NormalDistribution Posted February 6, 2013 Posted February 6, 2013 Hello, Thanks for starting this group - love the tagline... I think it would be useful to simply give basic school/college info and list what MIS we have and what other products we use: School Size - 1750 (KS3, KS4, KS5) MIS - SIMS Analysis - SISRA, SIMS DISCOVER, MS Excel, ALPS I have been in post for 10 months and have overhauled the target setting system away from using FFT towards being based on levels of progress. The philosophy is that if everyone makes good progress then we will have good attainment, In terms of the analysis tools - SISRA I find useful but a little inflexible/onerous to set up, SIMS Discover in my personal opinion is it's more style than substance but OK for basic things. I have some excel tools going on for monitoring progress and ALPS is currently doing the job at post 16 but I am looking at bringing in detailed Level 3 value added data alongside it.
Ecclesbury Posted February 6, 2013 Posted February 6, 2013 Welcome! These are my vital statistics: School size - 1467 (KS3, KS4, KS5) We share a sixth form with another local school adding another 200 or so students. This is why you might see me posting my woes about Partnership XChange MIS - SIMS Analysis - 4Matrix for some KS4, SIMS assessment manager for day to day monitoring, MS Excel for snapshot review data, looking to start playing with Discover soon (if only for dynamic groups) Target Setting - JESSON Framework for KS4, a mixed bag of FFT, historical analysis and levels progress for KS3 (we are working hard at the moment to make our KS3 target setting and monitoring both useful/effective and OfSted compliant - an almost impossible combination!) I've been in post for about 4 and a half years. The school has only been open for 6 and a half of those years. That sounds like a dream position, building the assessment framework up from scratch, but in reality I've spent the last 4 years unpicking the mess of the first 2 years, and reacting to the ever changing demands of a management team who haven't settled on what they want yet! I'm also only technically responsible for KS3 and KS4, but in practice I do some Post-16 stuff, mainly Value Added analysis of exam results. I also work closely with the Deputy Head on the timetabling process and have some involvement with Exams. Ultimately I would love to be able to do this kind of work at a non-teaching SLT level (so Timetabling, whole school target setting, self evaluation, OfSted preparation etc) but that's a bit of a pipe dream given that I don't think such a role really exists in many (any?) schools.
NormalDistribution Posted February 6, 2013 Posted February 6, 2013 The role you describe at the bottom Ecclesbury is what I would term a Data and Performance Director. I just made that title up but it is what I am aiming for as well.
number34 Posted February 6, 2013 Posted February 6, 2013 Ok, here we go: School 1200 pupils across KS3, KS4 and KS5. MIS is SIMS but we use PARS for registration and behaviour management, INSIGHT for parents' portal and SCHOOLCOMMS for email and some texts to parents. (Staff do not have offsite access to the MIS as we do not feel we can guarantee compliance with data protection at present) AM is used for all assessment data collection and analysis as well as all reports to parents. (We decided that profiles did not suit the school way of reporting) KS3 targets are mainly based on 2 levels of progress from KS2 but CAT data is used to inform subject leaders KS4 targets are 99% based on FFT D estimates using a formula decided by SLT that is based on the probabilities given for the grades. ALPS is used for all KS5 targets but ALIS is being considered. ALL tracking against targets at ALL levels is done in AM using both mark sheets group, result set, aspect and chance analysis where appropriate. Summaries are prepared in Excel only because I can format the layout but I refuse to do more in Excel. Discover is being used more on the pastoral side at present as the configuration involved in showing data from AM is both tricky and time consuming. Finance is all on FSM but bursar would probably like to move if we become an academy. TUCASI is used for payments. On a personal note I measure use of SIMS in decades not years but have only been the full time data manager for 4 years.
