AlistairB1983

The school has a obligation to comply with JCQ regulations and provide those students with "appropriate resources to complete their examinations". An appropriate resource in this instance is going to be software that allows them to type their answers, without restricting their ability to access SPaG marks - so not Word. Without access to Wordpad, there isn't going to be much option left but to pay for another piece of software. And quite honestly you have already found the one that is the most reliable for the cheapest price. There isn't going to be some piece of free magic software out there that's reliable enough for you to use in public exams. If there was, everyone would already be using it. So, at this point, they have two choices: 1) Pay for the software and remain in compliance with JCQ regulations or 2) Don't If Finance and the Headteacher insist on going down route #2, I would strongly urge getting them to put their decision in writing, as that's the sort of decision that could end up being career-ending if JCQ catch wind.

Good luck to you! (and sympathies to her)

Can't speak for others, but my current school and both of my previous ones, this was down to the census almost entirely resting on the shoulders of one individual who received little to no support from those higher up, therefore was made to feel that it was entirely their responsibility. Which, given the amount of funding that is now dependent on the census (certainly the Autumn one) being correctly returned, it's not really a surprise that they want to spend weeks trying to get it right. There's also - in my current school at least - a legacy of working with the local authority in terms of census returns, and they always demanded the return was sent to them for 'checking' well in advance of DfE's deadline - which in turn meant that the school had very little time to turn this around, hence having/wanting to do a lot of the 'leg work' prior to census day as they didn't have much afterwards! However, thankfully, we have both moved MIS (SIMS -> Arbor) and the local authority has closed it's support team. So doing the census is WAY easier and we have longer to actually sort it!

Personally? I think they'll go a similar way to 'classic' cars and vinyl - something enjoyed by collectors and/or those who 'lived through it' the first time round, but for the majority of others not something that compares well against the modern equivalents. For me, I've little/no interest in revisiting the vast majority of games I played as a youngster - baring one, maybe two possible exceptions. Not when I have the alternatives of BG3 (if I have the time) or various mobile games (if I don't).

I was hoping I'd misread my calendar and it was actually still Tuesday ... Oh well, I probably wouldn't have used it that much anyway ....

We moved from SIMS to Arbor last Easter. The Timetable was migrated automatically, however for future timetabling we needed to use an entirely new piece of software (Timetabler) as NOVA can't export into Arbor. With regards to entries we didn't need to do anything as these had already been made in SIMS prior to the migration and we didn't have any amendments to make subsequently. However we had agreed beforehand that the exams for that year would continue to be run on SIMS due to the proximity between the migration and the start of the exam season (for us that begins as soon as we return from Easter with Year 10 internal exams, MFL speaking, Art/Photography practical exams, leading straight into GCSEs/A Levels etc.). So all changes to seating plans etc were still done in SIMS for that last season before this year switching everything over to Arbor 'properly'. With regards to Results, these were imported into Arbor as, although it flags them up as errors on import as there are results with no entry (our entries all migrated over as 'pending'), it didn't stop the result being imported or viewable within the system - as we'd been told before hand would be the case. The results history for individual students etc. came across as part of the migration. Whole school results are probably in there too, I've just never needed to look for them as we use SISRA for data analysis, so they're already in there.

The details the police have released about how/when they both died just makes this even more tragic.

To echo the last two replies, we moved in April 2024 and have not encountered any of the problems listed elsewhere in the thread - or any issues accessing their support. My sympathies for those of you who are experiencing issues and hope that they get resolved shortly.

Whilst I'm not in a position to offer any suggestions for #1 or #2, I would add #3: 3/ Make sure they're not trying to trick you into signing up for a NEW 3 year contract which would then end in 2028. This wouldn't be the first time they have dressed up a new contract as just documentation for an existing one.

I'd argue that moving in the 3rd week of September doesn't count as a 'September move' (yes, I'm aware it's still in September ). By 'September move' I'm specifically talking about wanting to 'go live' on the first day back. By doing it in the 3rd week back, you've allowed all the 'new' stuff from the next academic year to be imbedded into one MIS before you move everything over to the new one, thereby avoiding arguably the biggest issue with a 'day 1 go live' which is that in conjunction with wanting to check your existing data, you're about to have a shed load of new stuff added due to the new academic year. Again, it clearly can be done. It just seems unnecessarily complicated if there are alternates available given it provides such very marginal gains for doing so.

