Linfit

We use iPads and iPod touches on our Cisco 5508 with 1142 lightweight WAP's. We have not come across any real issues but we do not use multiple profiles and they are not "managed" in any real sense. We just put in the encryption key when we set them up and away we go.

Ours is on a dead end corridor that only a few support staff would have reason to go down, in fact I suspect most staff are not aware that the room is there. Only the IT support staff and the Site staff have a key and site staff know they are not allowed to let anyone into the room without letting us know. Room is on the first floor with no windows in almost the dead centre of the building, and there is no outward sign of its use or purpose. We keep the cabinets locked and only IT support have keys: although it wouldn't take much to force them, they are very poor quality (not my call, that one). I have thought about setting up an IP camera to monitor the door, not got round to that yet, but we do have a door open sensor rigged (part of our environmental monitoring) which is monitored on a screen in our office.

Backroom Boys by Francis Spufford - about great British geek achievements. It has a fascinating chapter about the development of the Game "Elite" but covers a lot of other stuff too. Another book by him "Red Plenty" about the command economics of the Soviet State in the 50's sounds really dull but is actually brilliant as an example of how NOT to do it, and very funny.

Just tried it here and ours is OK on the default template, one form per page. Were on Spring release 7.150

Are we thinking of the same draft print ? Profiles>Data Entry>List Entry Pick up a group, click on the first name in the list, then click Print button and select Class Check Sheet. this should open a word document with all the comments for that subject for that class.

Hmm. MY first thought is that if you print a class check sheet for the "wrong" session, that will get the text of any comments which have been entered into a word document. these would then have to be manually copied and pasted into the correct session. Do-able but tedious for someone.

We got ours from selectamark - examples here: https://www.selectalabel.com/labels If you contact them they will send you samples of the different label types to try out first.

Having tried a number of home-brew methods over the years we finally went for it and bought a proper system to deal with this. We use anodised aluminium labels preprinted with the school name and barcodes with sequential numbering. We have a handheld barcode scanner (WASP) we can use with them and a database that links to the software on the scanner. It wasn't cheap, especially the labels, but we went for them becuase they are difficult to remove and hardwearing, and the bar code scanner because our equipment moves around a lot and after some years of trying we were determined to actually get into a position this time where we had proper inventory and asset management. We tag everything over £50 in value, on advice from out finance people. We do not asset tag things that can't move, such as switches, servers in racks etc, although we do put these on the asset database.

We have just had a demo of a CTouch screen this very afternoon, after seeing them at BETT and being impressed in comparison to some of the other screens that were on show. Seem very tough indeed - we will be getting one for our SEN dept on the strength of the demo.

You ideally need to back up: The sims folder (the one with the Setups, SNova,Star etc folders in it). (The SNOVA folder is important as it may have all your timetable files in it !). The document server store, (usually called DOCSTORAGE) The SIMS and FMS database files, usually sims.mdf and fms.mdf The associated log files, sims.ldf and fms.ldf The ldf and mdf for Discover if you use it. You can get software that will back up the running SQL databases (we have used the Backup Exec client for doing this in the past) but now we have a script which makes a copy of the database files three time a day and the latest one (done around 4.30pm) is moved to a backup store overnight. The other stuff we just backup using the standard Backup Exec remote client overnight. Capita provide a utility, dbattach, to allow you to restore a database onto a clean server fairly painlessly. It is documented on SupportNet: I think its default location is in the MSSQL/Binn in the same file tree as your database files can be found.

When you create the marksheet from your template, and it asks you for a group, you can choose the course from the list - assuming Your year 11's all do the same science course and the courses are set up correctly in SIMS. The marksheet will then only contain science students. The resulting marksheet will only be available to whoever is marked as the Head of Dept in Course Manager. If you want others to see it, you need to give them some sort of supervisory role in Course Manager for thre Year 11 science course - this could be Course Co-ordinator, 2nd in Dept or Supervisor. they will then be able to see any summary macrksheets assigned to that course.

If its for individuals and not several at a time, if they click Timetable from linked documents the default setting has the room on it, and the default print settings fit a two week timetable on an A4 page. We run a two week timetable here and thats they way most staff get individual timetables.

We use Zen, partly as they are our local company, but they have a nice simple web interface where you can change all the settings online. Very straightforward.