LosOjos Posted February 6, 2013 Posted February 6, 2013 Great opening thread idea Here are my vitals: Large secondary 11-18, approx 1600 students MIS - SIMS Analysis: - Basic class level - SIMS/AM7 - Subject/Year Level - SISRA/Excel Like many jobs I've done before, I'm almost a Data Manager by title but a developer at heart. I came in to the job with no prior experience of having worked in a school. Being fairly young, this has been challenging for many more reasons than the job itself! The system I inherited was a mess; the original Data Manager had been replaced by a handful of short-lived temps and finally the SLT over Data (my boss, a great guy), resulting in all sorts of mismatched apsects and resultsets, duplicated templates, dozens of pre-made reports that varied only by a filterable value... it had gotten extremely bloated. 18 months after I started, the school officially closed and merged with a local school, giving me the opportunity to start from scratch which was wonderful. There were a couple of hiccups along the way (some still ongoing) but on the most part it has meant that I now know the inner most detail of almost every part of our MIS. I mentioned that I am a developer at heart - actually I'm studying with the OU in the hope of becoming a developer by title too! What this means for me is that this job has been a great opportunity to develop all kinds of software/tools to make my life easier. I'd estimate that we output about 5 times as much data as was possible before I started, unfortunately in true SLT style this just means they keep wanting more! This is not because I'm some genius of data/statistics, it's because I have written a script or program to automate almost every task possible; I mainly sit here running my systems and churning out paperwork now! Analysis is almost entirely a checking exercise as it's almost entirely automated. The great thing about this is it gives me the time to really understand the data rather than just manipulating it constantly. Most of the tools I develop are quite school specific and would take more time than I have available to help other schools implement (though this is a path that interests me...) but some of the more instantly accessible tools can be found on my website (which I must point out is also a WIP!) Geek Josh
Pico Posted February 7, 2013 Posted February 7, 2013 My school is an independent. Here are some basic details: School size: 800 (Nursery to KS5), so small compared to the ones already mentioned. MIS: iSAMS Analysis data: MidYIS, Yellis, Alis for grade estimates Academic tracking: SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) We used to use Facility CMIS and much of the analysis work was done in Excel, with VBA scripts doing the processing. When we moved to iSAMS, I created an additional database just to hold all the MidYIS, Yellis and Alis data, including the statistical data for standardising residuals (value added). Calculations are built into reports, a bit of SQL and VB.NET code. The reports themselves are accessed through a secure web page and uses the AD login to work out exactly which reports, which groups of students and which bits of data should be viewable by that teacher. That frees up my time for other aspects of my role, because now I'm focussing more on maintenance. I still use Excel, but these days it's more for quick-and-dirty analyses for my own use. This works well for academic tracking in KS4 and KS5, but I haven't yet figured out what to do about KS3. At the moment they are just seeing grades from each report cycle, along with some MidYIS data. I'm not (yet) doing this kind of academic tracking for the pre-Year 7 students. The reports also cover attendance and detentions, mainly for the Form Tutors and Heads of Year. My remit is probably as broad as most others here: tracking for both academic and pastoral issues, assisting with timetabling, setting up report cycles, customising the MIS for staff, annual rollover, census returns, option choices, managing set lists, and so on. I end up working with pretty much every type of member of staff in the school. My general policy is: if it can be automated, then automate it, though there are times when this is not the most sensible approach. Although I'm aware that my school is small and an independent (and therefore in the minority), I'm know that there's a lot I can learn from others, so I'm really pleased this discussion group has been set up. I would guess the main thing we have in common is the need for a scalable solution that is relatively straightforward to maintain and adapt to changing priorities, including what kinds of data need to be captured, analysed and reported on. I also said in the originating thread http://www.edugeek.net/forums/mis-systems/108127-any-other-data-officers-managers-here.html that being involved with high-level decisions about the school's goals was important. I'd be really interested to hear how this works at other schools as this is something else I'm looking to improve, though I'm also aware that this might be a tricky subject to broach on a public forum.
skunk Posted February 8, 2013 Posted February 8, 2013 Hi All School : 1200 - KS3, KS4 & KS5 MIS: SIMS (for now) including lesson monitor for registration and profiles for reports. Data Analysis Tools: SIMS AM, Excel, 4Matrix, ALPS, Discover (but not found a great deal to use it for yet) Finance: SAGE 200 We set KS3 and KS4 targets using the FFT, expected progress, historical trends and a great deal of intense negotiation with individual subject leaders. But mostly FFTD Data. KS5 I look after all the data, but also manage the IT team, coordinating the ICT strategy for the school and generally poke my nose in where I feel it is needed. I have been looking after data for the best part of a decade now, I fondly recall Assessment Manager 5 and filling in OMR sheets and feeding them by hand into the single sheet reader by the thousand. Never happy with any of the tools I use and usually change the way data analysis is done at least twice a year to try to get better information to staff. So any suggestions welcome.