Tip #1 - Don't move in September. Tip #2 - No, really. Don't move in September! (Appreciate it may well be out of your control, but in the event that you do hold some sway over the decision - for the love of [deity] don't move during THE busiest month of the entire academic calendar! Your support staff (& probably teaching staff) will not thank you for it, and any 'benefits' are only short term as, eventually, you'd receive them regardless of when you switch). But, aside from that, make sure you get your support staff in particular to make use of the test site once it goes live. Yes, they should watch the training videos but, as mentioned previously, they're not terribly in-depth. So get them to use the test site for working out how to do that 'in-depth' stuff that's not covered in the videos. As it's a test side they can't 'break' anything, so it's a good time to go nuts with it! Get the message out loud, early and repeatedly that Arbor won't do everything SIMS did. It will do the overwhelming majority - although not always in exactly the same way - but it won't match it 100%. People need to know and understand that so they can be prepared to find new ways of doing things rather than just moaning 'but I've always done ....'. This ranges from the 'lowest' member of Support Staff up to (and definitely including!) SLT. Make quick/simple guides to do most of the basic functions that a teacher needs to use the system for. Sure, they'll receive training but they'll never remember. A short one page document on 'How to take registers' or 'how to enter assessment data' works wonders for being able to signpost them without having to explain things over and over and over again. As far as our transition went, all things told it went incredibly smoothly. However I should caveat that with a couple of points: 1) I used Arbor in a previous school, so was heavily instrumental in not only getting my current school to switch, but also in the actual migration process itself. 2) I was on paternity leave at the actual point we went 'live', so didn't actually have to deal with any of the 'Day 1' fall out (although the SLT member who did it in my place mentioned only a couple of minor quibbles). (With regards to September - in all seriousness, if you can't swap it you will be fine. It'll just be a lot tougher than it needs to be for, in my opinion, no real benefit.)

We moved from SIMS to Arbor over Easter last year and yes, unfortunately the Exams won't carry across. Personally I would suggest that your EO continue to use SIMS - but just the Exams Organiser module - until the end of June when they can switch to Arbor. The fact that Arbor won't (likely) show any of the students as having been entered for any of their exams doesn't matter, the results can still be imported over the summer with no issues (barring any BTECs which will need the 7B file importing first). Timetabling I wouldn't imagine to be much of an issue as Arbor allows for the timetable to be amended directly within it - rather than having to go through the pain of opening Nova etc, and your timetable should absolutely autosync over. So any small changes can just be made directly and the 2025/26 timetable is (judging by every timetabler I've ever met) unlikely to be being worked on yet - although they will, obviously, be needing to learn a new system when the time comes as Nova doesn't talk to Arbor.

It's probably more accurate to say they're getting lazier (which, I admit, also happens to make them worse). They're realising that it's much more efficient to use a scam that requires 1% effort to get 10% success rate than it is to try a scam that requires 40% effort and gets a 15% success rate (or whatever numbers one chooses to apply). So they're just putting in the minimum amount of effort possible in the hopes of still getting some, however minor, success. Makes their time more valuable that way - but does make life easier for the majority of the rest of us to spot them.

You are definitely right to be concerned. As a fellow Data Manager, I would (and did!) do absolutely everything within my power to ensure that an MIS change doesn't take place in September (helpfully, Arbor agreed!). The benefits of a 'clean break' are oversold - the clean break will come eventually regardless of when you move, but moving not in September gives you a chance to iron out problems before you have your 'break'. Trying to implement a new MIS during the single busiest month of the year seems like absolute lunacy. However, if SLT are adamant that it goes ahead, I would try and get as much preparation done prior to the switch as you can. * Train staff, and provide ongoing access to training materials for them in September, including 'cheat sheet' guides to cover the basics that staff (particularly teachers) will need from day 1. * Spend as much time on the training site (and get others to do the same) as you can to help build familiarity. * Ensure that the question of data integrity is considered by SLT - who is going to ensure your data is transferred over accurately, and when are they going to do that considering come 1st September you'll have a whole bunch of new data to add! * Get help! Do not, under any circumstances, let SLT place the majority of the burden on you when it comes to the switch over. There's a whole team of individuals who need to be involved - SLT, IT, Data Manager, 'Admin' (in whatever form they take at your school). Yes, as Data Manager you'll probably be heavily involved, but it's not your job to sort out every single little thing - mainly since there's no way in hell you'll be able to do that during September when you're also trying to ensure that the new academic year is set up and running correctly. But ultimately, try not to panic! I appreciate this is easy to say given everything above, but in reality if SLT are really set on a September switch there's probably little you can do to change their minds. Yes, it'll be absolute chaos. But you will get through it. And after that, you can consign SIMS to the dumpster where it belongs and enjoy life with a modern, fit-for-purpose MIS.

We've been with them just under a year and we've never had a complete outage issue. We've had a couple of instances where some members of staff couldn't access it for about an hour or so, but nothing more than that. (Obviously we weren't one of the affected schools yesterday, but I appreciate others were and, judging by the repeated email updates, they were affected for quite some time). Generally they seem to be doing a much better job in terms of uptime compared to when I used them in a previous school a few years back. At that point it was very much a frequent issue, but recently not so much. Finger's crossed you experience the same once you complete your move.

