[sims] Lesson Monitor capabilities

[localzuk]

I've been asked to find out what capabilities Lesson Monitor would have for 'lesson by lesson tracking of pupil behaviour'.

 

ie. Having a set of columns within it such as 'Equipment' 'Homework' 'Bonus Point' etc...

 

So, if a pupil is not equiped, a -1 can be put in the equipment column, or if they're extra good a 1 can be put in Bonus Point etc... This being for a merit system.

 

Or is it limited to attendance?

 

Also, if the above is possible, is it possible to pull this data out in reports?

[Sarconia]

Well, I've just given this a go and it seems that it isn't possible to create your own user defined columns which can be displayed in the register. The only additional columns available seem to be in the attendance setup screen and it only includes columns such as gender, adno, SEN and behaviour today (which may be useful for you but any behaviour incidents would have to be entered in the normal way rather than through the register).

 

The only way which I can think of to do this would be to create a marksheet within Assessment Manager... then you could create your own fields and have the teachers enter any values on the Marksheet tab in Take Register. Still... I'm not sure how well it would work for tracking behaviour on a lesson by lesson basis. It would probably be possible to report on this but I suspect it'd be quite a complex report.

 

That's all I can think of and it's not very good, I'm afraid that my knowledge is fairly limited when it comes to behaviour in SIMS... they keep changing the way in which it works and not many schools I support use it so I don't get too many queries.

[localzuk]

Ok, thanks. Just the info I needed. On with my summer coding project then.

[kxv2020]

You can do it, but not in the way you describe with columns; just use custom lesson attendance code e.g. -1 for poor behaviour; -2 for no homework; -3 for no equipment.

 

However I still think you should you the behaviour system, logging incidents and using that to produce reports!

[jcollings]

It does do something similar but not quite in the way you describe. You can set behaviour or achievement incidents so they can be added from the lesson monitor screen by right clicking and choosing the type. This then writes a record in behaviour management without the need for staff to do anything else. Reporting is then pretty easy. We've just implemented it for achievments within our new reward system.

[localzuk]

Seems though it would be a cludge doing what we want with LM, so I think a custom app would likely be more suited.

 

Cheers for the help guys.

[SteveB]

Seems though it would be a cludge doing what we want with LM, so I think a custom app would likely be more suited.

 

Cheers for the help guys.

 

Lesson Monitor is designed to do exactly as you describe. 'Equipment' 'Homework' 'Bonus Point' etc... can all be set up in SIMS and then on the Register screen, the tutor simply right clicks a name (or a selection of names) to assign the appropriate behaviour. The same can be set up as an achievement. I certainly would not waste time creating a custom app when the data can be entered into SIMS and thus reported on.

 

Steve

[localzuk]

Lesson Monitor is designed to do exactly as you describe. 'Equipment' 'Homework' 'Bonus Point' etc... can all be set up in SIMS and then on the Register screen, the tutor simply right clicks a name (or a selection of names) to assign the appropriate behaviour. The same can be set up as an achievement. I certainly would not waste time creating a custom app when the data can be entered into SIMS and thus reported on.

 

Steve

 

How is the data entered? via a simple 'click here' and it adds a point for it? Or does it require a form filling exercise?

[jcollings]

How is the data entered? via a simple 'click here' and it adds a point for it? Or does it require a form filling exercise?

 

Yep - right click a name (or group of names), pick the achievment/behaviour you want and click it. That then creates a record in the Behaviour management module - no form filling needed.

[SteveB]

How is the data entered? via a simple 'click here' and it adds a point for it? Or does it require a form filling exercise?

 

yup what jcollings said. Its worth noting that if teachers wanted a more involved behaviour incident to be recorded with comments, outcomes etc, they can do this also, but by using the behaviour link on the right hand side of the register page.

[vikpaw]

As has been said above, it's easy to do in SIMS and makes sense to keep the info tied in to the student's record.

 

Some screen shots so you can visualise it.

We only use these quick clicks for behaviour (i.e. negative behaviour) at the moment:

 

 

For achievements you'd get a similar menu to this one.

 

All you have to do is set up your behaviour / achievement types, and give them a points value.

 

It uses the regular behaviour management engine from SIMS and creates the normal record just without the form filling. If the teacher then wanted to add notes or further info, they could go into the incident manually.

 

The basic info is like this, with a really useful lesson information field:

 

The field is reportable and comes up as 3 separate fields with a drop down box, showing all your subjects / all the classes in your system, so it's very powerful. Period is the only free text field, but should be fixed by your system e.g. Wed: 4

 

The only thing i think you should investigate is the combination of these points. SIMs show these separately, behaviour / achievement. We don't combine these, but i know other schools do, and there are reports that will do that for you. I don't know if SIMS can do an overall figure for you, but depending on what end result you want, you may have to tweak how you implement the system. So instead of a -1 for bad behaviour, they get 1 behaviour point, and this would cancel out a 1 achievement point. I'm not really sure but there's quite a bit on supportnet regarding this and using pivot tables etc, so it's defo usable and hopefully prevents you from writing an app.

 

)

[localzuk]

Thanks guys. I've also had a chat with someone from our LEA SIMS team and we have decided that it does some of what we want but not all. Such as the automatic assignment of points to every child in every lesson.

 

Not to mention that we'd also require real-time access to the data so that kids can see how they're doing at any time of any day, and parents can also.

[vikpaw]

So what have you decided to do?

Is the automatic points thing just for being present? Because you can bulk add to multiple students using that method if required.

Wouldn't real-time reporting come through SLG if you use that?

I'm not trying to talk you into using SIMS as the solution, just thinking out loud.

[localzuk]

So what have you decided to do?

Is the automatic points thing just for being present? Because you can bulk add to multiple students using that method if required.

Wouldn't real-time reporting come through SLG if you use that?

I'm not trying to talk you into using SIMS as the solution, just thinking out loud.

 

The problem is this - the data has to be visible at entry to the kids. ie. there needs to be a grid at entry which the teacher can show on the board, so that peer pressure will push those kids who are consistently getting minus points into doing better. The next problem is that data entry must be *VERY* simple. ie. a click for a point etc... Finally, the SLG is great, if we want to present a long list of points to the parents and kids, but we don't. We want to present a bunch of totals, do some analysis ('you are in the top 3% of pupils') and add extras such as 'gold awards' and the like for certain number targets being met.

 

So, whilst Lesson Monitor seems to be able to track some of what we want, getting access to that data and making sure the data entry is how we want it is not really upto what we want.

[vikpaw]

fairy nuff.

 

when what you want is so specific, it's much easier to do your own thing. what i've seen some people do is to use their own system but then tie back into SIMS by recording some kind of aggregate score / achievement etc against the students' record, so there is something there to refer to during reports without having to go out to another system or for IT to have to provide separate stats. It could either be in behaviour module or as suggested earlier, imported into custom marksheet, which makes it much easier.

[vikpaw]

Just noticed that those quick reports now have the status attached, so you don't necessarily need to go into the main record to alter the status if you want to mark it as resolved or follow up etc.

 

 

it's expanded to the left due to my screen width at the time.

 

Next screen is just the message telling you it's done and more detail can be added in the main record, but it's not really needed now, which is cool.

 

[CatherineMay]

Hiya

 

I do that using SIMS for recording with right click in lesson monitor and use reports into excel.

 

 

Made reports for tracking a student, teacher, subject, by date.

 

Hope it helps - email for more details.

 

Regards

Catherine