Bev Posted February 8, 2013 Posted February 8, 2013 Hello all I work in a small Middle school School: 320 - Year 5 - 8, which means we split KS2 and KS3 MIS: SIMS and Assessment Manager Data Analysis: SIMS and Excel We use FFT data, and track from entry to exit, which doesn't neatly fit into a Key Stage. We have a mess of a setup, the person who posted about wanting a clean system to start afresh hit the nail on the head. I started 4 1/2 years ago with a one day Assessment Manager training course, and I've just made it up as I go along. For the most part what we have works, however our LEA developed a tracker that they encouraged us to use last year. I imported all their aspects/templates etc into the system and bit the bullet trying to work with it, however, being a middle school we just don't fit into either a Primary or Secondary box. Now I have about 3500 aspects ni SIMS, of which probably 150 are relevant. My currect task is to identify the useful ones, and ignore the rest. My biggest headache is reporting - our teaching staff don't have access to SIMS, so all data is entered via Excel spreadsheets which are imported. It's tedious and prone to errors. I've been looking for an alternative for a few years, but I've not found it. This is only a part of my role, I'm also the ICT Technician and can often be found wielding a screwdriver trying to repair a broken machine.
vikpaw Posted February 10, 2013 Posted February 10, 2013 How do, School: International, fee taking, with 1500 students ranging from creche through to IB level (sixth form). Setting: Saudi Arabia (Sat-Wed working week!), GMT +3 MIS: SIMS .Net Finance: FMS Third Party Tools: We use Schoolcomms for texts and emails, and Groupcall Emerge for offline registers on iDevices, e.g. PE / Music or data access for SLT. Salamander Software. Analysis: Either basic in AM7 or in Excel No remote access. Official title : SIMS Co-ordinator de facto role : Information Systems Manager - linking all other systems into or out of SIMS, e.g. ID card system, library, AD, user areas, intranet . . . some are better integrated than others. We don't really use our data much, so mostly, if the previous set of grades is available in the current term's marksheets, most people are happy. Old data is exported to spreadsheet and available on the intranet. Analysis is pretty minimal, with the odd, has it gone up / down columns. Results are generally good. I've started importing a backlog of exam grades, so we can do more, but its not really asked for. Usage of SIMS is high in Upper School Y7-IB, including Lesson Monitor (attendance), behaviour, timetabling, assessment and reports. I can't convince the luddite Primary School to even take AM attendance online, so it's done on paper. They only do one out of two sets of reports in SIMS. The other they type in Word and it's manually attached to the student record! They don't admit it, but they do record rising stars maths, and nfer english test grades in AM7 and i've got funky lookup tables and colour coding of scores, reading ages etc. It's probably the best analysis we do, but the lead teachers asked for that direct and i provided. SLT denies it is a use of SIMS! They do the timetable on paper, and i input sufficient of the specialist lessons for reports to take place, but mostly when the kids are with their class teachers the timetable is blank. No VLE, but some Moodle usage in Upper School. ManageBac is used for IB students. We bought into Sharepoint SLG solution, but have halted progress due to the high costs and implementation complication. Looking for easier alternatives, that hopefully will be used across the school. I've done a lot of scripting to aid the process of managing data in SIMS because it's so painful. Spend most of my time, making changes to the Upper School assessment system because they change the requirements every year, and the changes to marksheets and templates take an age, even with scripts! The other big projects are that under order from teh national guard, all staff, students, parents, drivers, and maids need to have ID cards issued, and we also have to track car stickers, and each family has up to 3 cars which must come on site. The data is output from SIMS into another SQL db and kept up to date by SalamanderSoft tools. I have to do a lot of processing on that, and looking at building a PHP interface this year for updating data quickly.
