AlistairB1983

Well the rules 'leaks' thus far for 10th have certainly rekindled my interest! Even took to going up the loft to find where the Emperor's finest had been banished to in readiness!

Apologies for resurrecting an old post, but I couldn't find anything mentioned elsewhere on here. Is there a way to unlink contacts on SIMS after they've been linked? My current school has (or rather had!) a policy of always linked ex-student accounts to any parent/staff accounts when they returned. But I'm now starting to delete the ex-student details (currently working on ex-students born 1982!) and have found an account linked to an ex-staff member who left last summer (so I can't delete their staff account). I'm hoping that if there is a way to 'unlink' I can then delete the student one. Grateful for any held/advice anyone is able to give (as no one else in the office is particularly insightful - several still muttering that they should be linked )

See, whilst I didn't particularly like the story itself - it felt like it was pushing the 'gore'/'extreme' envelope for no real benefit - I did like Serkis' acting in it. I thought he did very well to make a believable character out of a very bad script/screenplay.

Apologies at the outset that this isn't more useful, but I can confirm it's definitely not a known issue as I've been working through our SIMS deleting ex-students (some of whom are who are now in their 40s (!)) and then the unlinked persons that result from said deletions. All of which have gone through without any issues I'm afraid. Sorry!

Sorry to hear that, though perhaps unsurprised to hear it. There was a chance that ESS's shady business practices could have been reigned in, but sadly the 'powers that be' decided to completely water down their response and so we end up where we are - appeals being rejected and ESS trying to backhandedly get others to re-sign up for another 3 year contract by not properly explain it and charging an excessive levy on year 2 & year 3 of existing contracts. But at least this means Arbor, Bromcom and all other MIS' providers will start to get more of the money that would previously have gone to ESS. Personally I've managed to convince SLT here to look into Arbor especially with their 'Pay for One' offer, so hopefully will soon be amongst the others who have managed to escape and stick the proverbial (and literal) two fingers up to ESS.

Thames Water beg to differ.

I don't really mind what type of pie it is, so long as it's actually a pie and not a dish with a pastry lid as per numerous local pubs/eateries.

Primarily the former (and then primarily A Level & GCSE - vocational exams are somewhat different), however I do find the Special Consideration process to be fairly lacklustre as well.

As a former Exam Officer (EO), and as someone who still line manages our school's EO (and is therefore heavily involved with exams), I would agree that this is a no-brainer - but probably not in the same way as you. Personally, this sounds like a horrendous idea that threatens to undermine the very principle of the examination system by creating a 'back door' that any student can access with limited resources as an attempt to 'fix' an issue that is, statistically speaking, non-existent. Whilst I completely sympathise with the few students each year who fail to achieve their qualifications due to missing them through illness, the restrictions already in place to limit this potential impact (timetable spacing etc.) mean that in reality it really is a very, very small number of students each year who are affected. I have already had personal experience of numerous students trying to 'game' the existing system by limiting the number of exams they have to sit by being medically exempted from the remaining, to allow a potential route to not have to undertake any exams risks undermining the entire system as a whole. And whilst it's very much not fit for purpose (another point for another thread), I don't believe that creating such a large and obvious back door for students is the right way to try and change the system. A possible alternative would be creating a larger Autumn resit series covering all subjects, as happened during/after the Pandemic, but restrict that season to students who were entered - but didn't grade - during the previous summer. That would give any students who missed the entirety of their subject's exams the previous summer a chance to sit those papers and be graded accordingly.

We replaced our boiler in December after it kept cutting out - around the same time as everyone else's when it was -7! - and although I didn't look at the time, I quick 5 minutes google special has just suggested that the cost of the heat pump alone would be almost double what we paid for our boiler and installation. And I don't think installation for us would be cheap due to it being an old house the only exterior wall it could probably go on would then require a lot of extra interior work as well. So similar (for me) to electric vehicles - a nice idea, but so long as they're still (essentially) double the cost of the non-green alternative, I won't be buying one.

I must say all these impressive looking Nids makes me long to have my GSC painted up and ready to play. But the current edition is just not to my liking unfortunately. Fingers crossed the supposed release of 10th edition this summer will change that! If not, I fear I might end up shifting some of my unused 40k stuff as I don't think I'll ever go back to it.

This, combined with a mind set of never trying to understand WHY things work they way they do, rather just accepting that's how it's done because that's how it's always been done. If staff understood why they were doing things they way they were, it would enable them to better adapt to a new way of doing things when the software they used changed their normal routines, even if just slightly.

