Please click here for the latest version of the Secondary School SIMS End of Year Procedures for Promotion to Academic Year 2008/2009 document.

Please note the following: Colleagues in the Information Management Unit have requested that leaving dates for Year 11 students should be entered as 27/06/2008.

If you require any further assistance, please don”t hesitate to contact any member of the team.

Introduction

Our example school wants to create a marksheet that calculates the value added for each pupil in Y4 based on their KS1 result. The school assumes that pupils in year 4 should have acheived 3 sublevels of progress since KS1. A simple formula calculates how many sublevels they have actually acheived and subtracts this from 3 to give a positive or negative score to indicate how many levels above or below their target they are.

Method

1) Create a new template called *Value Added Y4 Maths and add the following aspects and results sets (the names of the aspects may vary on your system):

Attainment Maths (result set = Y2 Summer), column name = KS1 Result
Attainment Maths (result set = Y4 Summer), column name = Attainment Maths Y4 Sum

2) Create a column for data review using a formula. The column will calculate the points score of the KS1 result. Create the formula as follows:

Column name: KS1 PS
Formula type: Value
Column: KS1 Result

3) Create another column for data review using a formula. This column will calculate the points score of Attainment Maths Y4 Sum

Column Name: Y4 PS
Formula type: Value
Column: Attainment Maths Y4 Sum

4) Next we need to subtract Year 4 points score from the KS1 points score:

Column Type: Data review using a formula
Column Name: Y4 - KS1 PS
Formula type: Difference
Column 1: Y4 PS
Column 2: KS1 PS

5) Now we convert the difference in points into sublevels (2 points = 1 sublevel):

Column Type: Data review using a formula
Column Name: Y4 Maths Levels Added
Formula type: Division
Column: Y4 - KS1 PS
Constant: 2

6) Finally, each pupil should have made 3 sublevels of progress by year 4, so we calculate the value added as the difference between their actual number of levels progress (calculated at point 5 above) and 3 levels. We”ll save this result back into the aspect we created earlier, so remember to create a column for data entry using a formula.

Column Type: Data entry using a formula�
Column Name: Y4 Maths Value Added
Formula type: Difference
Column: Y4 Maths Levels Added
Constant: 3

Save your template and create the relevant marksheets for year 4.

Microsoft UK is giving away free Office 2007 posters to schools.

Please click here to view the article on the Microsoft UK Schools Blog.

On an additional note, Capita test and support SIMS .net with Office 2007.

Bolton Council is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

As we have discussed at Secondary Technical Forum meetings over the last eighteen months, the next version of SIMS .net (the June 2008 Update Release) will require Microsoft’’s .net Framework 2 to be installed on client workstations.

Workstations running FMS 6.91 or higher will already have had .net Framework 2 installed as part of the migration to Microsoft SQL.

If you wish to discuss this further, please drop me an email. Alternatively, please feel free to leave a comment below.

On May 20th 2008, Steve Buckthorpe (Turton High School and Media Arts College), Jan Buffey and Dave Lever (Canon Slade CE Secondary School) kindly introduced the new SIMS cover management software to Bolton schools.

Both schools have participated in the Cover 7 field trial as well as our own Neil Gregory.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all those mentioned above. I”m absolutely positive that their contribution to the development of the module will benefit all schools come September.

All secondary schools are encouraged to use Cover 7 from September 2008 as Capita are withdrawing support for cover management in Nova T4 by the end of the year. As a consequence, the Schools ICT Unit will only formally offer support for Cover 7 from the start of the new academic year, although we understand some schools will want to run the two systems side-by-side for a short period of time.

There are a limited number of spaces remaining on the instructor led courses in June/July, so please click here to reserve a place for your school.

If you would like to express a view on the seminars or your first impressions of the Cover 7 software, please feel free to leave a comment below.