Steven_Cleaver Posted February 13, 2013 Posted February 13, 2013 Hi all Not really Data Manager but line Manage that area so MIS Officer and Exams Officer and am heavily involved for 18 months here and six years at my previous school so hope I qualify. About the School: 1039 pupils 11 – 16 looking at Sixth Form possibly next year MIS: SIMS .Net. Pars for registration, Insight for Parental Portal. Analysis: Either basic in AM7, Excel (which is linked into Progress Bar App we designed so auto load when staff login, critical data password protection access), SISRA. Access to school network and MIS systems using our own Secure Gateway with Dual Factor Authentication using Encrypted App only to access MIS systems. Student Surveys system: to test students understanding of Targets and how to make progress. Student Intervention System : In access but using linked data from SIM’s, Run by SLT group but looking at putting this into SQL with form front end. Class Room Observation: Analysis Excel Templates. Job title : ICT Admin Manager. Moodle VLE Target setting KS3 we use a variety of data KS2 average points English and Maths (Reading and Writing marks where available),MidYs tests done first few weeks for year 7, Department baseline tests, Historic school data compiled over the last 5 few years, do initial review, with departments then second setting before targets go home to parents. Set all this taking into account expected progress. KS4 as KS3 but use Yellis tests that students complete at the end of year 9 and also take account of KS2, KS3 data, historic again last five years.
Brucy Posted February 14, 2013 Posted February 14, 2013 Morning, I am a data manager, although i got given a much poncier title when we became an academy. We are a 900 pupil 11 - 14 school moving to 11 - 16 next year which is bringing its own headaches, as well as managing our own admissions. We use SIMS as our MIS, Frog as a VLE and some other plugins like Emerge for our iPads. Analysis is done mainly in excel but we are looking to roll discover out to SLT and maybe the HOD's before the end of the year so they can take some snapshot info. Target setting is done mainly based on FFT D, although we also set a secondary higher target which can be adjusted if needs be. We don't have any external access to SIMS directly, we did have SLG but Frog was plumped for instead; although the staff did like being able to access marksheets remotely.
pingleby Posted February 16, 2013 Posted February 16, 2013 Hi I'm actually a teacher but I work closely with our Data Manager. Hope it's ok for me to post here! 2100 pupil, 11-18 school. KS3/4/5 MIS: SIMS with SLG for parents and some staff (all were offered it but a lot never took it up) Analysis for KS3/4: SISRA (mainly for SLT). For teachers, used to use Excel, but this year started developing our own system, MAP Learners. (www.maplearners.co.uk) Middle leaders are much preferring it over SISRA or the old Excel sheets we used. The data exports from SIMS are very quick too - we didn't need to set up more than one or two marksheets. Target setting: Basically 4 levels of progress from KS2, adjusted up if necessary at end of KS3. KS5: ALPS
Mark_VdB82 Posted February 26, 2013 Posted February 26, 2013 Hi Data Manager in secondary & sixth form academy Total pupil size about 800 MIS: Serco; Facility & ePortal. all data recorded in Facility - attendance, events, tracking, target and projected grades. use it to pull some reports out for curriculum leaders and teachers to provide assessment data. School reports for parents also generated in here. When I started here 2 and a bit years ago (was at another school for 2 eyars previous to that as a data manager) data was recorded in differnet places, its helped massively having everything under 1 roof. Whilst the system limits what i can do with it easily at least i can extract it out somehow and dont then have to merge it with other data sources. Import SATs, CATS and FFT data. Extract data out to create summaries for SLT, governors and Ofsted. All Excel based, make them look good and produce sheets to cover many different analysis streams and adapt/create with the changing times/focuses that come from above. Would love to know more about VBA in Excel to create things and save me time - would love to see some examples of what others do. Likewise if anyone uses any 3rd party software to do their analysis and how good it is, any limitations etc? Target setting was originally FFT-D +1, then looked at FFT top 5% and now looking at linking to levels of progress to target better than expected progress - would be good to get peoples htoughts too. Involved in timetbaling each year, its a fun task, very rewarding and means as data manager I can ensure all fits in terms of assessment, registers etc so that we dont et suproses when it comes to the first lot of report writing. Would echo what others have said in that it would help all data managers to know how the tiemtable works, can save time in the long run!
