Linfit

We use a QNAP box for ours. Its a TS1279U and is now several years old but has been rock solid. Interface is nice and straightforward. Works well with Veeam backing up VM's and hardware based servers. They do lots of different rackmount models so likely to find one that meets your requirements. We bought ours half empty and put more discs in as the storage needs expanded.

You can only use the DFE provided codes - there used to be a great long list, but some years ago this changed, as census now is really only interested in whether English is the first language or not. If you wanted to collect and keep that information, you'd probably need to use a UDF - assuming you had a valid GDPR reason for collecting that data.

Wrong - I have seen the mockups of the new Exams Organiser and the workflows and underlying processes are completely different. It has to be - if they simply replicate the interface and existing methodology in a web interface the product will fail as its still basically SIMS with all its inherent ease of use problems. Of course if they don't do that and start afresh they are putting themselves on a level with all the other MIS providers out there in that a school buying their product will be starting from scratch. With their current reputation, that has got to worry them - its their "Dreadnaught"* moment.

If its bare brick walls and timber roof with exposed joists, the best thing you can do is insulate as much as possible. I turned my garage into a workshop by walling up the up and over door. This reduced draughts but it was still very cold. When I had the rest of the house done I replaced the wooden window and door with UPV double glazed, to eliminate draughts. Then put insulation between the joists, as the biggest heat loss will likely be out the roof. Carpets or rugs, and as said above, material on the walls all help as well. The insulation has made a huge difference to the amount I need to heat the space - I have a conventional fan heater that I use and 15 or 20 mins warming the place up and then its good for several hours working in there.

Their problem is structural. They are simply not geared up to producing agile code quickly with the latest tools - there is too much management and the business is structured in such a way that they can't simply give someone carte-blanche to get on and do it. Moving the coding to India will make things worse - I have been on UAT panels and done beta-testing in the past when most stuff was based in Bedford and the disconnect between the managers/business analysts and programmers view of workflows and how schools work, and what actually happens in schools was astonishing. Personally, I don't think they can retrieve things now. Whenever SIMS 8 becomes more widely available its pretty clear its going to have key functionality missing, and its likely to be clunky and poorly designed, because thats what their software is always like. I've used SIMS since the days of the DOS based blue menus, but we are academising and likely looking to make a change of MIS, and when the subject comes up I am going to be stongly pushing for us to look elsewhere.

No it doesn't. Currently you can view balances and see the the day's transactions but you cannot make payments. I believe they are looking at this but assume its a big job as handling payments gets you into a compliance and standards minefield that they might not be too keen to get into.

We use Cunninnghams and they charged us £70 to remote in and configure the link, only took a few minutes, and it just works. I beleive if you have later versions of the Cunninghams software the relevant modules are already present and it won't cost anything to set up the link.

We have been using Edulink One since Sept. We did an hours training for staff at the start of the year, mainly on how to send messages and use the seating chart fundtionality. The rest is very intuitive. It has been very well received by staff and parents but the big upside for us is the number of pupils who use it, easily 80% of the school. This was unexpected but has helped mssively with engagement and communications. We use pretty much all the modules, setup has been very straightforward. We haven't done a parents evening with it yet but other than that no issues. Support are excellent, you get a reply back within a hour or two, and they have already implemented a change I asked for and are working on another, which I thought was pretty impressive. It has replaced three different systems which had less functionality and were more expensive, so we have streamlined our setup, reduced our admin overhead and costs, and its a better product. One of the best things I have seen in education in this area for a long time. It does show up just how expensive and clunky the various Capita add-ons to SIMS are. Of course, I am only familiar with SIMS, so maybe this type of capablity and reponse is common with providers of other MIS systems ?

You cannot delete users once created, just make them inactive and remove all their permissions. You can change the name though, if its a stand-alone user not linked to an employee, so you could change it to "redundant", or "do not use" or something. You are likely to need some non-employee users in the future, maybe for third-party platforms that need access to your SIMS data, so you can always rename and re-use it later.

Is the show timeline box ticked on his homepage configuration ? This is a per-user setting so will need to be logged on as him to check. Although it should not make any difference to whether he can take registers/have a timetable etc, if the person concerned is an employee they should be shown as such in SIMS. If he is not, then either his details have not been entered in Personnel or he is in the system twice, and when setting up the SIMS account a new person has been added instead of using the record already existing in Personnel. If this is the case, it will be a pain to sort out, as the two records will have to be merged, and this requires a patch to be applied.

