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Do you use electronic registers or paper?

reggiep

By reggiep
in How do you do....it?

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What do you use  

69 members have voted

  1. 1. What do you use


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reggiep

reggiep

Posted
Posted

We are still using paper here and scanning into SIMS. Would like to move across to all electronic entry but worried about reliability of SIMS log ins!

 

What do you do and what issues if any have you faced? :confused:

Dom_

Dom_

Posted
Posted
We use sims, anyone who has issues getting into sims just does a paper register if we don't fix it in time, then the admin staff enter the paper stuff like they used to.
Mako

Mako

Posted
Posted
We use sims, anyone who has issues getting into sims just does a paper register if we don't fix it in time, then the admin staff enter the paper stuff like they used to.

 

Same here.

36Degrees

36Degrees

Posted
Posted

The biggest issue we faced was (teaching) staff attitudes. Initially they would always say they couldn't do it because of a non-specific computer problem that they couldn't recount when asked.

 

Every member of staff was trained and given an extremely easy to follow idiot's guide which was in colour and laminated (both at the Head Teacher's insistance) after I had tested it on the least technically adept teacher. Thereafter there were a few who wouldn't do them for some reason but SLT were very good at dealing with those in most cases.

 

The paper method used to confuse me greatly - print a register from an electronic system to be marked in pencil then scanned back into an electronic system. The ladies in the office used to have problems with incomplete registers, marks in the wrong place, temperamental scanners, etc. Changing to full electronic method reduced their workload and also meant that eventually we could move to registering every class, allowing us to pick up on those pupils that registered and then bunked off.

 

My advice therefore would be get SLT on board first and explain to them the benefits. Also sound out a few teachers, including the ones who are most resistant to change and / or technology so you know what other issues you may have to address or overcome.

 

What issues are you having with log-ins for SIMS?

Soulfish

Soulfish

Posted
Posted

Paper registers here. The attendance officer then has to go through every register and enter every mark into Sims manually, twice a day. No scanning here!

 

Very backwards unfortunately. Especially since every classroom has a PC and every teacher a laptop :(

vikpaw

vikpaw

Posted
Posted (edited)
We use sims, anyone who has issues getting into sims just does a paper register if we don't fix it in time, then the admin staff enter the paper stuff like they used to.

 

 

Ditto for the Upper School (Y7 - IB2/Upper Sixth) - For AM attendance and lesson registration, if they bother to do it. Lots of resistance, mostly complaining about the time it takes and inability to get into system quick enough. Mostly due to slow PC/network, but blame goes on SIMS.

 

Primary School (Creche - Y6) do it on paper and the poor Admin Assistant enters them into SIMS, so that all data is in one place.

 

@Soulfish - i hope you don't mean what you said and each mark is entered into SIMS individually. Please tell me they block fill the column with present marks and just alter any absences. Please please please. You could be sued for causing repetitive strain on the index finger that holds down the '/' key!! :p

 

I'm investigating methods independent of the SIMS app, i.e. web based systems:

 

SLG - not pretty, needs to be built around sharepoint.

3rd party webparts - still need sharepoint setup which we don't have .. . . YET!

TeachersWebFolder - looks really impressive so far, and it's cheap. :D

something else from PARs/Insight...? - not seen demo yet but need to set up for SLT

 

All write back to SIMS live which is the main aim. :)

Edited by vikpaw
typo
alan-d

alan-d

Posted
Posted

Sims registration then lesson monitor the rest of the day. 6th Form sign in when they are in the building and are registered with lesson monitor when in lessons.

 

Currently looking at ways to get rid of the paper registration for the 6th form.

ninjabeaver

ninjabeaver

Posted
Posted
We use sims, anyone who has issues getting into sims just does a paper register if we don't fix it in time, then the admin staff enter the paper stuff like they used to.

 

Same here. Just moved across to SIMS electronic registration. Put a Ruckus wireless system around the school as well to support staff who move between rooms lug less stuff around. Seems to work really well. Paper system as a backup in case staff can't get connected for any reason.

 

Give staff a few training sessions on how to use it (about 30 mins each session was more than enough) and also give the first month over as a live trial run. Don't put them under pressure on the first week and they will appreciate that.

Soulfish

Soulfish

Posted
Posted

 

@Soulfish - i hope you don't mean what you said and each mark is entered into SIMS individually. Please tell me they block fill the column with present marks and just alter any absences. Please please please. You could be sued for causing repetitive strain on the index finger that holds down the '/' key!! :p

Sorry by entering each mark I meant block filling and then changing absences :). Pretty sure she would have killed someone if she had to enter every present mark as well!

jcollings

jcollings

Posted
Posted

We use Lesson Monitor for all registers, AM, PM, every period and it generally works well.

 

A few moans to start with but now it's just second nature. SLT drove it hard to begin with which helped. We are about 1440 students inc. 6th form and all years are recorded.

 

Every staff member has a laptop which helped as did the introduction of managed site wide wireless.

 

The SIMS side of things has never really caused us any issues (touch wood!)

 

Having it all in one place is great and it ties into our text system for 1st day contact etc. All in all a resounding success here.

  • Thanks 1
chrisgoodrich

chrisgoodrich

Posted
Posted

We use SIMS Lesson Monitor for lesson registration. All the teachers use it for am/om reg and most of them use it for lessons.

 

We are looking at Teachers Web Folders from Bromcom. It is basically a web front end for SIMS. This is due to the teachers moaning about having to load the full SIMS client everytime. They also have an app for the iphone/itouch which we will probably use for PE.

  • Thanks 1
cbeeching

cbeeching

Posted
Posted
We use sims, anyone who has issues getting into sims just does a paper register if we don't fix it in time, then the admin staff enter the paper stuff like they used to.

 

.....Ditto

sparkeh

sparkeh

Posted
Posted

My 3 schools all do different things

 

1: Electronic register in SIMS. This has worked really well and reduced the burden on the office that used to scan in paper registers (and all the issues that went along with that) and made the registration process significantly more accurate. No real technical issues since I moved from allowing SIMS workstation to update itself to pushing out updates (initially upgrades were failing but pushing out the packages again works fine). I would advise that you get SMT enthusiatic about this beforehand to drive it forward and commit to supporting it via training.

 

2: Old fashioned markbooks but moving soon to SIMS electonic reg.

 

3: Paper copies from SIMS. For some reason the school is resistant about moving to electronic reg but I am working on it. ;)

  • Thanks 1

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