I'm the IT Manager here, but most of my day to day is SIMS related - I'm also the timetabler and the Exams Officer. Becuase I was the IT techie person back in the day SIMS became part of my remit (it was computers!) -we're talking the old DOS based system with text menus here, a long long time ago. Since then, the amount of data we have to deal with has grown exponentially - performance and assessment, tracking, attendance, behaviour and rewards, its a massive area, and all schools have a different approach to managing it, but I certainly don't think that any one person can possibly be "the data person" or "the SIMS person" these days. I view my role as MIS Manager as an enabling one: I do the core data, such as new intake imports, timetable updates, adding new SIMS users and a lot of the getting data in and out, and I have my own specialisms where I do much more - the Exams module, Nova and Curriculum Management. We have others who deal with all pastoral and attendance stuff, someone else who does behaviour and rewards, the bosses PA does staffing, etc etc as in many schools, most of the people here who deal with these issues have become SIMS experts in their own areas through use and experience. Like many people who work in schools, and as mentioned above by several people, if you have a knack for it, or an interest in it, you can end up doing it. I must say when people say "Data Manager" these days I tend to assume they will be mainly concerned with assessment and performance, but that may be a rather narrow view on my part. One thing I would say though is that if you can, try and understand at least a little bit about the timetable structure at your school and how the banding and blocking works. It is so fundamental to how many other things are set up in SIMS - Profiles, Assessment Manager, Course Manager, Exams, that knowing at least something about it will make a lot of the logic behind the way SIMS is set up much easier to follow.

This has been a bugbear of mine for a long time - its very annoying that rooms in a building that no longer physically exists cannot be deleted. You can hide them in the Cover module though, by ticking the Exclude from Cover box in the room details pane. this is useful as it de-clutters the cover screen and I think thats the only commonly used area now where all the rooms appear by default

This is easy with the new System Manager: Focus>System Manager>User Access Log Gives username, user, workstation and login date and time. You can search by start and end date to reduce the length of the list.

Yep, apparently there is a known issue: but no updates since. Looks like someone moved the goalposts again.

If you are not using SOLUS and your staff are not local admins you can set the correct permissions by running the file simsperm.bat which you should find in the sims\setups folder on the server. As I recall (not done it for a long time) you need to pass it a parameter which is the name of the domain security group you want the permissions to apply to - so if all your teachers etc are in a group, or can be put in a group (we have one called SIMS Users) its just a matter of running the file on the workstation.

We have had Milestone with Axis cameras for 18 months, came as part of our newbuild. Been very impressed with it, especially the quality of the camera images. When we have had to reveiew footage, we have never yet failed to identify perps. Not cheap, but very good: its been the aspect of our new build which has caused us the least headaches.

I do the timetabling here but I always work with a member of Senior Leadership - in the past a Deputy Head, currently an Assistant Head. The key thing about timetabling in a school is that it is partly about policy, partly about the technical detail of sheduling the timetable, but significantly its about politics. You cannot do a timetable in all but the most straightforward circumstances without upsetting someone or persuading someone to do something they don't want to do. I've worked in schools for long enough for that not to bother me much, but if you are involved primarily because you are the technical person who is going to drive the software you need a senior member of staff on board with you to deal with the political heavy lifting. If those asking you to do it think that it is essentially a data processing job they are totally missing the point.

You can define, (indeed you have to) the academic year as part of the set up process, and the structure of this can vary from year to year provided the next follows on from the previous. By default, you get three terms, but you can add additional ones, change the names, and define holidays how you wish within the year. I know there are some schools in the UK that have a four term year and its a fair bet, given its high market share over here, that some of them use SIMS.

We have been using a mixture of iPod touches, iPads and the odd Android device for the last six months. Other than the fiddly set up, we have had no issues with any devices, but the staff who have used them seem to prefer the iPod touches. We use emerge for duty staff, PE and Drama staff who are constantly on the move, so we need something comparatively small.

This sounds like the marksheets have not been assigned to courses. Has your term started and the new academic year promotion rolled over ? Courses will not become "live" until this happens.

Easiest way is probably to do Reports>Student List>Class List then select classes of a teacher. If you pick out each IT teacher in turn you can export the lists out to Excel. If you dont change the date chances are the lists will all be empty as classes will have no memeberships at the moment. If your Academic Manager person has done their thing, if you change the effective date to after the start of the new term, (its done via the Settings Button) the lists will correctly show next years lists.

I would strongly agree with the previous post. It's much easier if the folder names incorporate the nominal year of entry as there is no maintenance overhead at the end of each year. It's also helpful to use the pupil name in some way -much easier to locate the work of a particular student without having to cross reference with a list.