What is your experience with SISRA / G04Schools / 4matrix / TASC ?

[QWERTY72]

Hi All!

We have decided to look into buying a data analysis package instead of extracting and analysing our data from SIMS Assessment and manipulating it in Excel and producing nice colourful graphs.

Mainly we want to analyse our assessment data and the package needs to fulfil at least the following criteria:

- Web based access without the need of SIMS or the school network

- User friendly, so that head of Departments/teachers will actually use it without needing days and days of training

- Produce quickly tabular and graphical analyses of data (colours!) onscreen and for printouts

- Sync regularly with SIMS (automatically?)

- Quick software updates to reflect the changes from Department of Education (such as Progress 8)

- The ability to add user defined aspects for analyses

- Good telephone and online support

 

I found the following packages: SISRA Online, Go4Schools, 4matrix and TASC.

What experiences have you had/still having with these providers? Could you please share your pros and cons with me? Do you use some other provider which you would recommend instead?

We are planning to have 2 reps in to do their presentation, so I need to narrow it down to the “best” two. Any info is greatly appreciated

[pingleby]

We had very similar requirements. We used SISRA which was good, but our teachers and middle leaders never found it easy enough (or useful enough) for it to be widely used. Similar story with 4matrix. In the end I built a system: web-based, access anywhere, easy to use. Now a dozen other schools use it too. Have a look at MAP Learners and get in touch with me if you are interested.

[Blackcatowner]

We use SISRA here and since the new version was released last year it has improved massively, all our teachers use it and our SLT love it. It doesn't sync automatically with SIMS but it is a relatively quick job to get everything out of SIMS and uploaded.

[Ecclesbury]

You can discount 4Matrix straight away as it is not web-based (although it is very good)

[Jenis]

I've helped set up SISRA across three schools (with a possible fourth and fifth incoming), and it's being rolled out to almost all of our high schools. So I'm a big fan! SISRA Analytics has improved the service massively.

 

- It is web based, so you'll be able to make admin changes and access information from anywhere with an internet connection. For example, got an email on 27th December about a mistake with the dates of the exams data I had uploaded, while the kids were playing on the Wii I sat on the couch on my tablet, changed the dates, republished the reports and it was sorted within 10 minutes. I know it's probably sad, but it meant that the head of science could get on with her job. And I could go back to the table tennis.

 

- Very user friendly, imo. I know some heads of departments don't use it, but then I think if they don't use SISRA, they're not going to use anything and are generally resistant to the idea of active data analysis (and they would rather someone did it for them and handed them the answers).

 

- SISRA isn't much about the graphs except for grade counts, tbh. There are plenty of transition matrices, but that's pretty much it. No flightpaths or the like.

 

- Doesn't sync with SIMS, the data manager has to extract the data and then upload it. Can be a hassle, but over the last three years having to do it myself has really improved my knowledge about courses, performance measures, discount codes etc. And I can only see that as a good thing. If you're not doing complicated courses and your cohort is fairly immobile, then I should imagine it's a quick job.

 

- Very quick updates, SISRA are definitely on the ball when it comes to changes. It has a Progress 8 calculation in place, obviously it is inaccurate at the moment, but it's headline page gives all the figures SLT could want.

 

- How do you mean user defined aspects? You can upload several custom data sets (e.g. mocks), and you can add custom filters/focus groups.

 

- Excellent online support which has expanded a lot recently, I think (I used to chat to only a few people, now I don't get the same people). Not so much telephone support, but the online support is so good, I haven't needed or wanted to contact them by phone. Seriously, cannot fault their support, it's definitely one of the best aspects, they really know their stuff, and they will log into your school and identify what the problem exactly is.

 

We had a rep in for Go4Schools a while back, and I have to admit, it did look very nice... (if expensive). My boyfriend uses it at his high school (Maths teacher), and he likes it - he can access his class from home and fill in their assessment grades on his marksheet. Would love to work with it one day, but as I said, pricey compared to what we were paying for SISRA. I think Go4Schools does a lot for you - i.e. you enter the QAN codes for the courses being run. Whereas SISRA's policy is to give you the tools, but it's up to you to use them properly.

