GeeHubb

Our school is looking at implementing an Online Payment package for parents. We are a Primary school of around 320 pupils and are using SIMS, with SIMS dinner money and Schoolcomms as our communications package. Governing Body have decided that we should use ParentPay as this is what our local secondary school use and will enable parents to 'see' any children they have in either school. They were under the impression that ParentPay would replace Schoolcomms on the comms side and as it includes a dinner money module, would also replace SIMS DinMon, which is of course, a charged extra, thus saving a bit of money. I have reservations...... Is there anybody out there using ParentPay with the dinner money module that could give me some insight please (I've already worked out that it won't replace Schoolcomms for absence texting and attendance links). In particular what is ParentPay support like? Many thanks for any thoughts you can pass on! Gill

12/14 for me. Disappointed, especially as I don't know which two I got wrong, but guessing it was the last two.

I'm sure I saw a News Item on the Supportnet Homepage relating to CTF for ULN export a couple of weeks ago. If you have access to Supportnet, do a search from the Homepage on CTF 12 and it should appear. See if that answers your question.

Thanks Arthur that got it. She is the solicitor talking about employment law and non attendance at work due to snow.

Evening All, The daughter of a friend was interviewed on Look East tonight at 6.30 and I missed it ( and she wants to see it again... and again... and again) so I rather assumed we could get it on the BBC iPlayer. However I don't seem to be able to bring up any of the News programmes to watch again. Am I doing something wrong or is it not possible to watch this type of programme again? Anyone know?

Whole country's gone blinking mad. Now watching it all again on the 10 o'clock news! In the words of the great Victor Meldrew, "I don't believe eve it!"

Absolutely nothing either in mid-Essex where I work or home in South Suffolk. Doesn't stop the idiots picking clean Asda's shelves though, nor did it stop parents phoning to find out if today's school trip would go ahead! Which it did. Only good thing was a complete lack of traffic on the A12. Home in 40 minutes through a Friday rush hour!

I was in the Ipswich branch before Christmas and bought my daughter a lens filter that she wanted. Glad I didn't go for the gift token option as I don't think they are honouring them. Even more pleased that I didn't shell out for a days photography course for her! Still, a great shame. Won't be long before we have no specialist stores on our high streets!

Well, looks like I'm going to have to go out and buy Christmas presents tomorrow then. Bet the shops will be heaving with Mayans!

Friday 21st 4.00 pm for me. School is closed then until 7th January, though I'll take some paperwork home to sort through.

Soooo. Should I bother to get the registers ready for January d'you think?

Thanks all, I was wondering whether winter tyres would make any difference, but you all seem to agree that they do, so I will investigate that. I was pleasantly surprised they don't look to be hugely expensive, though I guess they will be detrimental to the fuel economy! However, I'd rather feel safer driving it than squeezing a few extra mpg! It does have eco-tyres and I suppose their very nature is to create less traction to aid fuel consumption. The hybrid battery is not held in the engine compartment, it resides under the rear seat and is a pretty large component, so it could be something to do with there being more weight towards the rear of the car I suppose. Perhaps I should try a bag of cement in the passenger footwell The Prius, however, went through snow and ice rather like that train above, but it was an altogether heavier car than the Yaris. Neither the Prius, nor the Yaris Hybrids are the fastest cars on the block, but I do get the satisfaction of knowing that less of my money goes into the Governments pockets as fuel tax! I do 20,000 miles a year, so I generate more than enough in fuel tax thanks! And driving fast on the A12 in rush hour has never been an available option anyway! Thanks again.

Sitting watching this is not encouraging me to get on my bike!

This morning's 40 mile drive to work took 3 hours. Essex CC have admitted that they didn't mobilise the gritters until 6:45, by which time the roads were pretty much grid-locked. There were, apparently, 80+ accidents before 11a.m., with 13 injured, one seriously. Now, I am used to driving in all weathers and I've been doing it for nearly (not quite!) 40 years but I need some advice from the petrol heads about driving in snow and ice (and probably floods). I have a new Toyota Yaris HYBRID, which has a full automatic transmission. I have previously owned two hybrid Prius (priuses/prieii?) which were automatic, and one manual Yaris, but this Yaris seems to be very unhappy on snow and ice and I wasn't at all happy that I had it under control (though saying which, I did get to school in one piece without hitting anything!). Any hints please?

