[sims] SIMS Roadmap

[rh91uk]

Hi all,

 

A quick one.

 

We hardly use SIMS here and we are moving into the using it for Assessment (!!), Behaviour Reporting, Communication Logging etc.

 

I have to present a roadmap to SMT regarding it ..... what we aim to do when. Has anyone got any examples of anything they have done?

 

Cheers

Rich

[PhilNeal]

I'd be happy to arrange for you to visit one of our partner schools who use SIMS throughly. There are about 50 of them around the country so hopefully there's one near you. Drop me a note if you'd like to pursue it.

[vikpaw]

A quick one.

 

We hardly use SIMS here and we are moving into the using it for Assessment (!!), Behaviour Reporting, Communication Logging etc.

 

Quick? - you're having a giraffe.

 

They are pretty big areas to cover, the best thing to do is to have a look at a school in action, and see what they do and what issues they faced. I don't think we had a roadmap as such, so can't really just give a document. Some thoughts though:

 

Take each one separately, and make sure you know exactly what you want out of the new systems, and why. Don't just collect data for the sake of it. Know what it's for, how you will analyse and what to get out of it. The plans shouldn't fall on your shoulders as a data manager, the senior team should be driving it with your technical advice. Get teachers involved too.

 

Assessment is massive and getting it right so it works year on year is tricky. There are a couple of threads on that, here that you can easily search to guide on creating aspects etc. I'm sure you're been a part of them.

 

What communications do you want to log? You can store most things on the Document Management Server but only do it if you need to. I wouldn't store each bulk mailing that goes out, just save it in a file with a note that it went out to all year 8 on 3rd/oct/2010.

 

Behaviour is very nice and once the reporting side is utilised it's so powerful. The best way to access the behaviour and achievement is via the registers, so if you don't already have it, consider lesson monitor. It's the best and easiest way to log info and hides the small issues over data being deleted accidentally.

 

For our behaviour we had a paper system, that moved to intranet ticket system. When introducing SIMS, we parallel ran, and it was a huge pain in the behind. Staff wont like it. It's easier to accept that the first year is bedding in and wont give you a whole school view straight away. Start small, get one department or year group to try it out. Even just a class, so you can see the workflow. Do you send messages to HoY or Form Tutors. What do they do. What reports will they run. We made the mistake of going whole hog quickly and then finding every middle manager now wants pop ups on their homepage, and reports, but they haven't the time to wait while you get to grips with it. So start slow, and put in lots of training, you'll no doubt want to customise some of the lookups. Logging through the register now records the period and class, so getting some reports that pick that up for HoDs is useful.

 

If you can, try and do similar scaling up with assessment, and good departments to trial on first are Maths and IT. They will probably already have spreadsheets in place that you could replicate as marksheets, not to mention they can do the post analysis if need be. That will make it easier for other departments later.

 

Dont forget new things that are to come like Discover that will give you new features such as Dynamic User Defined groups, so you can monitor art grades for y8 boys on FSM (in theory). Leave the plan open for some things like that.

 

I've gone on a bit, so will stop in case that's not what you want. Get in touch or post back if you want more info on how we implemented things.

Edited October 3, 2010 by vikpaw

[rh91uk]

Thanks Vik - very useful.

 

PhilNeal - PM sent. Thank you