SouthCoastSaint

Thanks LosOjos. I made a mock up marksheet last night for the DHd and I am meeting him today. He think will be quite keen for the comments to display, they will actually be replacing internal Strategy free comments that are currently not shared with parents. I don't want free text for reports as we are back to the spell checking problem. I am going to search for a change request for a grade set that allows pre-defined comments. I bet there is one, if not i am going to create it!

I can get what I need printed on my Individual data report by using result description tags. The problem is the area for improvement (target etc) is to become part of the tracking marksheet so teachers can use it as a strategy for learning, while at the same time looking at other data for a class, therefore I need the strategy to display and not a number relating to it. We wanted to move away from profiles for this which feel a bit more separate to data when you have to open a linked doc for each student. I think eventually I would like to see this going a step further and perhaps classes would be shuffled for re-teaching key topics using these areas for improvement. Not sure I have explained myself very well. It looks like initially teachers will have to cut and paste into a comment aspect from a list of pre-determined statements - unless someone shows me a better way!

Vik, do you mean that staff would use the list in the notes to cut and paste from? I wanted to avoid them having to do that. It seems such an easy request to have a different kind of aspect, like a comment one, but where you can pick from a drop down list! The only way I can think of getting around it for now, is to have a numerical aspect say 1-20, that teachers use for picking their comment (probably form a printed list next to them), then later I filter by this number and cut and paste into a second (comment) column the related target for each number. This will create a lot of work for me, with 1700 students, but at least the end result will be what the teachers need.

I hope someone will be able to give me inspiration for a better way to enable something in Sims... We want to use a bank of (probably) numbers to correspond with a bank of statements for use in reports generated in Individual Reports. Basically, we have previously used Profiles, but are looking to include a target for each subject on our data reports. I had thought I would use a grade set for each subject & year, with staff entering the number they want, and the comments being in the result description. This would be fine for the reports I think, but the problem with this is that the staff need to be able to see these comments and not just a number. I really don't want this to be a free text comment field as we don't want to have a problem with keying errors, but I am unsure if Sims will let me do what I want. Anyone have any better ideas? Thanks

I did tweet the DfE account but didn't receive a reply. I will try the Hampshire data team too although not sure they use K2S, they seem to get sent data directly. If they are changing their minds about the calculation, isn't that all the more reason for us to be able to see what they are using? As it stands, I can't even look up a new Year 10 student and see their APS, which always agreed with the Raise figures.

When you were asked for a saved location, had you clicked export? Here, just by generating, I get an entry in the students linked docs folder automatically. Likewise, once generated, if you edit a report, click save before closing then view the linked doc, the changes made in word should be saved.

Profiles are treated differently in Linked Docs than individual reports. In Ind Reports, once you are happy with them you have to tell Sims to upload them to linked docs. With Profiles, each time you generate, you automatically overwrite the linked doc with the latest version. If you edit and save that generated version, that should be what is saved in linked docs. Try editing just one this way, view it before and after via linked docs to check that it does behave in this way. With regards to review mode, it is irreversible. However this really only affects teaching staff as the main difference is teachers cannot access their classes through list entry. We give a deadline - staff know if they miss this deadline and the reports are put tinto review mode, they will have to find each of their students to add their reports that way, which is more work for them. If your reports are almost ready to go I don't think it would be any issue for you.

Yes that should be exactly how it works. As a quicker fix, you can of course generate, then click to edit all the reports and make the changes directly into the word docs. As long as you save them after editing and you don't re-generate, the changes will stay in the report in the linked document and for printing. This might be better for you if you are in a rush this time.

Nothing changes with the generating part - you can still do this as many times as you like before printing. Obviously, any changes you make in the actual word report rather than in the Sims entry will be discarded if you generate again, but that would already be the case for you anyway. With regards to late reports, you can either reject the blank entry so the teacher can access their list again and write it or you can paste it straight into the report entry via the review screen. If you have permissions for Review profiles, then yes, you will be able to view and edit the reports.

Lucy You can put reports into review mode. This removes lists from class teachers list entry, and you then access each report as a whole in a list by tutor group. Here at our school, we have vertical TGs so ask our tutors to proofread their tutee reports (about 4 per year group). You can either change the report yourself when reviewing, or you can reject it which puts in back in the teacher's list entry for correcting. Seems like you are past this point, but I am sure you would find it easier when making the changes to do it via the review screen.

Has anyone noticed that the Year 7 data is now in Key To Success BUT for all years, not just 7s, they have removed the APS column from the CSV. I use this all the time, can't believe it's just disappeared.

Presumably, the measures will change every year as each cohort is compared with results in THAT cohort.

Have you tried the new School Report? If you have applied the Autumn upgrade, this should give you the percentages you require for ethnicities. Reports > School report. If you tick attendance and show long version you get nice report with your vulnerabilities comparisons on it.

Our transfer does appear to be running every night - the new groups I have set up since the upgrade are pushing messages to my homepage as expected. All my old groups don't generate any messages, just since 1am on 16th Jan which was when the upgrade went on.

Thanks Amanda - checking that the service is running is always my first port of call. In this case, it seems that the groups have been affected by the upgrade as I have created new ones which are working now. I will need to re-create my old groups - Capita have closed the case but have advised to let them know if the same thing happens again with the Spring upgrade. I won't be happy if I have to remake all the groups a second time!

Thanks Gazkeltz. Some of mine will be from overseas. Two at least aren't.

Thanks Pete - I do rely on seeing the messages every day to tell me the transfer has run over night. In addition, we send new student and leavers messages to IT to create/delete accounts. We don't use In Touch but Capita did say that In Touch may cause some sort of conflict and require you to re-make all your discover groups. I hope I won't have to do that as we have lots of attendance groups.

Does anyone here use dynamic groups with homepage message alerts? We have been using this for a long time with success but since 16th January no messages have come through. The groups are changing though in Sims when I check. We did the upgrade on 16th which would point to something there but I am unsure what and wondered if anyone else had lost theirs?

Has anyone tried the import function on Aspire yet? I have managed to do it, but all the new students come out as Unmatched - Pupil will not be updated. This is a different message to the FFT Help guide, which shows Unmatched - Pupil will be added as a new pupil.

If you try and copy into your original one it will save you lots of time at printing when you have to merge two separate sessions.. From Capita Forum: Clone your comment bank, add the course linked correctly (prob have to call it something slightly different or change the name in the original) and copy it back to your existing comment bank. If you search for it in this forum, there is a long thread with lots of advice. I have done it numerous times.

Your old biology one won't show up in list entry as it's not linked to a course. I would rename it Do Not Use, then copy the Biology section in your new separate bank, and paste in to the old one that is in use. As long as the course is correctly attached before you paste you should be ok. There are lots of threads on this, I will look for one.

Sorry, I misunderstood. For even free text to work, you still need an empty comment bank in your bank, attached to the correct course or nothing will display to teachers. You can copy that section in the new bank you made and paste it in to the old one (linking the course correctly first) though so you shouldn't have to use a second comment bank.

You should be fine. I often add to ours when teachers do not send them to me in time.

We used it last year for two year groups and it worked really well. Setting up the Insight part is easy (as are most things in there), but if you are not already using Options Offer in Sims then that requires a bit more reading. I used the Capita documentation and worked my way through it.

http://www3.hants.gov.uk/education/educationjobshampshire/educationjobshome/educationjobsjobdetail.htm?id=36385&swatch= Closing Date noon 29th January 2015