pingleby

Yep. Not a particularly positive experience! It beats SIMS in some areas: you can email or text parents of a class, year or individual easily and email teachers of a pupil easily, you can export your timetable into outlook. Big issues surrounding data though: for ks2 results and for target grades we ended up using a separate database on our intranet that our tech guy set up to work behind the scenes when you run a report that needs this info.

We had very similar requirements. We used SISRA which was good, but our teachers and middle leaders never found it easy enough (or useful enough) for it to be widely used. Similar story with 4matrix. In the end I built a system: web-based, access anywhere, easy to use. Now a dozen other schools use it too. Have a look at MAP Learners and get in touch with me if you are interested.

That is my assumption too, and it's what MAP Learners uses when calculating Attainment 8. I don't think we're going to have enough information to work out Progress 8 (the new value added indicator) ahead of time.

My understanding is that sublevels aren't that clever. I believe DfE just use thirds of the raw score whole level boundaries. Correct me if I'm wrong...

We were using SISRA but there were things it just didn't do so now we use it in conjunction with a system I developed myself, MAP Learners. I'm visiting a middle school later this month to discuss their needs. I am hoping to come out of that meeting knowing what to change to make it more suited to middle schools. If you drop me an email then you can have an input into that process too. [email protected]

I am wondering about kids who can't fill some of those qualification slots because they're taking subjects not on the approved list for positions 6, 7 and 8. Do those slots get counted as 0 points (U) for the average?

I would have to agree with NormalDistribution as a 4.x is always a level 4. I don't think you can interpret 4.8 as low level 5 (ie 5c), it has to be high level 4 (4a).

We export from SIMS and use MAP Learners which is secure. It will do seating plans as well as various other reports for teachers and HODs.

Across KS2-4 all our students are targeted 4 or 5 LP. For our 3 year KS3 we currently say 2 whole levels, but this isn't really enough in my opinion. We should be targeting 7 sublevels I think.

I've read good things about 4matrix but never used it. I'd be interested to know if you were impressed by the demo. We use SISRA for some of our data analysis but I agree with NormalDistribution about slow pace of enhancements. We used to do our own thing in Excel as SISRA didn't seem to be flexible enough for us. We use our own internal assessments to baseline at the start of Y7 and would like to measure from them as well as from KS2 APS. (Obviously English and Maths are a bit different as we can use actual KS2 scores.) So we used to spend hours each term updating excel spreadsheets. We made our macros better so the job didn't take as long, and that made it just about bearable. But we've got rid of them now in favour of MAP Learners. It's much quicker than doing Excel yourself, and probably quicker than the macros we were using (or than SISRA uploads for that matter). It does what we want it to do and the teachers use it much more than they've ever used SISRA. New features seem to come in pretty regularly. Since Christmas it's started being able to display attendance indicators and attitude grades (for example).

I don't disagree with you on that. But a 'no contact' policy to me means 'no contact'. I agree with 'no contact' through staff personal accounts, but think we're missing the educational potential if we rule out all form of contact through social media. You asked when would a no contact policy be a bad idea. I gave two specific examples in my post. These would be prevented by a no contact policy, but I think they are useful and can be low risk if properly thought about. Where exactly do you disagree?

Hi I'm actually a teacher but I work closely with our Data Manager. Hope it's ok for me to post here! 2100 pupil, 11-18 school. KS3/4/5 MIS: SIMS with SLG for parents and some staff (all were offered it but a lot never took it up) Analysis for KS3/4: SISRA (mainly for SLT). For teachers, used to use Excel, but this year started developing our own system, MAP Learners. (www.maplearners.co.uk) Middle leaders are much preferring it over SISRA or the old Excel sheets we used. The data exports from SIMS are very quick too - we didn't need to set up more than one or two marksheets. Target setting: Basically 4 levels of progress from KS2, adjusted up if necessary at end of KS3. KS5: ALPS

Of course other schools (especially secondary like mine) will make other choices about social media. There are a few of our teachers who have 'professional' twitter accounts (separate from their private accounts) that are designed for pupils to follow. Equally some departments have Facebook Pages where pupils will ask questions during key revision periods and other pupils or teachers can answer them. Obviously these things need to be transparent, but a 'no contact' policy can be a bad thing sometimes.