Honestly? You're not letting yourself in for anything more than you allow yourself to do. From the sounds of it the students are already at least somewhat familiar with the system(s) they're playing, as they're already gaming independently. You're just going to provide them with a safe environment and a few extra resources for them to do so. The rules for the main two systems (Warhammer 40,000 (40K) and Age of Sigmar (AoS)) are both free and available to download from the Warhammer Community website if you wanted to read them/print them off for the students to have as a reference. However don't feel it's your responsibility to 'teach' them anything (if you don't want to), as there are numerous other outlets already available for that - from official Warhammer stores to Youtube videos etc. Honestly just providing them with a space they can play in without the judgement of other members of their school community will do them a world of good. I know from personal experience such attention can cause them to stop enjoying (and ultimately stop participating in) the hobby - it took me almost a decade to come back to it after stopping during secondary school - so to have someone looking out for them like this is going to help ensure they can continue to enjoy the hobby for as long as they want to.

We didn't import the results into SIMS - they just went straight into Arbor. It did flag that we had a bunch of results where there was no entry, but it didn't stop the import. And no, when we did our migration the entries came through without being confirmed (hence the above mentioned errors) and the timetables/seating plans didn't come through at all - possibly because the entries hadn't been confirmed. Had I been in school I probably would have confirmed them (I also line manage the EO, so she would have happily let me!) but I was un/luckily on paternity leave during our 'go live' date, and by the time I returned we were pretty much straight into the start of the GCSEs, so it seemed pointless to try and 'fix' anything by then.

I believe the point being made is that Bomcom's reputation in this sort of area is far from squeaky clean, so some people (myself included) are somewhat sceptical that everything is going to be as open and honest as it presents itself to be.

Your SMT are wrong. Summer migrations are the single dumbest idea imaginable. Not only will it make checking your data transfer infinitely more difficult as data will be moving around (i.e. promoting year groups, timetable changes etc.), but you're also going to be asking staff to learn a new system during the single busiest month of the year for almost all admin roles. This just sounds like an SMT 'wouldn't it be nice ...' idea rather than a realistic suggestion that has been properly thought out and researched. Yes, it would be nice if a school could just launch a new MIS at the start of an academic year, it does make things much neater and tidier. But it's not as a simple as that, and trying to force it to be is just going to cause more problems than it will solve. We migrated this year, at Easter (albeit to Arbor not Bromcom). Was the summer term slightly clunky with certain aspects? Yes - exams still used SIMS (I wasn't going to ask my EO to re-sit everything in Arbor!) and for reports I still entered data into SIMS for the final batch of reports (so parents still got a report with the cumulative year's data on it). But it meant that, come September, all our staff were up to speed with using Arbor so this academic year they've just launched straight into it rather than having to muck about for weeks/months trying to sort things and learn how to do stuff.

Maybe not, but it's pretty clear that the forum sponsors sure as hell do, and are already trying to shoe-horn their thinly veiled attack angles into the 'writing competition'. Shame there wasn't an option to write a blog post on the impact on the children's education for a trust forced to pay out after being sued by a disgruntled MIS.

As someone else pointed out, when someone is praising one of your competitors it doesn't make you look particularly professional when you jump in with an 'oh, we do that too - but better!' type of post. Had my post you quoted gone on about how Arbor's community is better than Bromcom's, then absolutely it would have been warranted. But it didn't, it was just trying to explain to someone who raised the question of why Arbor - despite having more schools and more pupils than Bromcom - appears less on these forum pages. So, given it's apparently not because of the community or help pages that Arbor has - since you've pointed out you have them too, but better - perhaps you can make some suggestions as to why there are very few complaint/issue threads regarding Arbor as compared to those that are regarding Bromcom?

As several others have already suggested, the 'user-friendliness' of Arbor means that most of the time you can find the answer you're looking for in their help sections (if it isn't immediately obvious within the system itself in the first place). On top of that they have their own 'community' which often has people posting the same/similar questions, so again answers can be fairly easily found. Is it perfect? No, of course not, no MIS ever is - just yesterday we experienced errors with the site for a short period in the morning. But these are all, thus far, generally fairly minor in nature and quickly resolved. They communicate reasonably well about such issues when they know they are occurring and when they're fixed, and their status page is pretty accurate reflecting this. I guess this probably goes some way to explaining why there's not much posted on here about it - most users can probably find the answers themselves or, if they can't, are likely to be using other sources to try and find it.

Interesting line I spotted: I wonder if fear of being sued has anything to plan in those decisions? /sarcasm (well ... half sarcasm)

Interesting - our local area is currently a 50/50 split between SIMS & Arbor, however that won't be lasting much longer as I know that 2/5 schools listed as using SIMS are moving to Arbor come the new year as both their Data teams have 'booked in' to come and view how I've set ours up.

We have just started A Man on the Inside on Netflix. Enjoying it immensely so far. It's very similar to Parks & Recreation, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, The Good Place and a number of other US sitcoms - which is perhaps unsurprising given they feature a large number of similar individuals both in front of and behind the camera. Short episodes, great acting, constant gags. Shame there's only (thus far) 8 episodes of it. Finger's crossed they make another series.