[sims] SIMS Attendance Marks

[DSapseid]

Having a bit of a funny one here.

 

Since i did the Autumn upgrade last week the students that have the lesson mark of 'D' for dual registration (at college) their attendance has gone from 100% to 0%. I have spoken to our LEA support and they say that D has been made an "attendance not required" lesson (KB115611). Which is fine. However upon me sending this to the assistant head that is in charge of attendance she spoke to the educational welfare officer and they said that the D mark should still be used and it is a problem with SIMS.

 

Can anyone try and help shed some light on this as i have 2 sides telling me two different stories and the head and assistant head want this sorted asap for the census on Thursday!

 

Thanks

 

Dan

[vikpaw]

I'm not sure, but i think i read something about this, and the D is still the code to be used, just that the statistical meaning for it has changed.

Pupil registration - regulations and guidance - The Department for Education

It was in the SIMS release notes too. Really should have been properly communicated to all concerned by the DfE and filtered down to schools and attendance teams though.

Someone on supportnet pointed out that the attachment with the list of codes is still out of date!

[SteveB]

Vikpaw is right. The statistical meaning of D has changed but it should still be used to record pupils attending the alternative site if they are dual registered. The change was made because the census was calculating the attendance of these pupils effectively twice, once for school 1 and again for school 2.

[DSapseid]

Right this has just cropped up again!!! Apparently the statistical meaning for D has changed again so it now means that they are not required to attend and should therefore show the attendance as 100% similar to a Y code. Our EWO has just told me this. Time to phone the LEA SIMS team!

[Sivadam]

The Attendance for the D Codes does not count for anything as it is not included in the Statistics against the school.

 

See SupportNet: KB115611 - Percentage for a student has lowered since the D code change

 

If you want to include the Absence/Attendance Code in the stats then use Code B! That is the advice we were given when the change was made!

Edited February 10, 2012 by Sivadam

[vikpaw]

Right this has just cropped up again!!! Apparently the statistical meaning for D has changed again so it now means that they are not required to attend and should therefore show the attendance as 100% similar to a Y code. Our EWO has just told me this. Time to phone the LEA SIMS team!

 

The meaning you're quoting hasn't changed from first post to this one. Are these students never at your school and therefore always a college? That might explain why they went from 100% to 0%. I can't see that they need to go back to 100% if their attendance is not required. It would only go up, if they spend some time at your school and those will be the marks that go towards their attendance percentage.

 

Unless the meaning has changed to something else altogether different. I don't see anything on the Dfe site, but i'm not really required to meet those reg's so don't really keep up with the changes. Are you sure the EWO knows what to expect?

[MattGibson]

Hi Everyone,

 

I cant suss this one out and I'd be grateful if someone could confirm what is correct.....?

 

We are currently using B & D Codes for students that are educated off-site, however our attendance report for the student shows 00% - This is obviously having a huge impact on our attendance figures. I think before they use to be always at 100%

 

Could you let me know what the correct procedure is?

 

I have read Capita KB115611

Reports | Lesson Monitor / Attendance |

 

Before the Autumn upgrade the child percentage attendance was ##% now it is significantly lower.

 

Workaround

The reason why the percentage attendance for the student has dropped is because they have D code within session marks.

 

The reason for this is because the D code now has a statistical meaning of 'Attendance not required'.Therefore the sessions with the D code are not included in the child's possible attendances.

 

This means the child's percentage attendance will drop, for example:

 

A child's possible attendance was 152 and they were present for 125 sessions, with most of those D codes, and absent for 27 sessions. Their percentage attendance is 82.2%

 

After the upgrade the child possible attendances drop to 65 and they were present for 38 session and absent for 27 sessions, their percentage attendance is now 58.5% due to the amount of attendance sessions which are now not included.

[SteveB]

 

As I understand it . . .

 

D code should only be used for instances where the establishment the student is attending, holds their registration jointly. In this instance, the "Other" establishment is responsible for recording the attendance mark and you are not, thus they are effectively are not required at your school

 

B will count as a present mark and should/could be used where a timetabled provision cannot be / is not offered at your school and the pupil, via consortia learning, has access to the teaching at another establishment. You maintain the responsibility for the pupil and thus record their mark, and the pupil simply attends the other establishment to receive the lesson.

 

B is a present mark (or rather an AEA) so make sure the report is not just pulling present marks. You need to report on Present + AEA

Edited June 3, 2014 by SteveB

[MattGibson]

Thanks Steve, I'm starting to understand it now.

 

I've checked a student with a D code and it says that they haven't attended any sessions so it would be in fact 00% attendance. I'm guessing this will not count towards the whole school attendance figures?

[MattMitchell]

Thanks Steve, I'm starting to understand it now.

 

I've checked a student with a D code and it says that they haven't attended any sessions so it would be in fact 00% attendance. I'm guessing this will not count towards the whole school attendance figures?

 

Exactly so!

 

The whole-school published figures are calculated from (sessions attended) / (possible sessions) in total, so a student who is only educated at the subsidiary institution won't have an effect on your overall attendance. I think they'll still be counted in the calculated number of students for working out the percentage of persistent absentees, but they won't count as absent as they won't have missed any sessions!