Nice work on both the Zoan's and the Tortoise. I don't envy you panting that! Although saying that, I did decide to strip my entire Bolt Action partisan army over Christmas with the intention of re-painting them and thus far I've done about 10 out of 60 or so models

I personally loved all 3 shows, although they all show the universe in their own ways. Obi Wan is all about the 'big name' characters, which is in stark contrast to Andor which very much focuses on the 'little guys' of the universe. Mando sits somewhere between the two and is, I think, my favourite of the three because of that - a mix of 'little guys' and named characters.

It very much depends on how you define 'better'. However that being said, I do think that almost everyone who uses an alternative to SIMS would say they're a vast improvement over it.

My last school (left November 2021) used Arbor and I wasn't aware of any user groups (although there was the option to reply to help topics/similar forum type posts, but not a full on help group) - however I did have an extremely strong working relationship with a couple of their customer support advisors who I was able to contact to get the vast majority of my issues quickly resolved. They even came out on site on a couple of occasions to assist in setting up bigger things (assessments for example) so that they did what we wanted. I was also fortunate enough to have quite a lengthy and in-depth conversation with James (CEO) at an Arborfest event they ran in 2020 (just before everything stopped!) where I was able to tell him what my priorities were coming at it from a Data Manager in a secondary school. Most of the features I was asking for/complaining about were already on Arbor's progress map, and from what I understand (wife still works at the previous school) most have now been implemented or are very soon to be rolled out. As you've said, it's definitely not perfect - when I first started using it I would frequently pull my hair out in frustration! But the more time they spend developing it, the more honed and refined it's becoming. To the point that when my current school leaves SIMS (hopefully soon!) it will be the MIS I push for, although bearing in mind other recent threads, this will all be done completely above board as I don't like lawyers!

I've found where the missing T has ended up - seems it snuck into your spelling of Brisol!

Oh don't even get me started! Our LA says that they recycle cardboard but only if it's not wet. Which is really easy to comply with given that they: a) require bins to be put out by 6:30 am (so the previous night then, I'm not waking up early just to do that!) and, b) give us a recycling 'bin' isn't a bin at all but a canvas bag with velcro sides/lid, which means it's about as water tight as a sponge. Needless to say that actual bin men themselves aren't fussed and just pick it all up (provided it's not a massive cardboard box - thing 52" TVs or similar).

So far DfE haven't released any information with regards to P8 calculations for these two cohorts. And unfortunately I don't really expect that to change any time soon - as no one really knows what to do!

Whilst I can't help with the Bromcom aspect of your question, speaking as a Data Manager I can certainly take a stab at trying to help with the P8 part of it. Progress 8 is, arguably, THE measure of progress for secondary schools. It's probably the main figure that gets published by the DfE/waved around proudly (or hidden away in shame) by schools. Progress 8 used to be calculated base on KS2 Fine Level scores (the 'old' method). However a number of years ago the KS2 assessments were reformed and the results now come out as scaled scores (the 'new' method). As of last summer (20220), students sitting their GCSEs will have their KS2 scores via the new method (i.e. scaled scores) rather than the old method (fine levels). Therefore all the Progress 8 calculations have now been updated to reflect this - hence (presumably) why Bromcom's dashboard no longer works using Fine Levels. Apologies if this is telling you information you already know.

Step 1. Win the lottery Step 2. Retire ... oh, you meant a 10 year plan for the school, not for me. Right, well ... er ....

In one of my previous schools we used Dragon by Nuance (Dragon - The World's #1 Speech Recognition Software | Nuance UK). Seemed to work pretty well, but no idea about how expensive/cheap it is by comparison and also it was a number of years ago (2018) so things may have moved on since then.

I tried watching it with the other half, who admittedly doesn't usually pay enough attention to programmes instead preferring to half-watch and half-instagram scroll, and she tapped out before the end of the 1st episode. I watched the other 3 on my own and was ... disappointed. Everything about it was great - story, acting, special effects etc. It was just about 6 episodes too short! It was more crowded than a rush hour tube train, and it just meant everything felt less important as there was always something else just around the corner! "And then this happened, and then this happened, and then THIS happened!" means I stopped caring about the first thing ages ago, even though it was potentially quite a pivotal point that deserved more attention. So somewhat similar to GoT S8 - only with decent writing this time. (Also, absolutely LOVED Lenny Henry in this!)

We actually limit who parents message, primarily to try and stop this very issue! We want our parents to go through a single channel, so sadly we've had to close all the others as no matter how often they were reminded, some still persisted. So we ask them to email in via our office@ email address, which is also included in our signature for EduLink. It might be something we can revisit later this year once parents have been trained in 'good habits' (or preferred habits at least!).