Number 1 most important aspect of your MIS

[GREED]

Before I start, you know and I know where I work, I promise you this is not advertising, promoting or research at all!

 

I had an interesting conversation over lunch with a contact yesterday discussing MISs in general, and he kept referring to attendance recording as the number 1, above all else by far, as the most important aspect/module of such a system in schools today.

 

While I cannot agree, it got me thinking if you absolutely had to have one module, or lets say 1 module working without fail all the time, which would it be within your schools.

 

BTW, lets not turn this into MIS bashing, or error reporting, just overall interested to hear your thoughts.

[vikpaw]

Attendance has to come up near the top as it's always quoted as 'the only legal obligation' put on teachers; to record attendance.

When i read the title, i was going to say as an aspect either uptime or usability, because a lack of either starts to put you in hate mode.

For us personally, i think it would have to be Fees. Everything else i can do manually, but i need to have the system that records our income, everything else we could blag. I know this is quite a pertinent answer for you

Edited February 14, 2012 by vikpaw
sense

[SouthCoastSaint]

Hi Graham

 

In a large school like ours, attendance is a major headache when Sims is down. However, that's because once you have lesson monitor, you try to maintain that level of detail when processing manually. I guess if we had no system, we would scrap lesson marks and go back to AM and PM reg collected manually.

 

For me, the highest volume of work to do manually would be Profiles, but they are only done once a year per child, so it's all relative. Basically, wouldn't want to lose any of it!

[GREED]

I know this is quite a pertinent answer for you

 

mwahaha!

 

Thanks for sharing

[SouthCoastSaint]

Scrap above - timetabling and student allocations

[pete]

Toss-up between Attendance and Student Information (Parental contact info, medical info about the child etc).

 

The latter especially in those "Jimmy has been stung by a wasp, his leg has swollen to the size of a marrow and he's unconscious" moments.

 

Timetabling would be a pain to do manually, but it'd only be a pain for one person.

[Sivadam]

Scrap above - timetabling and student allocations

 

I totally agree with this sentiment!

 

Without the Pupil allocations and timetable being correct then everything else is screwed!

 

I obviously include the allocation to Reg Groups as well as Classes!

 

This area is the basis of everything else on the system.

[vikpaw]

Most timetablers i know do so much on paper anyway, and if it's done on a system, they still print out millions of copies on their wall. I can live with making one person unhappy, so long as he gets paid

 

Oh, and the joke answer for most important aspect in my MIS : "GCSE IT Exam Results"

[SouthCoastSaint]

I wasn't thnking so much as the initial construction, but more of the day to day each individual student timetable. Moving 1750 kids round the school if no one knows where they are going would make registers a little irrelevant! Chicken and egg....

 

Saw demo yesterday of Progresso, and saw a nifty little feature that really would be time saving to me. When assessment collections are set up, a message stays on the teacher's homepage showing the marksheet as outstanding until it's complete. Then again, without AM7, I would be collecting grades on scraps of paper. Where do you draw the line?!

[Sivadam]

I wasn't thnking so much as the initial construction, but more of the day to day each individual student timetable. Moving 1750 kids round the school if no one knows where they are going would make registers a little irrelevant! Chicken and egg....

And all the day to day changes of the Timetable & Groups. They BOTH change more than once a week, averaged across the year!

In this case there ain't no chicken - just an egg. It all starts there - the Timetable Egg!

There ain't no registers, marksheets etc etc without the Groups & a Timetable!

[PhilNeal]

Surely it should be school improvement!

 

SouthCoastSaint - from spring you will be able to txt/email staff that haven't completed their marksheets.

[GREED]

Surely it should be school improvement!

 

Surely the system as a whole is used for school improvement? How do you improve a school or plan to improve a school with no other data? Where do you concentrate on? Is attendance an issue in your school? Bad behavior? bad teaching practices? Poor communication with parents?

[Sivadam]

One sometimes wonders if we do improve................. !

 

DfE don't seem to think so 'cos they just downgrade the definitions!

 

Soon 'Outstanding' will really mean 'Room for Improvement!', in Ofsted speak!

