Banjo

Moving to Solus 3 should be fun - have you recently converted to an academy?

I have never been involved in the hosted solution, but do you use a Open VPN - if you do, its worth checking if the service is still running when the connection drops out. Capita had an issue with this with their hosted Learning Gateway some time back.

Should be fine.

Forgot to add, we also have mixed mode schools. Some workstations will have Solus 3 agents on them and others just use simsload.

We have dozens of schools without Solus 3 agents on the workstations. The servers update via Solus 3 and the workstations update the same way as Solus 2. The weak link in the chain is Solus 3 on the MIS servers, not simsload on the workstations that can be relied upon. The Solus3 agents on the servers think they have downloaded and upgraded to the latest version or have run the patch - when in fact they haven't.

Are these users going via a wireless or wired connection?

If it's class based then create 1 template per year group in AM and tick all the boxes (marksheets) for every class related to that year group in the school. No other easy way of doing it by class. You could create an 1 individual report with this information, but it would be 1 page per student.

You could try Schoolcomms. They have write back functions into SIMS for attendance.

The reporting/assessment module is powerful but does have a steep learning curve. There are no wizards like SIMS when you want to work out averages or use add or subtract, it's all code, and trial and error. A basic knowledge of SQL will help as there will be times when you will need to run queries/updates on the DB to fix/amend errors with the assessment tables. From memory you could amend most of the data in the assessment tables except the actual data item that was held in the criteria field. This was is a piping format 2a|1a|3b etc and I never worked out a reliable way to bulk update this information. Take a copy of the DB and restore is locally to MS Access so you can poke around and again a better understanding of its structure.

If the school is open on the 1st Aug for a new academic year, then the DfE will be expecting attendance codes for your students for that month. I have no idea what an individual attendance sheet would look like with August at the start and at the end? What date would you put down for the enrollment start date for Y7? August or Sept? Nobody can tell you the definitive this will go wrong or you need to check this as I don't believe its ever been done before. You'd be the first, a true pioneer, Blériot, Yeager, Hillary, Armstrong, XXX Secondary Academy.

I think you'd be the first to try this. Please keep us updated on how you get on reporting your attendance figures for the census.

I feel I'm missing half the story?

Realistic to what ? - a real school information management system? Haven't you posted this a day too early?

Who are you with currently and why the move? (sorry no idea about the functionality)

These changes are already happening. The increase in the numbers taking English literature, and subjects that fill the three open Progress 8 slots, has come mostly from lower attaining pupils. The increase in those taking two sciences, and subjects that fill the three Progress 8 slots reserved for EBacc subjects, has come mostly from middle ability students. The increase in those taking languages and humanity subjects, meanwhile, has come predominantly from those with above-average prior attainment.

SIMS 8 does look awesome. However, LA's wont be buying SIMS 8 licenses in 'bulk' (assuming the continuation of the current licensing model) unless the roll out of the new version is before the academisation program gets into full swing. There would need to be some mechanism in the license for the LA to transfer the license to the school upon conversion and recoup that cost. This option does not exist at present with the majority of licenses LA's hold for the current version of SIMS. Here's a thought, LA's can buy FFT licenses for academies, so maybe in the near future, LA's will be able to sell SIMS 8 licenses and AM to academies even if we can't host the software. This might avoid the likely fragmentation of the market place if schools are left to their own devices. Some might argue this is a good thing.

BECTA are long gone, if they were still around it might be worth more than the pdf its written on.

Some schools have domains some don't and run peer to peer networks. Some schools we support with their ICT infrastructure, some we don't. Some schools use CC4, some use other vanilla networks. Some networks we have the domain passwords for, some we don't. Some ICT support providers don't like others installing software on 'their' network, others don't mind.......etc etc etc.... Add up the number of schools x workstations = thousands of installs... With 'new' network builds or new workstations having SIMS for the first time, then we install the agents. The benefit/costs ratio for installing agents on all existing workstations doesn't make this option all that appealing.

That's the rumor that I've heard. Lets do some 'fag packet' maths. Roughly LA 17,000 schools to convert. Capita has ~90% market share. 15,300 schools x lets say an average price of £5000 per schools to re-licence SIMS 7. =£76,500,000 "That pays some for the bubbly at the shareholders meeting" And the thing with Christmas is, it comes around again next year :-)

Schools are always going to be guessing what their Progress 8 looks like. You have the variable of the students outcome (grade) and also the expected progress they should make changes each year. The DfE had proposed to move to a system in 2019 in which schools are informed three years in advance about the results each pupil will require to achieve a positive Progress 8 score. Following further analysis of the impact of qualification, curriculum and accountability reform, the DfE no longer plan to move to this system in 2019 as they cannot be certain that it will not introduce unfairness in how estimated grades are set for different prior attainment groups.

I agree, last weeks budget has changed things around. It makes the timing of the general release of SIMS 8 all the more interesting. Release the at the end of 16 early 17 and Capita potentially miss out on the 17,000 or so schools having to re-licence SIMS 7 as they change to academies before moving on (and licensing) SIMS 8. Or sit back and take the risk that schools won't move suppliers to a cloud based solution when they convert, take the SIMS 7 licence fees and then again when SIMS 8 comes out in 2019/20. The agony of choice :-)

Your current Y9 will need to be recorded as 1-9 grade and a 1-9 point score assuming they are all doing reformed GCSE's across the board in 2018. If they aren't, then you will also need to record A*-G for some subjects with the points values of 8.5 to 1. The Gradeset will accept duplicate points values i.e, a grade 'G'=1pt and a grade '1'=1pt. The issue you have is if you try to turn points back into a grade. AM then has a choice of either a G or a grade 1 :-( Once you have updated your gradeset, the result date becomes all important in the points values. Especially so if you have any calculated aspects in the template as the date of the result is now one of the variables to the points value of the grades entered.

Yes, we use this way. Solus 3 pulls the downloads from Capita and 'sticks' it in the repository folder and upgrades the server Apps & DB over night. Next day, the workstations when they login to SIMS perform an upgrade using sims load as they used to in Solus 2 days. This does save the hassle of having to install agents on every workstation. You can run in a mixed environment, some workstations running SIMS load, others with Agents.

Not wanting to spoil the party but...

I'm guessing your a primary school from the fact you use SQL Express, that also uses Nova-T for TT? IF you are a secondary school, you really need to upgrade to the full version of SQL ASAP. As long as there aren't any strange group polices being pulled from the DC then you can just drop it off and re-join the new domain. Sims will carry on working as before including Nova T. Worth doing a backup though just in case from within System Manager and also a copy of the DOCSTORAGE folder. Solus 3 and the process of updating SIMS depends on how the school has been set up. Do you have an agent on every workstation or do you have just the one on the SIMS server and use simsload to update the clients? If your flattening the workstations along with the new DC then you have the option to roll out the agents again, or stick with Pulsar/simload to update them.