SIMS Spring census report

[enjay]

After years of having hosted SIMS, we currently and temporarily have it local. I forgot about the Spring update, which is needed for the census. My team are not going to be able to run the update until mid next week, which doesn't leave the Data Manager long to do their checks before Census day. Does anyone know if it is possible to run a report in SIMS now which would give most of the Census information in a readable way so they can start some of those checks now?

[Edu-IT]

I don't think there's an equivalent report that you can run however it will be looking at the same areas as before so:

- Attendance

- FSM

- Exclusions

 

So as long as these areas are all correct, with no missing marks in attendance etc, then all should be fine in terms of preperation.

 

I don't know why people panic and spend weeks preparing for the Census when in reality if you keep on top of all the other areas in SIMS (as above) then it's pretty painless.

[AlistairB1983]

13 hours ago, Edu-IT said:

I don't know why people panic and spend weeks preparing for the Census when in reality if you keep on top of all the other areas in SIMS (as above) then it's pretty painless.

Can't speak for others, but my current school and both of my previous ones, this was down to the census almost entirely resting on the shoulders of one individual who received little to no support from those higher up, therefore was made to feel that it was entirely their responsibility. Which, given the amount of funding that is now dependent on the census (certainly the Autumn one) being correctly returned, it's not really a surprise that they want to spend weeks trying to get it right.

 

There's also - in my current school at least - a legacy of working with the local authority in terms of census returns, and they always demanded the return was sent to them for 'checking' well in advance of DfE's deadline - which in turn meant that the school had very little time to turn this around, hence having/wanting to do a lot of the 'leg work' prior to census day as they didn't have much afterwards!

 

However, thankfully, we have both moved MIS (SIMS -> Arbor) and the local authority has closed it's support team. So doing the census is WAY easier and we have longer to actually sort it!

[Koldov]

23 hours ago, enjay said:

My team are not going to be able to run the update until mid next week

 

Why?

[willtech]

After Summer Census, Census is moving to SIMS Next Gen. Fun

 

SIMS Next Gen: Summer Census | ESS SIMS

[enjay]

On 02/05/2025 at 09:24, Koldov said:

 

Why?

 

Staffing availability, no technical reason.

[enjay]

On 02/05/2025 at 09:48, willtech said:

After Summer Census, Census is moving to SIMS Next Gen. Fun

 

SIMS Next Gen: Summer Census | ESS SIMS

 

We'll have gone to Arbor by then! We're moving in the summer, so only need SIMS in-house from April-July.

[Koldov]

1 hour ago, enjay said:

 

Staffing availability, no technical reason.

 

Interesting, I only asked because iirc doing a SIMS update pretty much just involved logging on to the SIMS server, opening SOLUS and clicking 'deploy now'... and I wondered if somehow you were doing something different (maybe testing, or completing the updates on machines out of hours etc.).

[enjay]

3 minutes ago, Koldov said:

 

Interesting, I only asked because iirc doing a SIMS update pretty much just involved logging on to the SIMS server, opening SOLUS and clicking 'deploy now'... and I wondered if somehow you were doing something different (maybe testing, or completing the updates on machines out of hours etc.).

 

No, that's what we're doing too - plus of course running around the school visiting all the staff who haven't logged out as instructed (then finding they've gone home, so power-dumping their computer!). We just haven't done it for a few years, so my team preferred to wait until I was back off annual leave.