We have 18.3.6 running on Server 2019, no issues at all, was a very straighforward install and its been in since February. We didn't use an SQL database, just let Papercut install its own, there are about 20 printers on that box printing around 8000 pages a day with approx 1000 users.

Would agree - very painfree. We have a very high proportion of our pupils using the App and our Text costs are a third of what they were using MyEd. In terms of Bang for your buck and impact on the school its one of the best things we have ever been involved with. Also very responsive. I asked about adding the ablity to specify result set/aspect pairs for the data on the seating plans and they implemented it within four weeks of my asking. Never had that sort of response before from any provider.

We have nine around school, and have had for many years. Most people ignore them and although I frequently ask staff for stuff to put on them I rarely get anything. The stuff that is on there now has been on since Sept and no-one has asked me to change it. If I was asked to put them in from new I would argue strongly against as its not worth it - better to focus on stuff thats actually useful and makes a difference.

Secondary 980 pupils, 100 ish staff, 101000 per month average since February.

Not had it here for some years but it always was resource hungry and a bit tempremental. Spent a lot of time fiddling with the IIS server. I would suggest Edulink One as an alternative - we have been live with this since September and its been a real game-changer. The setup is quick at your end, its cloud based so your changeover time would be minimal. Based on what we were paying for Inisght its likely to be at worst cost neutral, but I don't know what the current Insight pricing is like.

Assuming a standard install, write permissions will be needed by the following users on the following folders: Timetabler – S:\SIMS\SNOVA Exams Officer – S:\SIMS\EXAMS Anyone using Options – S:\SIMS\OPTIONS Anyone using Attendance letter templates – S:\SIMS\Attend Anyone processing CTF’s and ATF’s – S:\SIMS\STAR

Had an e-mail from SISRA this afternoon confirming this and saying that they have delayed using the DFE data until it is resolved. Apparently it badly skews a large number of school's P8 score.

My experience is several years old but would echo what others have said. Even if you get a good individual, and there are some (but there are some terrible ones as well) they are hamstrung by the organisation and the internal red tape. I would go a long way to avoid having anything to do with them on any level.

Have been through this several times over the years, and your are entirely correct about 1 and 2. Alternative curriculum is fine but it has to match against lessons in the existing cycle. I think it is possible to change the cycle part way through a year but my understanding is that it can cause discontinuity with attendance reporting. If it was suggested I do this I would want some serious advice from my SIMS support unit - I wouldn't do it without their help. Totally agree with 3 as well, we had it demoed to us and SIMS activities is one of their "doesn't work quite the same as any other bits of SIMS overpriced plug a gap in core functionality bolt on fixes", like Options. We eventually solved this problem, and several others, by using Edulink, which allows staff to create after school "clubs" which they can populate with students and take registers for. I suspect this would be substantially cheaper than a SIMS activities licence but its a serious communications platform so not something you would necessarily buy to just solve this problem.

In order for a timetable to be linked to a SIMS user the user must be in Manage Classroom Staff for the current academic year. They must have a staff code that matches the one they have in the timetable and they must have a valid working pattern. Check from Person>Manage Classroom Staff and if they are not in the list click New, add their surname and then search for them in the system - do not create a new person. Once they are in the classroom staff list the timetable will have to be re-imported for it to pick up. Whoever does the timetable import should have spotted this as it would have flagged up a teacher who could not be imported at the time.

I believe there will also be a copy on the server where the database is held in Program Files\CRBCunninghams\ImpactOffice folder.

Yeah, sorry, reading it now I assumed the KS3 classes were in a block together. If they are free floating in linear blocks you are right, I can't see an obvious way to do it.

You can assign more than one facility to a class, so if you assigned FDK4 and TEK4 to one of the KS3 classes as well as TECH shouldn't that prevent them being scheduled at the same time ?

Kept according to our retention schedule - that would be until they are 25, with exceptions. The stuff that's kept in paper records tends to relate to safeguarding issues and I don't have any involvement with that. I doubt many schools have any paper records which are purely related to academic performance these days, although we do keep paper copies of exam results for archiving purposes.

True, which is why we never hear from some colleges at all even though I know a significant number of our leavers go there. The main thing we get asked for is evidence relating to Access Arrangements for Exams, which can save the colleges some work in re-assessing students, but its a handful each year and dealt with case by case, as obviously its often sensitive data.