Linfit

Printers. Always Printers. When I first started meddling with computers (think BBC Micro Model B) they were always going on about the paperless office. What happened to that then ? Just as far off as my flying car I suppose.

We have used TASC for several years and its very good - set up and pretty much forget about it. It was by far the most cost-effective method of getting registers, behaviour etc onto staff iPads. SLG is fine in its way, and if you use hosted set up is minimal, but it only gets developed in fits and starts, TASC seem much more responsive to requests from schools and are constantly updating and fixing. Their support is better than Capita as well, although the web site can be confusing and their documentation needs streamlining.

That's not an error I'm familiar with. Does the number of periods in the curriculum model match the number of periods in the cycle ? My form groups are just a single block across all bands for each year, with the forms set up as classes. We have 8 forms per year group, therefore 8 classes in the block.

You can do this, just create a block with the form groups in each year as classes and schedule it as normal - we do this, and the Form Time classes are populated from Curriculum Manager in the usual way. The only issue with this is if you introduce an extra "lesson" you will need to change the timetable cycle, and this can cause come issues - usually related to attendance data, so its not something that's recommended in the middle of an academic year.

Yes, I do that myself as I have a satellite install of Nova on my home PC. You can move them around between instances of Nova as much as you like: its what happens once the data is linked into a SIMS SQL instance that I am unsure about.

I was thinking some more about this and I think Estoban has raised something I hadn't thought of. When you send the timetable to SIMS it uses internal codes for data items which are unique and used to link items in Nova with the corresponding ones in SIMS. You see this on the SQL transfer wizard screen when it matches up what's in Nova with what's in SIMS to see what has changed. I don't know what would happen if you transferred from Nova into one SIMS system, and then into another - would the second SIMS instance use the same codes ? And what would happen with subsequent transfers ? I think you need to find someone who knows about how the synchronisation and the data structures in SIMS/Nova work to be sure it would be OK.

That seems OK to me on the timetabling side. I think you should be OK with the pupil census: it doesn't matter if you have "empty" bands and classes provided all pupils are accounted for - that is they are assigned to a valid group (or educated off site, at college etc). I presume you have some existing issues with the workforce census anyway as teachers teach across the schools. These would not be resolved by your solution, but I don't think there is a simple solution as long as the schools remain separate. The SWC collects "hours worked" for each teacher in each subject and year group: if they teach say 30% of their timetable at the school which is not their home school then they will be short on hours at their "home" school. I think you could fix this by manually editing the teacher hours before submission. There might also be an issue with the reconciliation of total staff hours in each school: that is the total hours lessons being taught will not match the total number of teacher hours produced by the Home schools return (as some hours are provided by teachers from the other school). I don't know if this would matter or even if it checks this - it should be in the detailed DFE notes.

You should have a formal written policy regarding the CCTV system - who is allowed to access the images and under what circumstances, what happens if you need to export out video clips or stills, who can request access, retention times etc etc. I believe there are model policies on the ICO website and a Google will find others - Kent LA produces some good documentation on this type of thing. The one thing I would say is you will almost inevitably end up adding more cameras - it might be wise to invest a bit on decent stuff especially on the server side to save hassle later when you need to expand. Consumer grade stuff won't really cut it here, you need some proper stuff, Axis, Mobotix, etc, or you will end up replacing it sooner rather than later. Would also second the milestone recommendation, we have used it for 6 years now and it is very solid (we have 60+ cameras on two servers).

Ah I see. That limits your options somewhat !

Are you using the Report Designer to do this or individual reports in Assessment Manager. In Assessment Manager its fairly easy to do this. In the standard Report Designer its more complex but you can certainly filter on class names and have it put them in the report. However, if your "classes" are user defined fields then you might be able to do it as user defined fields are exposed to the reporting dictionary under the Student>UDF focus. It does beg the question of why your groups are UDF as opposed to just using the standard curriculum groups. Is your timetable not in SIMS ?

