Advice regarding moving from SIMS Marksheets to Excel for termly KS3 data catches

[KeyData]

Hello,

 

Our head of maths has presented an Excel spreadsheet he wants KS3 teachers to use to enter termly test percentage scores. Then Excel using various formulas, including standard deviation formulas will calculate and average for the test for each year group. This will be used to split the group into 4 quintiles and be compared with their KS2 to highlight which students are below, on or above target. This is to get away form using GCSE predicted grades in KS3 in SIMS Marksheets.

 

I think it might work a little like this school's KS3 system: https://www.philipshigh.co.uk/target-settings/ except the Working Towards/Working At/Working Above/Exceptional grade boundaries will be calculated from the year groups' percentage test scores at the point of data collection on a subject by subject basis.

 

My worry is managing this prcess and importing the needed data into SIMS for the parent reports and termly analysis.

 

I don't think it is possible for a column in a SIMS Marksheet to calculate the standard deviation for a given test and then use this to calculate which students are on, below or above.

 

I'm thinking I will need to learn Excel VBA to streamline this wherever possible. SLT want teachers to just enter the data directly into year group Excel files, and then I will have to import into SIMS for the reports.

 

Can anyone please give their thoughts on this and any advice would be much appreciated?

 

Thanks

Mark

Edited June 28, 2024 by KeyData

[bobsmith]

importing from the spreadsheets seems the way to go as you've exceeded the power of sims marksheets.

 

#1 RULE here - make sure you provide a unique id that will allow you to import the spreadsheet data into sims - you don't want to be matching by hand every time!

[KeyData]

Thanks Bob. That's a good call. I see I can use admission number or UPN and I think admission number is the way to go.