ProjectO

Some days its seems as if I am doing nothing other than looking for random SIMS questions.... When I looked at student lists (reports --> student list --> class lists), I thought that adding a column from the data area (curriculum, classes) would broadly replicate a really complex report we use to produce a grid overview of all subject classes for a year group. (I know that I can also do this one by one using subject classes BUT) does anyone know how SIMS generates the numbering i.e. class 1, class 2 etc I'm somewhat baffled!

We have set up aspects for each subject (e.g. English mark, Science mark) and result sets for each reporting session (monthly for all students and weekly for some). I am trying to design, in advance, a series of reports to allow us to present results (for internal review) along the lines of: 1. September test results in [subject] for year group, alphabetical and in rank order 2. September test results in [subject] by class, alphabetical and in rank order 3. September test results in all subjects for year group, alphabetical and in rank order I am spending a bit of time trying to filter the report and it looks like I will have to create multiple variations of it - select result set at run time / select subject at run time / select year group at run time etc. It is also running quite slowly due to the number of queries in it. This is proving difficult to explain internally because the legacy system (Access - based and set up 10+ years ago) had a "simple" query that printed all of these reports. This appears to compare rather favourably to some staff when the first weekly report print (200 students) took over an hour to process / print. Is there a more straightforward way to do this?

I have been asked 'how soon' teachers can use SIMS as their "roll book" i.e. attendance register but also comments on HW, equipment etc BUT not visible to other staff (and yes, I know that somewhat misses the entire point of SIMS...) It strikes me that lesson monitor could be used easily but this allows "others" to see the data so I wondered about a "generic" marksheet that will not be used for reporting (and I know that the data will still technically be accessible to others - but relatively behind the scense). Something like gradeset for HW, uniform, equipment and a couple of comment fields? Am I reinventing the wheel??

I now know that I am missing something obvious! Please tell me how to design a report that lists students with exam results so that I can vary it to present by subject, by year, in ranked order etc...

We have a setup where certain classes attend alternative lessons for 3 week blocks e.g. instead of Maths, go to Film Studies for 3 weeks "in your Maths" lessons. There are eight of these alternative modules running throughout the year on a rotating basis. They do not currently feature in SIMS / NovaT6 but we are interested in the possibilities... Our support company suggested 'alternative curriculum' but surely this involves allocating students on an indivdual period by period basis? This would be enormous effort on an ongoing basis. I am tempted by the rotate timetabled staff / room option - I think we could add the additional alternative modules in the relevant blocks in Nova T6, effectively populate with no students and then set up a year's worth of rotations in advance (or at least a term). I am not sure what would happen to marksheets, attendance etc. I would like to think that the 3 week turnaround is not an issue in itself but wonder if there are cleverer ways to address this.... I know it is possible but wonder about the relative effort - views, suggestions and any comparable experience much appreciated!

Thanks vikpaw I have removed the relevant people as Heads of Yr. Issue resolved without unwanted side effects as far as I can tell. And yes, the structures here are a little unusual in places but they do appear to work. I am hoping to have SIMS replicate the functionality of the legacy system initially and then slowly and carefully release additional functionality. As mentioned earlier, there is great sensitivity about sharing student data at the moment but I hope to calm this to allow the staff to utilise SIMS and "open up" to the level I've experienced in every other school I've dealt with.

Thank you vikpaw This is beginning to become clearer. Allow me to provide some more context - our "registration tutors" act as most schools would expect from heads of year. They register the entire year group and there is no "individual" tutor group or the more common interpretation of reg tutor (to 20 -30 students). Due to their role, they are also identified as heads of yr on the pastoral structure, although there is (almost) no-one else with a "pastoral" remit. I am beginning to suspect that their double role of reg tutor and Head of Yr is causing our difficulty. Presumably reg tutor is sufficient to register (c. 200) students. My original comment referred to the widespread wariness about sharing data (which I don't really understand in a school but...)

No, they are in class teacher, attendance operator and reg tutor groups.

We are (relatively happily) one week into the new school year using SIMS for the first time. As we approach a reporting session for one year group, a registration tutor has notcied that she can see the marksheets for all teachers of her class rather than just the marksheets for her own classes. The comprehensive nature of SIMS leaves some staff wary (perhaps unnecessarily so) of colleagues "seeing" their assessment data. Permissions are set to allow reg tutors to view only their own marksheet data. I would expect that this would prevent the above happening. Am I missing something? (or, more accurately, what am I missing?) I would like to address this before reporting sessions for other year groups...

(With thanks to those who responded to previous queries) We began the new school year on Monday with first 'full' use of SIMS core plus lesson monitor... most staff are quite impressed... those of us centrally involved feeling relatively pleased with 'successful' solutions to various teething niggles with timetable... Then, with several senior staff working on class changes, SIMS crashes regularly!! Looking at the server, the disk is partitioned to 40Gb C: and hundreds of Gb E: intended for data. SIMS is installed on C: but also backs up to c: so we are left with approx 3Gb free. Is this a likely cause of our difficulties? and, more importantly, how can we change the drive SIMS uses for backup? And on an issue only vaguely related, why on earth do teachers not see the actual class searched for, when they use 'class list'? It prints fine and previews OK but the first screen shows a fairly random class list - perhaps the last one looked at!!

Thanks Matt40K - one of my challenges is that I probably know SIMS better than my (third party) support team. Does anyone have views on using the address housekeeping and merge functionality to improve the match? I am reluctant to use relatively "advanced" functionality while the widespread use of SIMS is in its infancy across the school. One of my key objectives here is to build confidence... (so I could live, as a once off, with trying a manual tidy up)

(In our first year running SIMS) we have had someone input contact addresses etc. We have realised that these are not always linked (by SIMS) to the students' address although they look the same. Is there any way to improve this without changing all addresses? and if this is needed, is there good practice to avoid this happening in the future? We are not in the UK so do not used postcodes.

Thanks! We had not set up am & pm reg periods. We have now done so and solved the problem. One follow on question - we actually use pm reg only for statutory attendance (not in the UK) but Lesson Monitor seesm to insist on am and pm. Is is possible for us to address this to prevent a (not genuine) am reg appearing for those staff affected?

We have installed Lesson Monitor for the first time. Today, as staff return, it appears that the registration group 'overrides' other classes on the 'my classes' bar. How can I give registration tutors access to their normal teaching classes here? Thanks in advance!

Thank you botj. For the record, the external timetabler did indeed allocate rooms from the classes screen. We have removed them there (no impact on block build / schedule) and updated / allocated from the timetable / new / classeswithout rooms which solved our immediate issue. We have also resolved not to allocate rooms in the curriculum plan in future!! Similar tidy-up activity has led us to set class labels for some classes where the systematic labels were somewhat confusing - how do we print these when in SIMS? We can switch between subject and class code on screen but only short codes actually print!