[david_craggs]

Hi,

 

We have used SISRA for 3 years now and also their new product (Analytics) for around a year (we were part of the trial). Our Middle Leasers actively used SISRA for KS3 through to KS4 data analysis, and I have run 2 Y11 results days through SISRA, and this year in both SISRA and Analytics. We have a split site academy with 2 secondary schools forming into 1 overall academy (2 heads of School / 1 Principle). Out figures are reported as 1 school. Before SISRA I'd developed a spreadsheet to complete the analysis. We could have continued down this path, but my major concern is that with the changes to performance measures changing so rapidly it was becoming harder and harder to maintain our own system. It also meant that staff who were not as confident with Spreadsheets really struggled to complete any analysis.

 

I have to say that I find Analytics a much more refined system - SISRA was showing it's age, but it did serve us very well. We have always found the company extremely helpful - both online and also during training events. I would recommend having a be-spoke training solution if you do decide to go down either path as we found that having their team on site and working with our data so much easier! We are actually a CMIS based school - so do not have access to some of the assessment tools that SIMS does give staff.

 

Do factor in that you do need to have someone who is determined to make sure your data is 100% accurate.. the fact that you have to ensure courses are set-up correctly and the export/import aspect as your having to take data out of your "LIVE" MIS can cause issues if your not careful. But we have found that it is actually benefiting our accuracy!. We have recently moved to uploading the data onto Analytics and then in Y11 review meetings with HoDs making changes on the fly - we can then republish reports within minutes and look at all the relevant Headline Measures along with your main Sub-Groups.

 

We held off showing Middle Leaders Analytics until the KS3 aspect was included (just before XMAS), we launched it on Monday this week and the overwhelming response has been positive. As a former HoD I would have dreamt of having the data it gives you..

 

In terms of 4Matrix - it displays the same sort of information, but does include Flightpaths (which SISRA doesn't) and tends to be more graph driven. Personally that didn't match with our need, but that was more down to our own preference. I'd highly recommend getting 4Matrix and SISRA in to show you their products. We ruled out both Go4schools and TASC.

 

Good luck

[QWERTY72]

Thanks everybody for your responses, very useful. We had a SISRA ONLINE presentation almost 2 years ago and ruled it out then for several reasons:

· it didn’t use sub-level in KS3 in subject report analyses,

· it wasn’t possible to analyse own criteria (we have aspects such as “Behaviour”, “Effort”, “Completion of Homework” and “Contribution in Class” etc and would like to be able to analyse those as well)

· tied into contract for 3 years (if I remember correctly?) and at the time the cost was also a major issue

 

david_craggs:

What were your reasons to rule out Go4schools and TASC?

 

Pingleby:

I will have a look at MAP Learners and let you know.

 

So far quite some input in favour of SISRA. Anybody has anything more to say about Go4Schools or TASC?

[Seb1780]

We took on Go4Schools three years ago as a tool for producing reports, at which it is very good, but it does much more than that.

 

As the software has developed, and we have learned how to use it, it has become an invaluable tool for forecasting and analysis. It is very flexible and allows analysis by user defined attributes that other systems do not. It also imports from SIMS automatically, but there is no write-back function.

 

We have two problems with Go4Schools:-

 

- firstly getting our staff to use it to its full potential, there is a reluctance to share data and an inhibition to using the parental access side of things. We can work on this.

- secondly, the attitude of Go4Schools themselves. They have always developed the application but these days it seems they are trying to be too clever and introduce new features before they are ready. The quality of their support has also taken nosedive in recent months with an attitude of "it must be you" prevailing.

 

All-in-all it is a very capable package but getting the best out of it needs a strong commitment from senior staff and a strong will to argue the toss with their support team.