You see, none of us knows it all. Anyone that thinks they do is probably dangerous! Edugeek is a bit like The Borg (with apologies for the Star Trek analogy), when your day is done you can plug in to the collective knowledge of all these people for help! Personally I have been doing my job for nearly 22 years and cannot believe that no one has yet rumbled that I'm totally incapable and have got by mainly by luck! It's called Impostor Syndrome. Look it up. @Little-Miss hope your day was better today!

Well said. I lost my dear Mum on December 1st two years ago and my Dad on Christmas Day 11 years ago. I would give anything to see them again. Now I have to be content with a trip to the Crem to lay flowers. Parents won't be around for ever. Make the most of them whilst you can. Yes, I know it's difficult trying to fit everything in, but what goes around comes around. One day you will be the Aged Parent hoping that one or more of your children will show up to visit you in your Nursing Home on Christmas Day.... And you'll know exactly what they're thinking!

Hmm possibly. But try coming up with one word to describe its purpose! Mind you those two tick boxes could be renamed 'absent Parent'? If we can come up with something we'll do a change request....

Yes. You must only use the correspondence/report box for the parent living away from the home address. Otherwise it is pointless - as you say if you tick it for both parents you have rendered it useless. If you've got it set up correctly, you can run your usual report for parents at home, then run the second report as I've detailed above and hey presto, Bob's your Uncle!

How long ago did you last run the import routine? Have you upgraded to the SIMS Autumn 2012 yet. There was something in the Schoolcomms October newsletter about having to enable the Schoolcomms plugin if you wanted to continue to access SIMS from the SIMS Focus menu after the Autumn upgrade - doesn't sound like it's that though. Think I might be inclined to speak to the Schoolcomms helpdesk.

Must admit, quietly, that there have been moments when I have wished that I could get into Launcher and old Personnel to look at ancient long closed contracts!

How about telling them that 21,999 other SIMS users don't have access to it. Then if they still insist make sure that you put a very long disclaimer in writing in front of them to be signed by the Head and Chair of Governors, absolving you from any liability for prosecution under the Data Security legislation...... That should send 'em scurrying for cover!

There are two reports amongst the pre-defined reports that you can run that will produce labels for any contacts for whom the Correspondence or Reports box is ticked. It can be found via Run Reports choose Contacts as the focus and it is called 'Set to Receive Correspondence'. There is a similar one for 'Set to Receive Reports'. I have just run it and it does seem to need a bit of a 'tweak' as it is picking up children who have long since left us and one or two are printing with no address - I wonder if that's because the boxes are also ticked for non disclosure or transfer of the address....... These two reports print to labels. If you decide to 'tweak' them use Design Report but remember to re-name them or your changes will be overwritten next time you import pre-defined reports. EDIT: Yes you need to have the little box ticked in the contact details that allows the address to be disclosed in order to get the address to print on the label.

Presumably you are meaning for a separated parent scenario? In which case are you using the tick box on the contact details for 'correspondence' and 'report'? If you use those fields, I think you can then run a report which will identify them. Can't check from home, but I'll have a look in the morning.

Not been released to Essex schools yet. Tho' I'm told that it's imminent. Think they wait for you all to test it out for us first!

Have to say it's quite a while since I've used the OMR for reading registers, but I do remember that you can alter the print settings in Tools>Setups>OMR. However presumably that will alter the settings for both your registers and absence reports, so I would make sure you keep a note of the original settings to return it to just in case! Eventually I became so fed up with registers not reading and marks being missed that I gave up, printed manual registers and entered them manually every morning and afternoon. (I only have 12 classes to deal with so it is possible for me!)