 

And all those that were previously 'Good' or 'Outstanding' will have been closed because they were 'failing!'

Edited February 14, 2012 by Sivadam

[GREED]

So we need a word better than outstanding...

 

Awesome. 'My school is Awesome!'

[SouthCoastSaint]

Surely it should be school improvement!

 

SouthCoastSaint - from spring you will be able to txt/email staff that haven't completed their marksheets.

 

Thanks Phil - I had noticed that, and it will certainly be an improvement (as long as you don't need In Touch to use the function). I just liked to idea of date stamping a collection, so teachers can see at a glance what is outstanding for them. Actually, this could also encompass missing registers. Could have a homepage panel for Teachers - WORK YOU ARE BEHIND ON. Although, would the screen be big enough for some?!

[vikpaw]

Actually, this could also encompass missing registers. Could have a homepage panel for Teachers - WORK YOU ARE BEHIND ON. Although, would the screen be big enough for some?!

 

Bromcom have this panel on a webpage that shows you outstanding registers. Would be perfect for a display board in the staffroom

[Max_Power]

All aspects of MIS are important for us - different modules affect different people, medical for nurse, timetabling for timetabler, attendance for all teachers (legal obligation). From a technical point of view its got to just be reliable - minimum downtime.

@SouthCoastSaint You can see outstanding registers on the SIMS homepage, I have it setup so I can see outstanding for all teachers - not sure if you can set it for just your own though.

@PhilNeal - The facility to email staff about their marksheets not being completed will be a good addition, but only if you dont need intouch as suggested previously.

[elsiegee40]

As an independent, it has to be fees and attendance... Who did what and when and making sure this translates into the fee invoice. Without that everything else fails.

 

A degree of flexibility is also important. An acceptance that the whole school does not operate the same timetable. We have babies join at 2 months... Their sessions are not the same as those in the prep.

[vikpaw]

.... An acceptance that the whole school does not operate the same timetable. We have babies join at 2 months... Their sessions are not the same as those in the prep.

I'm competing with this now, need to have 3 different cycles ideally.

[GREED]

I'm competing with this now, need to have 3 different cycles ideally.

 

Try catering for colleges who run a timetable for every student... more or less.

[elsiegee40]

Try catering for colleges who run a timetable for every student... more or less.

The difference for independents is that getting it wrong means we don't get the money in. (Or we get angry parents who take their kids elsewhere)

 

In most schools and colleges, coping with different timetables means people don't get taught... not that the money doesn't come in. For us, it could be both.

[SouthCoastSaint]

@SouthCoastSaint You can see outstanding registers on the SIMS homepage, I have it setup so I can see outstanding for all teachers - not sure if you can set it for just your own though.

 

I do use this panel all the time but looking at the way it's configured, it's more part of the 'send message' tool than for each individual teacher. If it's already there in some form though, might not be too hard for Capita to set up as an addition. I know there has been lots of talk in the past about the timeline being red until reg is taken then turning green, but I think a panel for it would be quite good too. Would also mean that it would still display even when tomorrow has arrived - this wouldn't happen with the timeline unless you rolled backwards.

[GREED]

The difference for independents is that getting it wrong means we don't get the money in. (Or we get angry parents who take their kids elsewhere)

 

In most schools and colleges, coping with different timetables means people don't get taught... not that the money doesn't come in. For us, it could be both.

 

Unfortunately changes in most college funding means exactly the same and you guys.

 

As well as the raft of Academies and free schools. Might not get the money from the same place, but it all relies on getting them through the door.

[AngryTechnician]

#1 most important aspect? Data Protection Act compliance.

 

In our current MIS I have had to disable one module because using it would put us at risk of a Data Protection complaint. Luckily it's not a critical module, but the company have shown little interest in fixing it. They have literally told me they don't see it as a big problem.

[GREED]

#1 most important aspect? Data Protection Act compliance.

 

In our current MIS I have had to disable one module because using it would put us at risk of a Data Protection complaint. Luckily it's not a critical module, but the company have shown little interest in fixing it. They have literally told me they don't see it as a big problem.

 

What does the module do out of interest that would cause DPA issues? You don't have to name the supplier!