Ecclesbury

He's run out of Plutonium for his flux capacity, that's his problem. He also looks like Pob.

The other thing about schools is that generally with support staff there is too much work to be done, and not enough people to do it. So what tends to happen is if you show an aptitude for something, or previous experience, you will probably ending up doing it, regardless of where you started, or what your specific job description says. Hence IT technicians might gravitate towards SIMS and performance analysis or conversely a data inputter might gravitate towards an IT/SIMS role. The old "that's not in my job description" doesn't often get you very far in a school! Although at the same time it's easy to find yourself exploited! Good data chat folks.

I think that's the biggest appeal to working in a school for me, it's difficult to get stuck in a rut when the road keeps getting re-paved!

That's interesting number34, as I feel (as does our Head/Deputy Head) that I spend too much time on other stuff and not enough time on assessment! It all very much depends on the structure of the support staff in your school, which I've noticed can vary hugely. For example our school has no attendance officer so I end up picking a lot of that stuff up. On the other hand we have a dedicated Cover Manager, so my input into that is minimal. I've heard of schools with data TEAMS. What I would give for a team! The level of involvement with the SIMS software itself also varies quite drastically. Some data managers will only focus on the areas of SIMS they need, such as assessment. However others, like myself, have responsibility for the MIS as a whole, including applying upgrades and patches, a bit of server maintenance and staff training etc. In my opinion, if you can, try and get involved in the timetabling process. I find it to be one of the most interesting and challenging aspects of my job. p.s. my official title isn't actually data manager. It's "School Information & Performance Analysis Manager." Which spells SPAM.

Welcome! These are my vital statistics: School size - 1467 (KS3, KS4, KS5) We share a sixth form with another local school adding another 200 or so students. This is why you might see me posting my woes about Partnership XChange MIS - SIMS Analysis - 4Matrix for some KS4, SIMS assessment manager for day to day monitoring, MS Excel for snapshot review data, looking to start playing with Discover soon (if only for dynamic groups) Target Setting - JESSON Framework for KS4, a mixed bag of FFT, historical analysis and levels progress for KS3 (we are working hard at the moment to make our KS3 target setting and monitoring both useful/effective and OfSted compliant - an almost impossible combination!) I've been in post for about 4 and a half years. The school has only been open for 6 and a half of those years. That sounds like a dream position, building the assessment framework up from scratch, but in reality I've spent the last 4 years unpicking the mess of the first 2 years, and reacting to the ever changing demands of a management team who haven't settled on what they want yet! I'm also only technically responsible for KS3 and KS4, but in practice I do some Post-16 stuff, mainly Value Added analysis of exam results. I also work closely with the Deputy Head on the timetabling process and have some involvement with Exams. Ultimately I would love to be able to do this kind of work at a non-teaching SLT level (so Timetabling, whole school target setting, self evaluation, OfSted preparation etc) but that's a bit of a pipe dream given that I don't think such a role really exists in many (any?) schools.

HI Pico, It's a relatively new award so I can't tell you much from my own research before starting to do it. However, I have a few opinions on the matter! I don't think it would be worth doing this award if the only goal was to pick up a qualification that could you be used to get a bigger and better job. The way I see it, if you are a current data manager in a school and wanted another job as a data manager at another school, you probably wouldn't need a bit of paper saying that you were a "qualified" data manager. However, the way that I approached it was whether the tasks that made up the award were worth doing in their own right and whether they were interesting! Given that I'm not paynig for it, if it was a motivating thing to do and if the completion of it would benefit the school then it was worth doing. I came to the conclustion that it was worth doing for these reasons alone. For example, one of the tasks I'm currently doing is writing a detailed end to end review of our KS4 target setting process, including suggestions for improvement/development. This is useful to me personally as it clarifies the work I'm already doing, and helps to identify potential holes in the system and it is also useful to the school as the resulting document can be used to inform new members of management and staff and they may also take on board the suggestions for improvement. Another task is to review the schools procedures for data protection compliance and areas of concern and areas for development. As above this is beneficial in its own right. Each to their own though, I'm sure for some people it would be a waste of time.

I don't know what the criteria are for joining it, but I'm on one of those Listserv email group thingies which the SSAT set up for data managers. There has been some interesting discussion on there already. It was drawn to my attention because I signed up to do the National Data Managers Award that the SSAT offer: SSAT | NDMA

Thanks Zag, that's really helpful. While I agree with your sentiment (although I'm keeping my cards close to my chest at this stage!) it's worth pointing out that the functionality that we need from SLG is not covered by Insight on it's own. However, the combination of Insight and PARS (with the online capability) does give this functionality. This brings the costing more in line with SLG, but I think still marginally cheaper and with a whole host of extra functionality. Does anyone know how the hosting of PARS/Insight works? Would there be any server spec upgrades to consider in the costing of this? Or is it just a second database that sits on the SIMS database, like Discover?

If you can, using Cover to do this is definitely the best way, as it can also be used to keep records of which supply teachers have been in, and when. They can then use the same login details when/if they return (security issues should be covered by the way that network access for these temporary staff is managed) Try to set up organisations (supply agencies etc) first and then assign supply teachers to the agencies. Also try to make sure you don't end up creating duplicate accounts when you get the same staff (or ex staff) for different agencies. Remember that a single entity in SIMS can exist as a student/parent/teacher/agent/supply teacher etc etc. It is well worth sitting down with your cover manager and/or personnel people to ensure that they understand how to do this properly or things can get messy very quickly (and they are very hard to undo!) If all else fails, the accepted Flinstones solution is the supply teacher hands a bit of paper round and the kids write their names on (cue hilarious additions to the register) and this is handed to the ever suffering attendance person who updates them in SIMS.

