PhilNeal

Almost always use Result Sets.

Zag I'll point it out to those that deal with these things! Thanks Phil

Dave, we've accepted that the legend is wrong and said that it will be changed.

Metchley when you drag the “C3 detentions” column onto “Behaviour by Reg Group” graph, the new bar will show the behaviour incident totals of the children that have a C3 detention. You are dragging the group of pupils that have a “C3 detention” onto the “Behaviour by Reg Group”. It may not be what DavePriorHLS wants but it is consistent with our approach. If you dragged Male, White British, Free Meals, Students achieving 5A*-C etc onto the graph that is exactly what I think you’d expect to see – Discover always drag pupils. Doing anything else would result in inconsistent results. I believe our service desk gave an accurate answer to the point raised and I don’t think I’m in denial!

One of Discover’s fundamental design principles was that it had to be simple to use. Part of that simplicity is that when we drag from a graph (to pop out, create a Venn or filter) we are always taking a group of pupils. This approach allows a huge range of analysis to be performed very quickly but as with every approach it does have limitations and I accept that Discover cannot produce what you want i.e.- the number of incidents per reg. group that had an outcome of Detention because Discover always moves Pupils and not in this case Behaviour Incidents. (I’m pretty sure that this can be produced using the report generator) We do have regular consultation groups and we will see where they encourage us to take the product. Phil Neal Capita SIMS Managing Director

Drag the C3 detentions onto the graph showing pupils by tutor group. This will give you a new series showing how many pupils have C3s in each tutor group.

I realise that was a little cryptic and I need to keep it that way but look at the scoring system, see what the pass mark is and see how many marks you can get without meeting any of the software requirements. Also the core MIS requirement does not include Exams or Curriculum Management.

Don't assume that everyone on the IMLS framework actually has software!!

Edu-IT If you email [email protected] she will be able to let you know what the licencing position is.

m19pcb - what is the part of SLG that you'd like to be improved?

It is separate. I don't like the fact that its an extra but its a position we have been forced into.

Nephilim, the situation in Bedfordshire is uniquie as schools have only had to pay for support for 20+ years. No payments have been made for core, curriculum or resources licences or annual maintenance during that period. This came about because I was employed by the LEA when I started programming SIMS as a hobby. CyberNerd you are asking a commercially sensitive question and pre-tender I cannot reveal our hand.

If a school purchases its own licence it is transferable should the status of the school change to an academy anyway; there is no need to move to the DfE framework to achieve this.

Jayemm, I’m not sure that I can answer this question. The Becta report put huge pressure on LAs as it pointed out that they were breaking EU procurement law in not testing the market every so often. The problem that LAs face is that tendering can be incredibly costly anything from £100K to £250K. The IMLS framework is designed to help reduce the cost of tendering by creating a framework that they can use to fulfil their legal obligations. Individual schools can use the framework but there is no legal obligation to do so as the total five year contract price falls well below the limits imposed by the EU. I’m not sure what advantage there would be in a school using this framework.

Ecclesbury's advice is sound. Almost always use result sets. No need for three aspects per subject IF you are measuring the same thing each time.

Yes they have and as far as I'm aware it all works. This is such a huge win I think I'd have heard. Who do you get support from?

Not a popular message but I'd recommend re-creating the templates in 2012. We have found problems sometimes when old templates are used.

Just for clarity - we couldn't make Sylv3r's date but as a general principle we do visit and demo.

I recommend that every iteration of what you implement is externally PEN tested by a recognised organisation - the fines on the school for exposing data to the wrong people are crippling. Make sure you deal properly with court orders; once a court order is issued the excluded parent must not be able to see any details of the child.

They did go for RM

Vik - you are right about Matt's state of preparedness.

Dear Colleagues, We have decided to suspend the SIMS spring 2012 release following the discovery of two faults that are likely to affect schools. We aim to make a new version available by close of play Friday 16th March. The first issue affects state schools in England and Wales. There is a possibility that the incorrect “Fileset”, used in validation of the census, will be loaded. This occurs if SIMS was upgraded in the following circumstances: ISO image has been used; SOLUS2 has been used by a non-SIMS user account; SOLUS3 has been used. For those schools that have already taken and upgraded to the SIMS 2011 Autumn release, you can ensure that you are on the latest Filesets for the Spring Statutory Returns that you will be running by upgrading the Filesets from within the SIMS software. The second issue affects all schools in that when in an Assessment Marksheet a user clicks on a recently entered assessment result and then presses delete, the pupil row is deleted from the Marksheet rather than just the result. This is “cosmetic” and the row re-appears when the marksheet is closed and re-opened. However this is an issue likely to affect end users, if only by accident. I very much regret that the need to re-issue SIMS has occurred again and apologise for the convenience that this issue will cause. Please feel free to email me ([email protected]) if you want to discuss this further.

At yesterday's board meeting we discussed this case and exposed a problem with our processes. Some other schools have also had to wait too long for a response and the development & service directors are reporting back in two weeks time to let the board know how things will be improved.

Yes its in the spring release. You can break down subjects into classes using a new tap action.

The thing that I'm determined to stay with is keep Discover as simple as possible - hence there are defined graphs which can be combined in a user friendly way. You can for example drop a registation group on the achievements graph and see that group's achievements. You can then drop another factor onto the same graph and see the effect of that for example 3rd Yr English.