s1monb Posted February 27, 2013 Posted February 27, 2013 Hi Everyone School Size - 1040 (KS3, KS4, KS5) MIS - Serco CMIS Analysis - CMIS/ePortal, MS Excel, ALPS Official Title: Data and Information Manager Actual Role: Managing MIS for the Academy, supporting other schools within the Trust of Academies with MIS/Data issues. Staff training. Timetabling. Development of reports and analysis, including assessment, attendance, behaviour etc. The 'go to' person for anything to do with MIS, spreadsheet or 'how do I'-type questions. Particularly interesting is the challenge of an Apple hardware school with the occasional Windows server thrown in for good measure. There is probably a load of other stuff too..... I have been in post for almost 2 years, having started as a 3-day a week Data Manager, basically doing a bit of timetabling and shuffling kids between teaching groups, so that has changed quite a bit now to a full time role doing, well everything listed above and more! Analysis of data is pretty good here. We produce Excel-based analysis for each cohort of students which includes an analysis of progress by cohort, student and teaching group, these are produced roughly every term and are used extensively in teachers' planning. Currently am battling the powers that be to achieve the promised 'paperless Academy' that we were told we would be! Have managed to get reports and termly gradesheets moved over to ePortal so far, electronic communication is replacing paper letters very soon, via ParentPay and I am now working on getting exam timetables issued via ePortal too! Loving the idea of this group - a much needed resource! Simon
GNewnham Posted March 19, 2013 Posted March 19, 2013 We are an independent school in Bath consisting of a pre-prep (ages 2-6; 110 pupils), a prep (ages 7-13; 250 pupils) and a senior school (ages 11-18; 400 pupils) The overlap is because we run 2 years 7 & 8 - one in the prep and one in the senior. This causes many admin nightmares, particularly at census time! MIS - iSAMS This is my 10th year in this job - have seen the implementation of PASS and then we converted and implemented iSAMS about 4 years ago. I support about 100 staff at the senior school and about 20 at the pre-prep. This involves iSAMS training and support, excel support, email support and general keeping them up to date with developments in social media. The prep have their own support. I also support about 1000 parents for their access to our intranet and parent portal, sometimes down to complete handholding on the telphone eg "click on the little yellow envelope"....."now click on the word"..... About 3 years ago, I also took on all the Exams administration too. I work closely with the Exams Officer and our roles are fairly blurred during the exam season - we both do whatever needs to be done to have the exams running smoothly and the kids kept calm in all situations. As he teaches too, much of the daily running of the exams falls on me, including taking them to the toilet (although, that is not specifically mentioned in my job description!). We take a lot of private candidates foir exams, so some of my time is assisting home schooled kids through the mire of exams info, choices , showing them around the school, getting them settled before exams etc. In my previous life in South Africa I was a programmer, then systems developer, then systems designer for the insurance and pensions industry. Then we moved to the UK and I had a couple more kids and took on a "part" time job at a local school. Now I have the inglorious title of "Pupil Records Officer" - there, bet that's made you all jealous! In reality, I am a Data Manager, but I guess they might have to pay me more if I got a better title. ;-)
CAM Posted June 19, 2013 Posted June 19, 2013 Hello chaps! Good to see the data managers coming together. I'm a data manager for ~1000 secondary kids and use SIMS for a MIS. Analysis is carried out with AM7 then pushed into Excel sheets for various key stages. KS4 has 4Matrix and KS5 goes out to ALPS. No parental engagement system yet, still sweating in my office with a laserjet chugging away all day to keep the room very warm! I did have a dabble with SLG at a former employer though.
tombry Posted June 20, 2013 Author Posted June 20, 2013 Fun. School - 470 Students, ~90 sixth form, rest 9-11 (three tier system) Time on Job - 17 months (coincidentally, same amount of time I've worked in a school, as well as worked in England) Title - Data Manager Job Duties - Data Manager, Tutor, Mentor, Behaviour Manager (good and bad), staff tech support for my things MIS - SIMS Analysis - AM7, Excel, Discover Targets - 3/4 levels of progress based on KS2 attainment, 1/2 levels for some of our very low ability students - band is based on KS2, targets are based on core subject tests they sit the first week/APS of those results. External Access - VPN/RDP for myself and some members of staff - still working to get teacher's laptops (RM) to connect through the VPN and access SIMS so that those that don't have a computer at home, or don't want to leave their laptop here, can have home access Other softwares I'm in charge of - SchoolComms, Parents Evening System, Cisco VPN setups, RDP setups Also have a mess of a setup, but I'm looking to clean up a great deal of what annoys me this summer holiday - mainly because the old data manager hadn't been on the job for about 2 years before I started, and the SLT that was doing all the data analysis is not a computer guy (he'd admit this), and tended to just bang away at things until he got it to look how he wanted, thus hundreds of grade sets, aspects, templates, etc. at least I can be happy that my detention attendance has risen from 48% last year to 69% this year.
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