Hi all, Not sure if this is allowed or not, but would anyone be willing to share the information on how much Capita hosted SLG costs? We are a school of approx 1350 students. A private message would be ideal. I would normally try to do this through proper channels, but I've got a meeting with the Head in 20 minutes and could do with the info to hand!

Just had a thought that if you are in the enviable position of having a blank slate to work with, assessment wise, it might be worth keeping half an eye on the potential developments with the English Baccalaureate certificates (all aboard Michael Gove's Time Machine!) Given that there is talk of a new assessment framework, if you can keep any future distruption to a minimum it is going to make your life easier. Of course, it would nice if we had even the slightest clue of what might change. Ho hum. Out of interest did any data mangery types out there contribute anything to the eBac consultation?

Good point about Excel. Using excel only really works to create snapshot/summary data, don't use it for data you need to update and maintain (it's that double entry thing again)

I'm a data manager and started in probably the same boat as you about 4 and a half years ago. Phil Neal's advice is good. I imagine you are probably taking over an established system, but if you are having to build up any SIMS assessment stuff, don't just rush into it! I'm sure there are lots of data managers out there who to love to start from scratch with assessment manager! Result Sets are definitely king (I think a good approach is to try to set up a system with the smallest number of aspects as you can) Another general rule of thumb that might save you head/heart ache is to strive as much as possible to encourage people to record and access data in only 1 place (usually SIMS.) Keep everything as central as possible and avoid double entry wherever possible (you'll be surprised how many people suggest double entry as a solution to problem, it pays to be firm!) When I started the job I spent 4 days straight reading SIMS documentation! Although this was eye-wateringly boring, it was a good foundation! I personally think that is most important to understand the way that the different areas link together, rather than how each area works on it's own. Particularly the links between the timetable, academic manager, course manager, exams and assessment manager. If you haven't already get yourself signed up for Support Net on the Capita website. While you'll get some great advice on EduGeek, there are many more data manager types over on Support Net (or so it seems to me!)

Thanks Sylv3r, that's exactly the info I was after, really useful. I can safely say we won't be self hosting if we do stick with SLG.

P.s. Knowing how our senior management's mind works I would have said that they were less concerned with what the fire brigade needed and more concerned with how Mrs Bloggs would react if she found out that little Joey had been locked in a toilet cublicle during a fire drill and the school never realised! "WHAT IF THAT HAD BEEN A REAL FIRE!" Maybe that should be the ultimate fire drill. Take a student into confidence and ask them to ask to go to the toilet just before a fire drill, and then hide in there! See how long the system takes to identify them as missing and see what the reaction is! Sneaky sneaky.

The big question to ask if you are relying on electronic information for fire drills is: What do you do if the printer jams/runs of paper/runs out of toner/blows up/has no power? I don't know about others, but this is a relatively common occurrence for me!

I've got to say, Insight is looking brilliant. If teachers can use it (or a bolt on) to do their reports from home/on their MACs then it's a winner.

Sorry, just saw your last couple of posts. If you decide that you want to print SIMS registers, and not used pre-prepared hard copies, then without a doubt the best report to use is: Reports > Lesson Monitor > Whole Group Students Report > Today's Registers Report If the person who does this (or a few people, in case that person is out) sets this report up as a quick link on their SIMS shortcut bar you can run the report in 1 click when the fire bell sounds. This is how we used to do it, but I got shouted at for not evacuating immediately. You also need a backup if the printer jams (which happened alarmingly often), or the power goes out.

I must have had the conversation about the best way to do fire alarms about a million times. I've come to the conclusion that without chip implants in every staff and student it is near on impossible to design a system which keeps everyone happy and covers every eventuality. So the best thing to do is aim for simplicity, then less can go wrong. Our student muster in mentor groups, so we just have a hard copy of each mentor register with a stack of columns ready to register them for the next 15 fire alarms. Students may leave or join the groups, but that's fine because of the mentor/students know this, and just add to the list. The registers are re-printed periodically anyway. The reception staff then have a pile of stuff that they grab as they leave like the signing in and out book, off site PE registers and trip registers etc. The basic idea is that if a mentor flags up a student that isn't there, but should be, the reception team will be able to tell them if they are somewhere else. The thing is, come up with any way of doing a fire drill, and I could pick a hole in it. So don't worry too much.

Belting! That's the answer I was looking for (but wasn't expecting.) Time to find out their BETT stand number me thinks.

Thanks all, All things being equal I would love to start from scratch with something new, but it's not as simple as that. You know what schools are like, they don't like change! I'm just making sure I have every possibility covered before I take anything to the powers that be so that I'm in a stronger position to argue for some new software! Sorry, next question. One thing our staff use (or used) SLG for was writing their reports in assessment manager. Does anyone know if Insight, or similar, allow this functionality? Or is it only SLG that will write back into SIMS? I know that there are other and better ways round this, and I don't want to go into all the detail, but if I know of another product that would allow this it would be useful. Cheers.

Hi all, Just a general question. Is it possible/advisable for a school to self host SIMS learning gateway? If yes, any pointers/pitfalls/advice? Would it require a hefty server to do the job? Is it even worth it over going with Capita hosted SLG? Any recommended alternatives to SLG? OK, that was more than one question. Sorry!

Umm, I might be reading this wrong, but I don't think it needs to be a change request. The Next of Kin Relationship Type is not a statutory lookup so you can just add Civil Partner to it (via Tools>Lookups>Maintain and then search for 'Next of Kin Relationship Type') Presto chango, happy staff member.

You know what, there is no way on this earth that our school will be moving away from SIMS anytime soon, but I'm going to come and have a look at Aspen anway! I'm very intrigued, and you never know what might be around the corner! I'll be there on the Friday so will certainly pop along.