MattMitchell

They might need to change the dates to view the older ks2 assessments. Probably the best way, would be to make an individual report that you could attach as a linked document so that people can have a more user-friendly view

I haven't been able to find a report that will do this. Having said that, if you're prepared to enter a list of applicable resultsets manually into something, you can still check fort the info. The other way to do it, is to use Routines->Data Out->Assessment->Export and export the templates; parsing the XML from these will give you the precise column names, aspect+resultset combinations, etc.

We're using Reading+Maths for the APS, but showing staff a calculated overall English level as Reading+Writing, as part of their planning data

Well, well, well! They've released an updated version of the data, where, although the headline measures haven't changed, the estimates seem to be deterministic; i.e. same qualification/subject, same prior attainment, == same estimate. I have fifteen cases where more than one student has the same prior attainment in the same subject/qual, and the data all stands up now. I've also checked, and there are no situations where a higher prior attainment results in a lower estimate. There is a small number where a slightly higher KS4 att gives the same estimate, but that's not inconsistent with the model. So... The big question is: is there a way we can compile all this data, without breaching confidentiality on the student side (I'm thinking qual code, prior att and estimate only), and without breaching Crown Copyright? Can it be done? Or do we need to FOI this?

Hmm, I didn't think it was meant to be a multilevel model, and even if it were, you wouldn't expect a student-level term in it. Can't look at this till over the summer now, but it's going to bug me I think!

I've not looked at ours thoroughly, but having had a look at Biology AS (All) our data shows the same kind of issues: 1 - students with the same prior attainment, yet different estimate values 2 - students with higher prior attainment, yet lower estimate values than their counterparts with lower prior attainment (2) shouldn't happen if they're using a monotonic (steadily-increasing) model, which is the whole point of their using a pool adjacent violators algorithm (1) also shouldn't happen, as it suggests a non-deterministic model My gut feeling, is that they're either a) modeling based on the old APS for KS4, but displaying the new APS for KS4 on the sheet b) modeling based on the new APS for KS4, but displaying the old APS for KS4 on the sheet I'm planning on matching it back against the old-style L3VA data, so have a look at the differences, although it seems like a waste of time if the model is broken! I suppose it's worth trying to work out why everything looks wrong at least

You're not meant to fly it around places as it's seen as an identifier that allows access to information on students. The safest bet is to use the third-party reporting studentid (person_id), or second best is admission number.

There is a third-party command line tool for pulling report data out of SIMS, as well as more complex api-based access. There might be a small fee for the command line one, but you can get schools to run a sims report and the upload the output. I've come across a few online apps for schools lately that don't secure the data properly (or sometimes transport it encrypted even); and these would not pass any kind of data security audit. Unless you understand the security issues involved, you won't know the data is safe online!

Talk to David Grashoff at Capita, who's in charge of partnership licensing (as I recall). Something to bear in mind with all this, is that writing a web application that's secure against outside attack isn't all that simple! SQL injection is the first thing that comes to mind, for instance. Depending on what you want to do, you might find that using something like office365 could be a good way to do it - if you use the right licensing plan, you can do quite a lot in excel and still hide the underlying data and code from users. To be honest, though, if coding secure online web applications isn't your area of expertise, writing something to process and serve student data online might need some outside help if you want to ensure data security.

You can still run a report to export results by date, even if they're tagged by resultset. Exporting results is a lot faster when you're filtering by resultset, in my experience.

Don't forget the one-per-day rule: if this is turned on for a block, then the lessons will be more spread out ;-)

You can import them, and specify date & resultset, or just date. Couple of things: 1 SIMS won't overwrite results if the date on the import result is older than the existing entry 2 You can omit the resultset, and then (I suspect) no. 1 won't apply 3 You used to be able to omit resultset and aspect nodes from the file, as long as you're using aspects that already exist (saves some grief in outputting the XML) 4 The V7 format is easier, since it doesn't put a GUID on everything. That said, if you want to replace results rather than just add them, it can be helpful The other way to do it, is to produce an XML spreadsheet format file, which has the aspectexternalid and resultsetexternalid, along with the respective suppliers, in the hidden rows at the top. Export a marksheet as XML to see what you need for this one ;-) You can actually make an XML spreadsheet this way using formulae in excel!

I think a lot of schools are replacing levels with another grade/level system that's very similar, which is really like replacing feet and inches with metres and centimetres. The real benefit of AWoL is when it allows schools to take a new approach to assessment, and this is often lacking in a lot of implementations at the moment.

24% of students who came in on a 3c made "expected progress" in Maths. 97% of students who came in on a 5a did. Expected progress is, although better than threshold measures like A*-C, still a very crude tool. Progress8 is much better, although subject-specific value-added is a bit of a missing item at the moment.

Might be easier to schedule your option blocks manually, and possibly some other stuff - it's often worth scheduling opposing English and Maths bands against each other. Have you tried scheduling a small model in nova to see what it does? I'd suspect 8 lessons across two weeks could be scheduled one a day if done automatically, which may or may not be what you want. One thing that can be good with a two-week timetable is the variety it brings, and I'm not sure autoschedule would do that as fully as a human being!