as far as I am aware. I am hoping to get a local SIMS support to set up a test system to go through the whole process before doing it on a live DB

[Linfit]

Yes, I do that myself as I have a satellite install of Nova on my home PC. You can move them around between instances of Nova as much as you like: its what happens once the data is linked into a SIMS SQL instance that I am unsure about.

[suebedo]

I've just thought this through - it will be fine.

When new staff, rooms or subjects appear, you enter them in SIMS AND in T6 once you are up and running, you don't export from one to the other to create it. The key that links them is the visible one that you have created in both system - phew, I had a bit of a panic there