[LosOjos]

Just want to agree with previous posters, SISRA Analytics is much better than old SISRA - if you haven't had a demo, you should.

 

The only major problem we have with Analytics (which we didn't have with old SISRA) is that it's impossible to compare different grade types. This is a problem for us, as we use FFT as a baseline/performance target for all subjects, plus teacher set targets. The teacher set targets are fine, as they match the subject grade type (i.e. BTEC, CACHE, NVQ etc) but obviously all FFT grades are GCSE type. We got around this by converting all grades to GCSE style grades, but it is annoying.

 

I contacted SISRA about this as IMO it should be possible to compare any two grade sets based on points, but was told "you shouldn't set GCSE targets for a BTEC subject*" - they totally could/would not see my point of view, which was a little disappointing.

 

All that said, it is on the whole the best online system I have used, but I always think it's important to understand any potential problems you might have before jumping in to a system.

 

* I do of course agree with this, but the point was not target setting, simply comparison

[QWERTY72]

To seb1780:

A system analysing on user defined attributes is just what we would want it to do and an automatic import from SIMS sounds great as well! So definitely will need to have a look at Go4Schools – shame about the poor support.

 

To LosOjos:

We also use FFT and teachers’ input for target setting and would be probably faced with the same problems as you when it comes to comparing. But as you say, it is good to know any potential problems or shortfalls one system has over another, before committing time and money to it.

 

I am grateful to you all for sharing your experiences with these software packages, as it means that we will know some pros and cons even before a demonstration and the questions to the rep can be so much more targeted.

[NormalDistribution]

Looking at your list of criteria: SISRA is probably your best bet, although i personally think a three year tie in is excessive - particularly in these uncertain times.

 

I would recommend going to BETT this month where you can see all the products you are thinking of in action, and maybe some you haven't considered.

 

I'm an advocate of SIMS + Excel but I can see the advantages of a more "professional" system and support, depending on your school situation.

[Steven_Cleaver]

Hi

 

Is probably overkill but we have sort of a three prong Approach most Departments now have Track sheets in SIM's which tracks modules as it were, Benefit is that this is good at Department Level to get Comprehensive view based on Class or Department, disadvantage isn't easy for other Departments or SLT to access this.

 

Staff use multiple module Grades and Various Assessment to enter Grades at 3-6 Assessment Points this is entered into SIM's and shows on the Track sheets this data automatically links into our own Web based system which runs every night and recalculates pretty much what we were doing in Excel and more but does this automatically and deals with any changes to Grades, Targets, Class Changes, New students as it runs automatically every night etc we have also added intervention and analyse this in the system. Benefits gives the whole picture of student in multiple subjects, all subjects overviews, data can be viewed by various views as it were by Student, Class, Subject, Form, Teacher, whole school and is bespoke so we can sort of set calculations of against target based on Deviation for time of year for example can have a Deviation of -4 against end of year at Assessment Point 1 and this shows as on Target -2 above etc so we can set our where they should be at what point in the year without setting multiple Targets. Is also the most widely used of our data systems by Teachers, HOD SLT, SEN, Pastoral Support and other staff.

 

WE also use SISRA now SISRA Analytics gives great overview of data particularly at end of year and for Exams although we have found a couple of anomalies with this and had to query this with SISRA. Benefits is excellent producing information quickly on Exams day and as Students get towards the last Assessment point gives a great overview, used by some Teachers Occasionally, HOD years most of these, and Head regularly and some SLT MIS Officer. Disadvantage isn't easy for all staff to follow even with a fair amount of training and support also another system to have to login too.

 

Would definitely look at SISRA Analytics which is excellent although probably our internal system is the most widely used and is excellent was a lot of work although now it is setup has saved us a massive amount of work especially going from three Reporting points to 6.

[Bev]

We went through this last year, and ended up buying into Pupil Asset. So far, so good. As a middle school a lot of the other systems didnt work well across ks2 + ks3.

So far, this has done everything we need it too.

