SICTS Autumn Conference 14th November 2013 Kay Vickers Mark Blackwood Sarah O’Neill Telephone/Helpdesk: 0845 6436802 Email: helpdesk@schoolicts.co.uk www.schoolicts.co.uk

Autumn 2013 Release The SIMS 2013 Autumn Release contains enhancements to Admissions, Agora, Assessment, Attendance, Course Manager, Cover, Discover, Homepage, InTouch, Nova-T6, Options, Partnership Xchange, Personnel, SIMS FFT, and the SQL Migration Tool

Autumn 2013 Release Assessment Discover Button added a for the Assessment Group Filter on Individual Reports Discover ‘Copy to Clipboard’ button added to the front of the graphs Quick Search function added to the drop down menus Ability for users to share their filtered graphs across their school.

Autumn 2013 Release Discover The following graphs have been added to SIMS Discover: Half Termly Attendance graph Half Termly Behaviour Points graph Half Termly Behaviour Incidents graph Half Termly Achievement Points graph Pupil Mobility graph

Autumn 2013 Release SIMS Homepage/Student Teacher View Attendance and intervention widgets now show figures correct to 2 decimal places, and separate present and authorised absence Student teacher view timeline amended to see only one box per class, regardless of how many teachers are attached to the group Conduct widgets configured to count either points or number of incidents on the Student Teacher View Absence, covered lessons, and room changes can be shown on timeline if desired

Autumn 2013 Release Homepage Performance Refresh times can be altered globally / by user groups for individual widgets so that server impact is reduced. Configure time line for groups. Configure widget refresh rates for groups. Add permissions for groups to be able to configure what appears on timeline. Add permissions for groups to be able to configure refresh times. Review and amend underlying code to improve performance.

Autumn 2013 Release InTouch Attached documents converted to PDF when Office 2007 or later is used. This will reduce the size of the attachments and give options for logos and images to be included. Cumulative Achievement alerts can be set up to automatically notify users when a pupil reaches a defined points score. The message editing function has been enhanced, enabling schools to produce fully formatted messages. Scheduled messages.

Autumn 2013 Release NOVA T-6/Academic Management Addition of flag on each NCC to indicate whether the duties of that NCC should be tallied in the Teacher Hours report. Curriculum Matching Wizard: Button to allow user to break/make links on matching screen Timetable Printing: Nova-T4 style interlinking between timetable displays. Double-clicking on a teacher code/name, room code/name or class on the Timetable Report Preview screen would launch the equivalent Timetable Preview for the teacher/room OR the "Midas" class list.

Autumn 2013 Release NOVA T-6/Academic Management Print Timetables directly from Tick Grid: The menu route Focus|School|Academic Structure|Curriculum Assignment By Scheme invokes the “Tick Grid” – on which a list of students eligible for or assigned to classes of a scheme are displayed. If one or more of these students are selected, then it is possible to right-click and select an item from the context menu: Print Timetables for Selected Students this now works on 64-bit machines.

Autumn 2013 Release Options Support for partnership schools within a single Options implementation. It is possible to import students from several school databases in sequence into a single Options implementation, carry out the Options process as normal, and then export back into each database once more.

Autumn 2013 Release Personnel DBS Check (Disclosure and Barring Service) and associated clearance levels have been added to the checks area of the employment details tab. The DBS check replaces the CRB check, although the CRB check and its associated Clearance Levels have been retained in the database to maintain historical records. The CRB check is now inactive.

Autumn 2013 Release Statutory Returns School Census Spring 2014 (England) Catholic Education Service (CES) Census 2014 (Catholic England and Wales) CTF 13 (England and Wales) and CTF NI 13 (Northern Ireland) PLASC 2014 (Wales) Introduction of support for Middle Schools Exclusion codes amended to match those in England Exclusion information for academic year 2012/13 is now mandatory

Autumn 2013 Release Statutory Returns Bulk update routine for Speaks Welsh at home Removal of Post 16 menu route Independent School Council (ISC) Census 2014 (Independent) Boarding type information now maps to categories used by the ISC. (This is applicable to all Independent schools, therefore both ISC and SLASC census). Boarder status codes are Day, Full, Weekly and Flexi. School Level Annual School Census (SLASC) 2014 (Independent)

Post 16 Census Best Practice Update Performance Measures File Tools | Statutory Return Tools | Import Qualification Data

Post 16 Census Best Practice Import QAN Catalogue Tools | Statutory Return Tools | Import Qualification Data

Post 16 Census Best Practice Import and Restructure Basedata Download and import basedata into Summer 2014 Season for ALL Awards - AQA, EDEXCEL, OCR, WJEC, Cambridge Nationals and Technicals and request results basedata for BTECs (7B14_15) Restructure Basedata for AQA using “Existing Awards” where possible for AS Awards

Post 16 Census Best Practice Link all Exam Awards to the correct Course in Course Manager Use Basedata Structure Report in Exams Organiser to ensure that ALL Awards are linked correctly to Course Manager – Report | Basedata | Structure

Post 16 Census Best Practice Import any New Levels required into NOVA T6 using Refresh SQL Basedata Wizard

Post 16 Census Best Practice Ensure all Classes in NOVA have the correct Levels assigned

Post 16 Census Best Practice Ensure that additional Courses have been created in Course Manager for subjects where students are working towards more than 1 Qualification, e.g. BTECs Check that all Post 16 Courses have the correct QAN assigned The AO QAN from the Exam Basedata needs to be imported from the QAN Catalogue and assigned to the Course as the QWS QAN

Discover – New Graphs Attendance by Half Term

Discover – New Graphs Behaviour Incidents and Behaviour Points by Half Term

Discover – New Graphs Achievement Points by Half Term

Discover – New Graphs Student Mobility by Half Term

SIMS Timetable enhancements Double-clicking on a teacher code/name, room code/name or class on the Timetable Report Preview screen would launch the equivalent Timetable Preview for the teacher/room OR the "Midas" class list. Print Timetables directly from Tick Grid: The menu route Focus|School|Academic Structure|Curriculum Assignment By Scheme invokes the “Tick Grid” – on which a list of students eligible for or assigned to classes of a scheme are displayed. If one or more of these students are selected, then it is possible to right-click and select an item from the context menu: Print Timetables for Selected Students this now works on 64-bit machines.

Attendance F code has been disabled!

Pupil Premium There is now an import routine to utilise the csv files available from K2S Note that there is already a Pupil Premium field (yes/no) available to report on

Cover Links with updates in timeline (who covered me, which room etc) Classes Impacted by Absence report is clearer Shows 2 panels Export shows all data in same format as report Statistics Enhanced Export Cover report shows credited time totals in hrs and minutes (not decimals) Weighted time calculation displayed in status bar