You can install it standalone but you need a copy of the satellite installer. If you are running SOLUS 3 you should find this in the SOLUS3>Update Repository>Setups>SIMS folder. Its called NovaSatelliteSetup.exe You run this and it unpacks and creates an installer - it doesn't actually install the software, just creates the files that do (Capita !?) which you then run. You will also need a copy of the licence file, MLicence.Dat, which will be somewhere on your SIMS server. Of course, if you are intending to no longer be a SIMS school the licence may cease to be valid, and you won't get updates to Nova-T. They haven't changed the basic functionality in years, but they do update the .exe more or less every release with odd bits of new features.

It is an option in Bulk Update - Pupil Nationality, between Proficiency in English and Pupil Premium Indicator in the Data Item drop down.

You are right to be cautious - UPN's were implemented for a specific reason and their use is restricted - when the Diploma's were introduced (remember them ?) they needed a national tracking system but the exam boards were not allowed by the DFE to use the UPN - this resulted in the introduction of ULN's, which have fewer restrictions on their use than the UPN's. Other than school to school or school to LA stuff, I would use admission number, and would not supply the UPN if asked.

We use PARS to give access on staff iPads and its fine if you give it a beefy enough server. Its no slower than some bits of SIMS are ! Would recommend it - its also been very reliable, with little or no fiddling required once its set up.

Is the Census folder set correctly and do you have Write permissions on it ?

We have a large fleet of Epson 93ex's and we use Comcen - have been reliable and cheap.

It won't work for us, and it is a massive PITA for us - we had to roll back one of our IT suites so that the teacher can actually start teaching the course. I spoke to our BCS regional rep who said they are going to support 2016 and it should be available "some time in October". That's too late for us - can't hold off starting the course for 8 weeks. Of course, once they start, we can't shift partway through, so we are stuck with 2013 for this years cohort. that's putting aside issues with getting the tests working reliably of course. A more ironically named organisation I have not come across for a long time: they know **** about computers.

If they are there and are appearing in other places that suggests there is something wrong in the report definition you are using. Is a filter being applied somewhere ?

Thre is a bug with the current version of SIMS which means the Exam Numbers do not display properly on the student details page. I would double check that they have actually been allocated. can you see them from the examinations module ?

Its been a while since I used Frog and the screens may have changed, so I could be way off base on this. But just looking at that screen, all the teachers, governors, parents and staff have toolkit access - is this correct ? On ours, only the admins and one or two other people had access to the toolkit. Does the error go away if you remove toolkit login access to one of those groups, say Parents, which would dramatically reduce the number of toolkit users ?

School Workforce Return - its an obsolete term referring to the old style worksforce information schools had to supply to the DFE. It has been replaced by the SWC - School Workforce Census, which takes place each Autumn.

NO Please do NOT do this. It could potentially create all sorts of issues with historical attendance data. Have the old classes actually been removed from Nova-T or have new ones been added in and the old ones left there ?

SIMS is fairly stupid so you have to tell it which columns in your csv file contain the data items it needs to make a match: name, UPN, etc. You also have to match up your data columns with the aspect/result set combo you want to import the data to. If you right click in each column which it displays on the second screen, it will give you a menu of things to match up to that column.

Having taken the lid off the battery pack once it cooled down, its manufacturing date is Nov 2010 and I know the UPS was fitted in Spring 2011 when our new building was commissioned, so it looks like this is an original that has done 6 years sterling service. Can't really complain at that.

Came in this morning to mildly panicking Assistant Head who told me the server room was on fire. I thought this highly unlikely, but followed him upstairs: disgusting rotten eggs smell on corridor outside server room - awful inside. I was stumped. No temperature alarms, nothing off, all cabinets appeared OK. Was convinced it was the A/C - had the site manager rummaging in the ceiling void and mumbling about coolant leaks and stagnant water. So my techy gets in a few minutes later - he immediately says - "UPS batteries, there was a thread about it on Edugeek". Sure enough, we track the smell to one of the APC 3000XL units, take out the battery pack and four of the cells are swollen - the thing is also ridiculously hot. Looks like we caught it just in time. Its the one protecting our phone system and wireless controller, a big deal if we had lost power unexpectedly, not to mention the damage it might have done. So he wins todays award for "odd things I read on Edugeek that turn out to be REALLY useful".