[vikpaw]

I'm just looking at Classroom Monitor , partly for the analysis side, but mostly for the observation collection online and via the app. Primarily (!) for the younger ones.

Anyone got any feedback on them? Or whether or not your chosen analysis does observations and formative assessment? I'm guessing as our lives progress without levels more and more will have to come on board to this way of working. Apologies for teh bad puns

[cct72]

The primary where I'm a Governor uses Classroom Monitor with 2Simple, it's easy to use and to set up and I like the people we have dealt with at the company. Let us know how demo goes.

[vikpaw]

At the moment they have no app, but the demo looks pretty expansive. Very costly though

[CAM]

I use 4Matrix and rather like it. Now that it's set up properly with the subjects I want, I just put the data in and it works.

[bwfc_nottingham]

The goodthing about SISRA Analytics is that it runs via a browser, so you have nosoftware to manage on teachers desktops / laptops

 

It's browser neutral too, so you can browsewith your preferred browser i.e. you are not dependent onInternet Explorer.

 

Also works on tablets too, which is an added bonus to some.

 

I am a Data Manager, so it is my responsibility toupload "Student Data" / "Assessment Point Data" /"KS2 Levels" etc.

 

The data upload, can be a bit of a bind (boring), but I've built my own SIMSdata extract routines, so I have quite slick processes in place.

 

Just remember though, that you now have two repositories of data i.e. your MIS(SIMS in our case) and SISRA Analytics, so you have to ensure both are kept inline.

 

Remember too that as teachers are accessing via browsers, the data isavailable wherever they are (home, internet café etc.), so teachers have aresponsibility to ensure the data remains safe (although there is no real PIDdata held, other than student name)

 

Exam Results Day can be a bit frantic as you usually have somebody hassling youto get the data uploaded into SISRA Analytics ASAP. The exam names /descriptions that you get from your SIMS exam data extracts are not the easiestto map to a generic subject i.e. "Maths" "Science""Geography" PE etc. especially when you have a few BTECS mixed inwith your GCSE's . Although the mapping process matching is more astatement on how SIMS handles exams results /descriptions rather than SISRA.

 

All in all SISRA Analytics is well received in our school.

 

Hope that helps

[bossman]

another 4Matrix here, didn't have a choice was just told we had purchased and it required setting up, now setup and awaiting the Data Manager to work out how to use it. I mentioned it would be so much easier for them and us if it was web based but it fell on deaf ears,

 

Was easy to setup and deploy to clients.

[Sods_Laur]

We use SISRA Analytics too. We signed up when it was still Online - six months later they brought out the Analytics pilot and we moved straight over as we didn't have much data on the system. I have to say they are like two completely different packages, Analytics is light years better than Online from both an admin perspective and teachers' perspective. They didn't get on with Online but Analytics is a different story.

[paul2012]

We use 4matrix. Got around the problem of it not being web based.. 4matrix works OK over our school VPN.

 

Online speed is a little slower than in school but acceptable. Staff have the 4matrix client installed on their school laptops (and obviously the VPN client too) and can therefore access 4matrix from anywhere they are online. But they can only do it on their school laptop, and not on their personal devices. This restriction is not a problem for us, but might be for other schools.

[bobsmith]

I had the old SISRA demo but wasn't blown away, 4matrix on the other hand has come on leaps and bounds and although it has a steep learning curve, once you "get it" it's a doddle to import and update your data.

 

What we loved is the ability to tick students on and off as counting in the stats (testing the impact of dis-applications) and the wealth of information available at the different levels, it works for classroom teachers on up with each audience getting something appropriate to them.

 

It's not web based - but unless you really love working at home it's not a game breaker (especially as there are workarounds). The price is also very attractive.

 

Only trouble is I've changed schools and haven't managed to get it bought here yet

[untitled]

We are using sisra here, it is our first year in using this product and it is working well (well i hope) if i have sety it up correctly.

[AnnN]

Very impressed with 4Matrix. The support is excellent with regular updates and useful advice.